[Joe_Beer]

I made a batch of beer a couple months back and tried some Lallemand Verdant on it. I thougth I'd save the yeast and make a starter for next time. The starter seemed to make beer and although the latest batch is still in dry hop, the few small taste tests along the way seemed to taste fine to me.

I was watching a youtube video the other night on harvesting yeast and the guy said that dry yeast was not meant to be harvested. I think he said that the drying process the dry yeast goes though puts more stress on the yeast than the liquid form and isn't meant to be re-harvested. It's a "one and done" operation.

I figure if it doesn't stink, it's probably fine? What experience have ya'll had with harvesting dry yeast?

[allenhuerta]

There are a lot of things you shouldn't do but time and time again everything I learned about brewing is changing. I've never reused dry yeast, but I know those that have..

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[dannyjed]

You can definitely reuse dry yeast. I have used yeast slurry from dry yeast many times without any problems.


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[Cliffs]

I have repitched dry yeast a ton and to no ill effect.

[Bob357]

I use dry yeasts almost exclusively and harvest regularly as well. Once the yeast has been through a ferment, it's no different than liquid yeast.

[Saccharomyces]

That is incorrect information that is based on old data.  While fluidized bed drying is indeed hard on yeast cells (which is why we do not enjoy as much variety with dry yeast as we do with liquid yeast), the reason why dry yeast used to be a no-go with repitching had to do with the level of contamination commonly found in dry yeast cultures.  Basically, dry cultures used to pick up microflora other than the target strain during the propagation and drying processes.  The problem with repitching any yeast culture with low levels of contamination is that every propagation event is a chance for non-target strain microflora to grow as well.  That being said, dry yeast propagators figured out how to produce dry cultures with a high level of purity in the mid-nineties.  Dry yeast is routinely serially repitched today.

[Joe_Beer]

Thanks all - and thanks for the great explanation, Sacchromyces