Has anyone been successful doing this? The sludge is dropping to the bottom just fine, but the beer is so dark that I can’t tell where the yeast ends and the beer on top begins.
I’m thinking of decanting off all the beer into more water and letting it setting out again.
Thoughts?
If you aren’t adding water back to collect the yeast you aren’t washing it.
And no I have never had a problem washing and collecting yeast from a stout.
Yes, I did add water back in.
If you don’t adjust the pH to kill unwanted bacteria, you’re technically “rinsing” the yeast, not washing. 
And yes, let it settle out, decant the “beer” and top off with fresh, cold, sterile water. You might need to do it twice if you want it really clear.
I typically siphon all the beer off the cake I can so I usually wind up adding some water to get the cake harvested. Sometimes I wonder if the yeast would be more helthy if I left some beer behind, but I can’t make myself sacrifice beer and they seem to stay alive well enough.
[quote=“tom sawyer”]Sometimes I wonder if the yeast would be more helthy if I left some beer behind, but I can’t make myself sacrifice beer and they seem to stay alive well enough.[/quote]I don’t have a handy reference, but I’ve read that the best storage medium is very weak beer rather than plain water or full-strength beer, so I leave just a little beer in the fermenter and then add a quart of water and that seems to work out fine.
Most of the beer was siphoned off…but since it was a dark beer, the yeast and the trub were all tainted black.
