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Author Topic: washing WLP002  (Read 2861 times)

Offline morticaixavier

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washing WLP002
« on: September 11, 2012, 10:15:55 am »
So I have a couple quart jars of harvested yeast slurry from a batch of irish red sitting in the fridge. I was thinking of washing it as it has a lot of hop trub and gunk in there but this yeast does not want to de-floculate once settled. I am thinking that if, instead of distilled water I were to use some simple extract wort as a first step I could get all the healthy live cells back into solution and then let just the trub and dead cells settle, then after a day in the wort pour the liquid portion into a new jar and keep that as a starter. does this make sense? the plan is to use it in a big wheat wine.
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Offline Kaiser

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Re: washing WLP002
« Reply #1 on: September 11, 2012, 10:19:59 am »
Even in the presence of maltose and other sugars, this yeast seems to flocculate. You can give it a try and report back, but when I tried to de-flocculate this yeast with extract to count it under the microscope I did not have much success.

Kai

Offline davidgzach

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Re: washing WLP002
« Reply #2 on: September 11, 2012, 10:32:31 am »
Are you worried that much about the trub?  How much of an effect do you think it will have?  I reuse saved slurry all the time unless I've dry hopped.

Dave
Dave Zach

Offline morticaixavier

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Re: washing WLP002
« Reply #3 on: September 11, 2012, 11:23:23 am »
Even in the presence of maltose and other sugars, this yeast seems to flocculate. You can give it a try and report back, but when I tried to de-flocculate this yeast with extract to count it under the microscope I did not have much success.

Kai

yeah it's chunky alright. Sounds like you have tried what I was intending so perhaps I will not waste my time and energy. Out of curiosity though, and this is probably a question for Tom S., is there a way to counteract the substances on the yeast surface that cause floculation? enzymatic? environmental?

Are you worried that much about the trub?  How much of an effect do you think it will have?  I reuse saved slurry all the time unless I've dry hopped.

Dave

Not really worried about the trub to much, just thought I would give it a try. I have also just pitched reused yeast without problems in the past. I will probably make a starter out of a portion of the cake.
"Creativity is the residue of wasted time"
-A Einstein

"errors are [...] the portals of discovery"
- J Joyce

Offline davidgzach

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Re: washing WLP002
« Reply #4 on: September 12, 2012, 05:13:21 am »
Starter sounds like the way to go....

Dave
Dave Zach