how long to safe harvest yeast

[micromaniac]

i have some beer that will be 8 months old when i come to harvest the yeast at the end of january,it,s about 4.8% , the yeast in the brew was california ale yeast. will it still do it,s thing after this length of time? and if so how long could it be viable for?

[guypettigrew]

Gregorach's your man for this, but instinct tells me your yeast may not be in the best condition for harvesting after 8 months in a bottle.

Probably better to harvest straight from the fermentation vessel.

Guy

[Spud395]

I'd certainly give it a go.
It would depend on a few things, mostly how the beer was stored how much viable yeast you have.
Make up a little starter.
I'm far from an expert, but I'd go for it

[greenxpaddy]

Is this from bottle / keg?

If it's been living under the beer it made it's the best place for it. but there will be majority dead cells and the chance of some mutations I think.

If you are less obsessive with risk aversion you could easily step up from a small harvest.

If you want to be proper about it you would streak some plates and select three colonies from single cells to grow from thereby reducing the chances of selecting petite mutantes and affectin the next brew.

Ps the best way to store yeast is to slant them. You can freeze them with special treatment but best read up on slants first!

[MAF]

Defintiely give it a go. As Spud said, make a small starter and see what happens - if it turns out fine then step it up to a bigger starter. I've done it with saison yeast that was in the bottle 17 months and it worked perfectly.
But also, as Guy and greenxpaddy say, it's not the ideal way to store yeast that long.

[micromaniac]

thing to do then i think is av a go as you say but keep a dry yeast like so5 handy just incase,i have newer cultures of other yeasts i could use but this is th last of the california so i would like to use this to continue with this stain.thanks for the help guys

[guypettigrew]

If you're anywhere near me you're welcome to come and collect a bottle of harvested White Labs WLP001 Californian. There's enough in the bottle to directly pitch into 25 litres of wort.

Guy

[charliefarley]

I harvested some yeast recenty - WLP036 - from a bottle of slurry that I'd had in the back of the yeast fridge for over a year. I took the tiniest amount on a sterilised spoon, added it to 2ml of wort for a day or two then stepped up to 50ml for 24 hours, then 250ml, then 1L. No problems.

[micromaniac]

If you're anywhere near me you're welcome to come and collect a bottle of harvested White Labs WLP001 Californian. There's enough in the bottle to directly pitch into 25 litres of wort.

Guy

oooh thats near the big city with the bright lites and stuff..i,m in the black country and never travel more than two miles from our hamlet .......thanks for the offer tho