Smart savings are one of the traits of homebrewers who value every penny invested in making a wonderful foamy drink. Not many people know the technology that allows yeast to be used twice due to proper washing. The process is not very complicated, so it’s worth adding its description to the collection of experiences of an experienced brewmaster.
Why flush?
When preparing beer, both yeast and grains with hops settle in the fermenter. The task of washing is to separate live yeast, which contributes to significant savings, because malt and hops cannot be called cheap ingredients included in the list of components necessary for a foamy drink. In addition, grown healthy yeast mass is perfect for making sourdough.
To the thrifty owners!
Washed yeast culture is about 6 additional batches of intoxicating drink! Once purchased, the product can be used for about another month - amazing thrift!
What is needed for flushing?
Enough to stock up:
- two jars, pre-sterilized;
- a small amount of boiled or distilled water;
- foil or film with which you can close the jars.
Attention!
It is necessary to sterilize or disinfect prepared devices: any infection is detrimental to the yeast mass.
What is the washing algorithm?
The technology itself is not at all complicated, does not take much time and does not require lengthy preparations.
- First, the jars are sterilized with steam from boiling water or a special safe disinfectant, for example, iodophor, which is also used to wipe the sides of the fermenter.
- Then boil up to 3 liters of water in a saucepan and cool.
- The most active yeast mass is in the primary fermenter, so it is most suitable for washing. After transferring beer from the fermenter, you must immediately collect the yeast to prevent contamination. The sediment at the bottom of the fermenter should be diluted with 1 liter of chilled boiled water so that you can work with the mass.
- After the water is added, the container must be shaken, which will break the bonds in the sludge, and left to settle for a while.
- Carefully pour the settled liquid into a jar, keeping the surface sterile, close it with foil or plastic wrap, securing it with an elastic band for safety.
- Place the jar in a cool place (maybe in the refrigerator) for about an hour or a little less. During this time, there will be a clear separation into sediment and liquid, which will contain live yeast.
- The liquid with suspended yeast must be drained, being careful not to stir the sediment, into a clean jar, cover it and put it back in the refrigerator for about 1 hour.
Advice!
If there is a lot of sediment in the second jar, then by adding water, you can rinse the yeast culture again. However, this is often not necessary.
How to store the resulting mass?
Storage of washed yeast can last for several months, and the mass can be used for making beer as needed.
In case of long-term storage the best option the container will not be a jar, but a bottle or flask with an adapted water seal. Storage should be in the refrigerator regardless of the dishes chosen.
How to use sealed yeast?
Having estimated the approximate volume of beer that will be brewed, the day before, wort is added to the yeast in the required amount.
If you plan to brew the beer several more times, then it is enough to use only part of the saved starter, or you can repeat the algorithm for collecting the live yeast mixture from the original fermenter.
Important advice!
The use of the described technology is limited to using the same yeast up to 5-6 times, so as not to increase the risk of contamination of the culture with various bacteria or wild yeasts.
Enjoy delicious home-made beer, delight your loved ones with an intoxicating drink at the family table or friends in a friendly circle, while not forgetting about thoughtful savings using the presented technology!
At the end of fermentation, when the yeast has eaten all the sugar and its internal reserves, they settle to the bottom, since carbon dioxide is no longer released by them and it does not mix the mash, keeping the yeast afloat.
At the bottom of the fermentation container, both living and outdated yeast appear in sediment.
Live yeast can be reused for fermentation.
You can add warm water, sugar to the yeast sediment and add fresh yeast.
We don’t know how much live yeast remains in the sediment, but I usually add half the usual amount to the sediment.
If you add a full dose of yeast to the mash along with the sediment, the mash will ripen faster.
If you use sediment and the full amount of yeast, you can make the hydromodulus not 1:5, but 1:4.5, thereby increasing the alcohol content of the mash by a degree.
The resulting larger amount of yeast will press through, speed up the last, slow stage of maturation of the mash and it will be ready as if the ratio of sugar and water was 1:5.
It is advisable for the yeast sediment to be without flour feeding. There is a possibility that lactic acid bacteria will appear in the sediment from feeding and the future mash will turn sour.
The previous mash should be without fertilizing or with fertilizing for yeast from old jam or from old berries, citrus peels.
It is also not advisable to use yeast sediment many times, for the same reason that lactic acid bacteria or even putrefactive bacteria will settle in it over time, because dead yeast is protein, food for them.
How to store the sediment of ripened mash so that it does not spoil or lose its strength.
Ideally, as soon as the mash has matured and the yeast has settled to the bottom, the mash will lighten. We immediately prepare a new one, on the lees, with the addition of new yeast.
If we do not have time to distill and do not have a container to pour the mash without sediment for storage, then the mash must be taken out into the cold, into the frost.
At temperatures from 0 to 4 degrees, yeast goes into hibernation, into suspended animation, and stops eating.
If the storage temperature of the mash or yeast sediment is higher, for example 5 degrees, the yeast will wake up and demand food. The higher the storage temperature, the more active the yeast and the more food it needs.
Without food, yeast will die.
The solution is to add a little sugar to the yeast sediment stored in the refrigerator.
If the mash does not have to wait long for its time to distill, then you can add a little sugar to it.
If the mash will sit for a long time before distillation, then you can pour 4 liters and add a new 4 liters of water and 1 kilogram of sugar. The yeast will begin to feed again.
If the mash is cloudy and not sweet, then the yeast is still eating its internal reserves, you don’t have to add sugar, but it is advisable to take it out into the cold.
The container for storing yeast sediment in the refrigerator must be closed to prevent the introduction of foreign bacteria.
In order for the yeast to also multiply when stored in the refrigerator, if the temperature there is above 4 degrees, then it is advisable to saturate the yeast sediment with oxygen; you need to stir it vigorously.
In this case, the dead yeast will be a building material, and the added sugar will be energy for the living.
At enterprises when preparing mash or beer, the bottom of the fermentation tanks is shaped like a cone, with a tap at the end. Dead yeast accumulates at the bottom of the cone and can be drained off first, separating the live yeast from the dead.
At the very top of the sediment there will be combat, selection yeast, adapted to high concentrations of alcohol. By selecting them, you can develop your own type of yeast.
Yeast is expensive, so it makes sense not to buy it every time, but to reuse it. Is it reasonable? and how to wash the yeast from the remaining sediment? and is it necessary to do this at all? Let's figure it out.
How to wash yeast.
Before asking such a question, you should understand why they need to be washed? If you read the article about that, then this question disappears. What to wash away becomes clear.
Here the question involuntarily arises: what should you use to wash the yeast with?
How to wash yeast.
Found in various literature various ways washing yeast. Some do this with plain water, others with acid, some with alcohol, others with antibiotics...
Let's think about what we want to get as a result? We need to get pure yeast cells, without the admixture of protein hops and other nasty things.
Now we just turn on the logic and start going through the options for washing the yeast.
Washing the yeast with water.
A yeast cell lives in beer, eats sugar, produces carbon dioxide and other metabolic products, and then you put it in water... what happens to the cell? Water begins to draw various chemical elements from it, because... everyone strives for balance - this is a school chemistry course... the very beginning... And instead of washing the yeast, we simply kill them, because... the cell is literally torn apart by osmotic pressure. And at the end we don’t get a pure yeast culture, but just a mess of dead cells.
Will this ferment? - Maybe. If someone survives, then the cells will multiply in the wort... if they have time, of course.
What will happen to the bacteria if they were still in the sediment? - about the same. And by introducing such “Washed Yeast” into the wort, we greatly harm ourselves.
As you can see, washing yeast with water is completely useless.
Washing yeast with acid.
This is absolutely terrible horror. What will happen to you if you lie in a bath of acid? well, it’s about the same with yeast... Oh yes! Yeast is more resistant to acidic environments! - yes, but as a result we get the same thing as with water.
Is it possible to wash yeast with alcohol?
It would seem that yeast produces alcohol - why not?
Well, if there is a very strong solution (more than 5%), then most strains will simply die. And what is the point of such washing?
If the solution is less than 5%, then again, what’s the point - the same water - the same osmosis, the same yeast mixture we get at the output.
Is it worth washing the yeast at all?
I believe, and this is my opinion and it may not coincide with yours or anyone else’s, that washing yeast is complete nonsense.
You place a living organism from its familiar environment into a new, poorer environment. There, in complete shock, he loses everything he can lose, and if after such a procedure, the yeast cell still remains alive, you place it in an enriched environment, where it begins to frantically devour everything it can and produce maximum energy reserves. At the same time, a bunch of other things are also produced, which are then called higher alcohols and fermentation defects...
Just imagine, you are sitting at home, warm and cozy, and then you are left on a cold street without food and water for a month... you eat everything you can just to survive... and when you are finally weakened, you are placed in a food warehouse where there is everything... and all this can be taken without restrictions... What will it be like for the body? Any living organism. Yeasts are living single-celled organisms.
For this simple reason, I see no point in washing the yeast.
How to be?
I came to the conclusion that washing yeast is stupid and useless. Moreover, yeast cells can only be separated from everything else using a centrifuge, and some of them will die. And it’s absolutely impossible to separate the living from the dead...
How to rinse brewer's yeast? This question worries many novice brewers. Washing is a simple procedure to preserve brewer's yeast after fermentation. It is through washing that re-fermenting yeast becomes suitable for use. The recycled material has excellent performance properties. An aromatic beer drink is brewed on its basis.
Preparation of repeat brewer's yeast
Activities for collecting homemade brewer's yeast are carried out in several stages:
- Sterilization. Equipment used when working with live fermentation yeast should be thoroughly cleaned. Dirty containers will not be able to store the mixture. Pathogenic microflora will disrupt the fermentation process. The composition will become unsuitable for brewing beer.
- Collection. We separate the yeast that we plan to store and use for brewing beer.
- I'll eat. A suspension is collected from the bottom of the fermenter. It should be stored in a sterilized container.
- Flushing. Add 2 liters of warm boiled water to the container with the suspension. Mix everything thoroughly, cover with a lid, and leave in a warm place. The composition cannot be washed with tap water! The chlorine contained in it will destroy bacteria. To rinse the suspension efficiently, prepare a sufficient amount of liquid in advance.
- Expectation. After some time, the suspension will begin to separate. A cream-colored liquid forms in the middle part of the container - this is yeast in suspension. They are what we need.
- Branch. How to collect yeast and save it beneficial features? Everything is very simple! Strain the liquid into clean jars and close them with sterilized lids. Containers should be stored in the refrigerator. After a few days, a layer of pure yeast will appear at the bottom of the jar. With their help, you can prepare a beer drink with excellent taste and aroma.
How to store yeast obtained after washing? Any glass containers with lids are suitable for this. The product is placed in the refrigerator on the lower shelves. Mandatory condition: the container must be disinfected.
Anyone can wash yeast. This does not require complex equipment or specialized tools. It's enough to spend a little free time.
Brewing yeast is a type of single-celled fungus that can be used to make an intoxicating, foamy drink. Today there are many different strains of these microorganisms. They are divided into two types: some are suitable for making lager, and others are suitable for making ale. Not many people today know that it is not at all necessary to throw away the sediment that forms after preparing a batch of beer, because it still contains a lot of live yeast. They are the ones that can be reused. Also, not everyone knows that when making 20 liters of beer from one packet of yeast weighing 10 grams, under-pitching occurs.
Manufacturers often offer little yeast, and regardless of whether it is dry or liquid, it may be weakened initially. It is for this reason that more experienced brewers strongly recommend fermenting yeast before adding it to the wort, that is, making a starter.
You don't have to do this every time, because you can use the yeast that remains at the bottom of the brewery to make the next batch of beer. Each such cycle is called generation, at the end of which you can obtain a portion of live yeast that is completely suitable for preparing the next batch of foamy drink. There is also an opinion that after the third generation the fermentation process in beer will be better. However, this is only an opinion that can be argued with.
It is important to add that in brewing all equipment must be clean, otherwise the wort can become infected, which will lead to an unpleasant odor and taste of the finished drink. This is important to remember when preparing yeast for secondary use. It is also necessary to avoid drafts and do not forget to replace the air seal with a cotton swab soaked in alcohol when preparing the yeast.
First you need to boil and cool two liters of water to room temperature. It must be poured into the fermenter barrel and mixed. Let it sit for thirty minutes and then carefully pour the liquid into a two-liter container. All yeast strains can be generated, but it is worth considering that some can settle in ten minutes.
The heavier, dried fractions of protein, hops and yeast will precipitate. From this liquid it will subsequently be possible to isolate the necessary microorganisms. This will take an hour. Old and dead yeast, as well as remaining hops and protein, will settle to the bottom first, and the top 80% of the liquid can be used for re-fermentation. If you wait longer than an hour, then in the vessel you will be able to observe a lighter layer, which is the yeast.
There is no limit to the number of generations if all equipment is thoroughly washed and disinfected. It is impossible not to notice that in industrial breweries yeast can be generated up to 80 times, while the aroma and taste of the beer are preserved. Do not forget that even with minor signs of infection, it is better to get rid of the yeast.