How To...Grow on Liquid Yeasts

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MEB

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I fumbled around looking for a place on the forum to post this and ended up thinking i'll stick it here and Admin can move it to where it should be. :cool:
Can we have a yeast section on the forum please? :pray: :grin: I find yeast culturing and ranching almost as interesting as brewing itself. :ugeek: :oops:

As requested, offered and offer accepted i'll post 'My way' of how i deal with my liquid yeasts. I'm not trying to say do it exactly like this-this is just how i find it easiest. There's probably lots of things a real brewer would scorn but thus far the method serves me well and works. I'm sure you could easily adapt and improve it for yourself. Pretty much what i have done. :cool:

As all my yeasts come in from Aus, who have got them from USA, chances are that they haven't been kept in perfect conditions at all times. :nono: So rather than continually buying and importing my own liquid yeasts i get as much out of mine that i can. This means being able to re-use my yeast as many times as i like. :cool:
I find scooping out some of the krausen too time restrictive for me-my schedule is changing constantly. It's a great way to re-use top fermenting yeast though. I also find collecting the yeast cake, washing it and splitting it often doesn't fit in with my schedule. I have done both a few times and they seem to work well. I've done it to S04(dried) with good results too. And with Nottingham(dried) used on a 1080 wort. ;)

First i'm going to post how i grow on a liquid yeast from a portion of the original. I split the original into 6. This is how to then grow that on again. Then in a few days/weeks i'll post what i do from the smack pack. Backwards i know :whistle: but i haven't got any smack packs at the minute. :oops: it's really similar anyway.

I'm just sorting my pic's out on Photoshop-correcting colour, sharpening slightly and converting to jpeg from RAW. I really should use my point and shoot cam but i enjoy my DSLR sooooo much. :grin:
 
Ok. Here goes. Please feel free to interject/poke fun/disagree. I've learnt this mainly by reading up on yeast cultivation and trial and error. I've had one go bad at the beginning. :cry: But i believe that was due to lack of practise and experience or even possibly a bad supply. It wasn't a smack pack-it was a small dubious glass jar...
First. Get everything that you need and have a spotlessly clean area. The pro yeast places have sterile rooms and such. You want to be as close to that as you can be-you'll be miles away but it all helps. I use a bleach solution and give my work area a good clean first.

You will need.
Yeast
Demijohn
Spraymalt
Steriliser
scales
thermometer
jugs (stop looking at my Av :grin: )
kettle

I first measure out 2L water, pour 200ml into a pyrex jug and the rest goes into the kettle which i boil. I'll weigh out 200g spraymalt. Then i'll go get my 750ml PET bottle which contains a small amount of Ringwood yeast. This is from the split i done from my smack pack. It's 3 month's old and has been stored in my fridge under cooled boiled water.

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Did i say 200g-i meant 203g :whistle: :lol: It don't matter a gnats hoot. :geek:
 
Once the kettle has boiled i'll pour 100ml into the pyrex jug. This will give me 300ml of warm water. I'll then add my 200g spraymalt bit by bit. Stirring all the time untill all the spraymalt has been completely dissolved. I may add 50ml from the kettle towards the end to help dissolve the few lumps that i always seem to get left with. Don't make the water too warm as you'll get loads and loads of lumps. ;)

You'll end up with a very sweet, sticky mixture. :cool:

But if you dip your finger in for a taste it won't be anywhere as nice as the first runnings from a brew. They're lovely. :grin:
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Next i get my 2.5L pot and pour in the spraymalt mixture. I then top this up with boiling water from the kettle to 2L. This then gets put on to boil. I give it a quick stir and then put the lid on. I find that this is a good time to have a beer. :D

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The spraymalt mix then gets boiled for 10mins. I leave the lid on but pop it off for a look every now and then just to keep an eye on the boil.

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Whilst the spraymalt mix is happily boiling away i'll boil 2L in my kettle again. This gets poured into a 5L jug. I then add 3L cold water and a tsp of my sterilising solution. Approx 2 -2.5L of this gets poured into my DemiJ and given a good shake. I place my funnel and thermometer into the remaining sterilising solution in the 5L jug. I've got an airlock and bung in the jug too-for something else i was doing. :geek:

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NB. Thats an early 'ahem' taster of 1420 vII to the left and it's VERY promising. :D
 
Once the spraymalt mixture has had 10 mins boiling it gets placed in a cold water bath to cool down. I leave it to cool to 25C before removing.

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This normally takes about 20 mins. In the warmer month's i'll add ice to the bath to speed up the cooling process. But it's mid-winter here and super chilly at 16C. Brrr... :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
Here's the yeast i'll be using. This is one of six 750ml PET bottles i used to split the smack pack with after i'd grown it on similar to how i do this. If you look closely you can see a layer of sediment on the bottom of the bottle. This is the yeast. I filled the bottle only half way up with cooled boiled water-I now fill them to the brim. My thinking is that if the yeast is covered totally with cooled boiled water(distilled or R/O water would be even better) then it has very little chance of coming in contact with infections. Now i fill them to the brim. :geek:

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Cheers BS. :cheers: Yeh! 16C-it's well cold. :lol: :lol: :lol: I love the wet but mild winter's here in Northland NZ. :party: :cool: :lol: :party: :lol: :cool:

Don't stop me though-i'm on a roll. :lol:


Once the spraymalt mixture has cooled down and equipment has sterilised then we get on to the final part. Adding the yeast and cooled mixture to the DJ.

First i gently pour off the water from the PET containing the yeast and re-cap. There's always a little water left so i give it a shake to stir up the dormant yeast.
I give the DJ a good rinse and then pop the cap on while i rinse the funnel-you don't want any sterilising stuff near yeast :nono: . Once the funnel has had a real good rinse i pour a little of the cooled mixture into the PET with the yeast. I re-cap this and give it a good shake. The rest of the mixture gets poured into the DJ.

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The yeast mixture then gets another good shake and poured into the DJ. Another good shake and the mix is together. The yeast will now start to utilise the sugar and oxygen and multilply into a much bigger colony. :cool: :cool: :cool:

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My culture then gets moved to my fermenting room. Which is my office. :lol: It's 18C constant. Give or take a degree. ;)

I won't be expecting any action untill at least tomorrow morning(your looking at my norks again :grin: ) from the yeast. I'll keep swirling the DemiJohn all the time i think of it or everytime i can. This will keep the yeasties in suspension and allow them to work better. They are a bit lazy unless they are roused into action-and then they are manic. :cool:

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I'll add more to this as the culture progresses.

As long as you have everything sterile, this is easier than doing a beer kit in my opinion. The amazing dimensions of taste that yeasts can give your beers is reason alone to give them a try. They really can, if fermented at a controlled temp and matched to the recipe, turn an average brew into something special. They'll also get you a lot closer to beers you try to replicate that you drink or have heard about and would like to brew. :cool: :cool:

I'm no authority on this subject at all and i've probably only done a dozen like this but i'm learning every time. :geek: I can't see the method changing too much-it's the same method for smack packs. The only 'nervy' bit is the bottling of the yeast once the fermenting period is over. Same as a brew really. :|
 
Thats a great how to MEB - I think we need a yeast section :hmm:
 
New section created and topis duly moved :D

Thanks for the effort you put in to this MEB I'm sure this will get used a lot. :cool:
 

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