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Reusing Wyeast 1007 from German Alt

Yeast & Fermentation
#1

Hello all,

Brewed my first 5 gallon batch this past Saturday (I’ve done about 8 Mr. Beer batches which got me into the hobby). Needless to say, I am hooked and excited for this German Alt Extract kit which has taken off great.

I’m interested in following up this brew with something dark that ferments around 58 and reuse my Wyeast 1007 yeast. I’ve never done this before and just wanted to get some opinions on: 1) a good recipe to fit my criteria and 2) tips for reusing yeast.

I will probably NOT be able to bottle the current batch and brew the next batch the same day so I’ll be looking at canning from what I’ve read. If it makes a big difference, I could be swayed!

I appreciate any help you could give,

Chad

#2

You could pick about any of NB’s stout or porter recipes and use the yeast in it, 1007 is pretty clean so you’re not going to notice it much, if any, in a roasty, malty beer.

As far as reusing it, plan to brew on the day you rack the alt to secondary and just dump your new batch on the alt yeast cake. Some would say that is overpitching but it works okay. I usually split it and do a 10 gallon batch with good results, so you could just use half of it if there’s a lot and put the other half in a sanitized jar for later.

#3

Here’s what I do when I need to save the yeast for later…
I rack as much beer out as possible (obviously). Then I add a gallon of water or about 4 liters to the carboy. I shake up the carboy to get the yeast in suspension, let it sit for about 5 minutes and dump the liquid into a sanitized gallon jug. I then let this sit about 20 minutes and split it into 3 smaller jars, just pouring off the liquid and leaving as much of the stuff that has settled to the bottom. Label them and use 1 jar in your next batch. If you don’t use the harvested yeast within a month, they’re still viable, you’ll just need to make up a starter 5 days before brewing.

#4

I just scoop some yeast cake into a sterilized pint canning jar. I sterilize by boiling a little water in it, then putting the lid on and shaking it briefly. I’ve reused 1007 before, it is a decent ale yeast but kinf of slow to settle. Attenuates well though, I suppose those two are related.

#5

1007 is a great yeast to make sudo lagers with when you can’t ferment in the low 50’s to high 40’s. It’s clean and malty, ferments fairly cold. You could do a sudo Schwarzbier, which is a black lager, or Bock. If you do a sudo lager it will not be as clean as a true lager but it’s how I did those styles before I got a fridge for fermentation.
As for harvesting yeast, I’m not going to rehash what’s already been since there has been so many solid comments already.

#6

Thanks guys. This has helped out a lot. I’m going to try this out when I bottle this batch and see how it goes.

#7

Earlier this month I saved and washed some Wyeast 1007 Alt yeast and I plan on to use it to make a Irish Red Ale next week.

Dean

#8

I ended up using my saved Wyeast 1007 German Ale in my Irish Red Ale last night. I did a small yeast starter of 1 cup DME with 2 cups of water and it has started great fermentation within 8 hours.

I saved and washed my yeast when transferring my beer to the seconardary fermentor. I use the following process: http://home.comcast.net/~wnevits/wizard … _rev_5.pdf

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Dean

#9

Great resource, thank you! I might be attempting this over the weekend depending on whether the fermentation is done or not and I’ll let you know what happens.

chad

#10

By the way, what temperature are you fermenting this yeast at?

My system unfortunately does not allow me to keep a consistent 56-58F, but I am finding good luck at keeping it around 50F so I’m just going with that. This is a big reason why I’m trying to reuse this yeast because it seems to be pretty forgiving.

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