Yeast Washing: Reusing your Yeast
Whole analysis available at http://www.backyardbeer.com/2010/12/washing-your-yeast-reusing-yeast/.
Lots of expert home brewers wash their yeast. Recycling
washed yeast is a strategy that all home brewers need to have in their home brewing arsenal. Yeast washing is a reasonably painless method to isolate the live yeast from the underlying trub (spent grains and hops) that hang around after your beer has fermented.
The costs of yeast, hops, malts and other materials continues to rise so washing your yeast is a smart way to protect your wallet. You can also use this as an easy way to produce a nice, strong yeast culture as a basis for a yeast starter. Rather than buying new yeast every single time you create a new batch, you can wash & reuse your yeast for up to 6 home brews by reusing the yeast from your primary fermentation.
Yeast washing is extremely straightforward to do; it doesn’t require much equipment and the entire process is generally completed in less than a couple hours. You’ll need two mason jars (sanitized, of course), some pre-boiled sanitized water or distilled water, and some foil or plastic to put over the jars. The seal will need to be air-tight so I would recommend getting rubber bands to make certain that the foil or plastic wrap is snugly secured. I can’t stress enough how fundamental it is to sanitize & sterilize everything because yeast is incredibly susceptible to infection or contamination.
All the gains of reusing your yeast as well as detailed instructions for harvesting your own yeast are available at http://www.backyardbeer.com/2010/12/washing-your-yeast-reusing-yeast/.
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