So I kegged an IPA on 5/26/13. I used pre-boiled water to shake up the carboy’s yeast cake, then I poured it into two sanitized mason jars and it has been in the fridge ever since. It is WLP002, english ale yeast, high flocculation. Those 2 jars contain almost the entire yeast cake/trub, it looks like blotchy white and green specks. One jar has 8 oz of slurry, the other has 10 oz slurry.
I want to reuse the yeast. My question is: should I let the mason jar full of yeast warm up, then swirl it to suspend yeast and trub, let trub settle then pour liquid with yeast into another jar? Will that work with this yeast? Or should I make a starter with some yeast slurry then decant that ? This stuff seemed to settle very fast when I put it in the mason jars. As always, I appreciate any advice, especially from someone who has experience with this strain.
It’s fresh enough to direct pitch as-is. Depending on the OG of the new batch, you could use a half a jar per fermenter up to a full jar (if doing a IIPA for instance).
No need to warm the slurry you collected. Go ahead and swirl it up, wait for the trub layer to begin forming, and then decant to another sanitized jar. If you keep this jar in the refrigerator for a few days the yeast will settle out. You can decant the clear liquid and pour the yeast into a smaller jar. Air space over the yeast solution can be minimized by adding more boiled and cooled water.
The beer I plan on brewing will likely have an OG of about 1.060 and it will be around 4.5-4.8 gallons of wort. I am doing my first “double” batch, but I’m a little concerned about fitting all the grain in my 10 gallon mash tun, which is why I am aiming for a 9.5 gallon batch. currently 24.14 lbs of grain for 9.5 gallons fermenter volume. 1.25 qts/lb mash ratio
