Beer Forum

I just listened to the yeast washing show. I'm now thinking about harvesting yeast. Tasty's way was not mentioned, but I would like to try his way first (top cropping). How does he do it? How much to take, what to put it in, do I need a starter?

not sure how tasty does it but there's a video somewhere of somebody rigging a blowoff and instead of ending in a jug of water the tube goes into another stopper on a sanitized erlenmeyer. the blowoff foam has lots of good yeast in it so you should be able to get a good starter going from what you harvest that way.

I believe Tasty pops the lid on his conical, uses a sanitized stainless spoon to scoop up some of the good stuff, and goes right into a starter with it.

I think this is the video Phil was referring to...
Top cropping yeast from a carboy

He also has mentioned using a racking cane and a carboy cap. place the racking cane through the carboy cap and onto the krausen. Plug the second hole in the carboy cap with a cap. The positive pressure from fermentation will push the yeast through the racking cane and into a vessel.

The Fool.

bikefoolery wrote:He also has mentioned using a racking cane and a carboy cap. place the racking cane through the carboy cap and onto the krausen. Plug the second hole in the carboy cap with a cap. The positive pressure from fermentation will push the yeast through the racking cane and into a vessel.

The Fool.

that's clever

Phil wrote:

bikefoolery wrote:that's clever

That's what I did in the video.

Jamil has done this too... of course, his technique was better... Instead of waiting for the pressure to build up naturally in the primary fermenter and push the foam out, he hooked up his CO2 tank to one of the holes in the carboy cap and forced the foam out of primary. Much more efficient!

I've used the sanitized spoon method in the past but the main way I top crop is as in Scott's video except that I'm pushing the racking cane into a conical instead of a carboy. So as to not take too much yeast from the active ferment, I only collect a fraction of what was shown in the video and get the cell count by making a starter which these cells tear through amazingly fast. I've stored this starter of new cells made from new cells for as long as four weeks and it still takes off much faster than a two day old starter made from a vial.

Tasty

TastyMcD wrote:I've used the sanitized spoon method in the past but the main way I top crop is as in Scott's video except that I'm pushing the racking cane into a conical instead of a carboy. So as to not take too much yeast from the active ferment, I only collect a fraction of what was shown in the video and get the cell count by making a starter which these cells tear through amazingly fast. I've stored this starter of new cells made from new cells for as long as four weeks and it still takes off much faster than a two day old starter made from a vial.

Tasty

Do you store the entire starter for four weeks or do you decant the spent beer?