How should I store this yeast until tomorrow, please?

[guypettigrew]

Tomorrow I'll be brewing some sort of bitter (recipe not yet even thought about!) using Whitelabs 001 which I've just recovered from the fv holding last weeks brew.

After adding a bit of cooled boiled water to encourage the yeast to free up from the bottom of the fv there is now about 600ml of gorgeous looking slurry in a sanitised pint glass with cling film over it.

Normally this would go into the 'fridge to settle, then it would be washed a couple of times before being stored in 300ml plastic bottles. Lasts for months!

However, as I'll be using this tomorrow, I'm not sure whether to store it in the 'fridge until needed, or leave it in the fermentation room at about 18-19C, the temperature it's been at for the last week.

All advice gratefully received!

Guy

[fisherman]

Hello Guy.
I was hoping someone with more expierience on yeast would come forward. If I was in your situation I would boil water and add two desertspoons of dry Spraymalt to the 350 ml of water and boil for 1min in the microwave, cool down .drain the water from your yeast and add the malt liquid to restart the yeast and keep it ticking over until the morning.
i had a great brewing day yesterday ( liar ) in my new plastic HLT I had 37 litres of hot water ready for sparging. The sparge was slower than usual so towards the end I uncovered the insulation jacket and to my surprise the lid was well and truly sealed . The lid had been sucke down into the bin and the walls of the HLT had imploded towards the centre of the bin. Unbeleivable the plastic was vey hot so I pushed out the side walls and they are now perfect. It has a powerfull memory that plastic. So I have drilled a small hole in the lid of the HLT. All it takes is one tiny mistake in this case no hole in the lid.

[orlando]

Too late I suspect but my approach would be to store over night in the fridge, remove first thing in the morning to bring it up to pitching temp and off you go. Reason being that if you cover and leave over night at current temps it will ferment producing CO2, that needs to vent and opens up potential contamination issues.

[guypettigrew]

Thanks for the thoughts.

in the end I decided just to leave it in the brew room at 19C. My worry about this is that once the yeast has used all the available sugars in the tiny bit of beer left with it, it might start to die. But perhaps it'll just go to sleep!

However, if I don't try I'll never know.

Today's beer is just about to be run out of the FV, so it will be pitched very soon. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for the advice Fisherman--seemed far too complicated for me!

Here's today's recipe, in case anyone's interested.

Guy

Grains
Pale Malt 5 EB 5000 grams
Caragold 9 EBC 200 grams


Hops
Challenger 7.7 % AA 90 mins 10 grams
Motueka 7.8 % AA 45 mins 10 grams
Pacific Jade 15.1 % AA 15 mins 10 grams
Summit 15.2 % AA 15 mins 10 grams
Citra 15.0 % AA 0 mins 30 grams

[WishboneBrewery]

what they said, keep in the fridge at around 4c until the start of your brewday, then let it warm up to room temp before pitching.

[guypettigrew]

Pleased to say the yeast is working well. It was left overnight at 19C in the brew room and pitched just under 24 hours after collecting.

Within 1 hour there were signs of fermentation and a nice krausen within 2 hours.

The odd thing, though, was the beer ended up with an OG of only 1.048 for 5 gallons. Much lower than expected. Something went wrong with the sparge, is my guess, as I got distracted by a 20 minute 'phone call during the fly sparge, I turned the sparge off and I think the grain cooled down too much.

Ah well, there's always next time!

Guy