Hey just adding another method that I've been using. Little more complicated, but in the month I've been doing it its helped a lot in learning about yeast growth, aroma smells, taste ect...
I am attempting to start having ready yeast on hand when ever I want (I brew at least once a week) but live in a very small apartment and can't devote an entire room as the designated yeast room. Also I don't really want to screw around rinsing the yeast out of my 6.5 gallon glass carboys (the hop residue and junk that sticks to the top of the head space makes me too nervous). I've concluded if I top-crop into starters and continually growing the yeast up I'll have ready yeast whenever. Now unfortunately I don't have one of those niffty orange carboy caps where I could stick a racking cane, and I have no spoon small enough to reach down into the carboy. I do have however a couple of of the little metal eye rods, like the ones used for agar plates. I have a temp controlled chest freezer in the back room (yeah the bed room) and I'm hoping that by spraying all around with some star san even before I take the airlock out the air with be clean enough. So after I sprayed, I took what I'm going to guess as about a 50 mL test tube with maybe 15-20 mL of boiled water and began "scooping" at the foamy top of the beer, which is about 30 hours or so in and bubbling nicely. I meant to keep dipping the eye rod into a measuring cup of star san which had the test tube cap in it, but must have breathed in some CO2 and forgot... I probably "scooped" ten or so times, trying to make sure I got some pure foam, some hop residue, I also tried to the best I could going down through the foam to the very top of the surface but I felt like I was just ending up washing it. I'm not really sure where the best place to collect only a couple of yeast cells is? The sterile water was around 65, like the beer, but maybe a little hotter is the temp difference going to affect the yeast more because there are only a few cells? I do mainly ales but only cuz im impatient and have no heat pad. Once I finished I quickly screwed the cap on(tight) and popped the airlock back in. Next (on top of chest freezer, cuz it means I don't even have to leave the room) I took a flask of starter wort I had just made- 1.040 with gypsum yeast nutrient and yeast energizer added- and I poured around 15-20 mL of that into the test tube (after taking a butane lighter the the mouth of the test tube) I screwed back on the cap (tight) and dipped in quickly into the star san. Hoping to sanitize the parts the wort poured on? Is my guesstimate wrong that half boiled water and half 1.040 wort and I'll have a 1.020? I"m doing all the liquid measurements by guessing because it seems more sanitary that way, but would being more precise be better? So with about 40 mL in the test tube there is a 10 mL head space. I was flipping the test tube all around (tightly capped) because I figured that would give it more surface area to aerate. Now I have the test tube up right on a closet shelf with the cap loose. Now my plan is after 2 days pour the test tube into a 500 mL flask but I'm not sure if the wort should be 1.020 again or if I should bump it up to the 1.040 yet? Two days after that 1000mL flask at 1.040, then I don't really have a bigger flask so I would end up brewing again and pitching this flask. Sorry its a little wordy but I wanted to get as much of my process in as I could think of. Any critique of my process would be greatly appreciated. Is this even going to work? I felt a little skeptical about gathering enough yeast. Do I need to start out with even smaller volumes? I know just getting and orange cap and a drip tube would probably be easier but I also feel like keeping this up will help me work with yeast. Also if you noticed, my yeast is never really going into the fridge, the biggest drop is from room temp starter to 5 gallons of 62 degree beer. Would it be better though if I placed it in the fridge during the 500mL stage so I could decant it? Will my math be off for the gravity in the 1000mL if I don't decant? Finally my last question is should my test tube gravity only be 1.020, for example this particular beer is a 1.060 amber ale with white labs 001 cal ale yeast, the yeast is in tip top shape, but because I'm collecting so few should it go into the 1.020 wort?
I just copied that from my post on homebrewtalk (
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/can-i- ... ay-222607/ ) so pay too much mind to all my questions. Also FYI, it took me a few practice "batches" before I was comfortable enough to actually throw this yeast in a full batch.
Finally, if tasty or spiderwrangler, or anyone else for that matter sees this, I'm curious about the difference between top cropping generations and normal yeast washing generations. What I mean is I hear Jamil talk a lot about the higher quality of beer with 3rd and 4th and so on generation yeast, but I'm concerned that by cropping the yeast before its been through a full fermentation cycle I'm loosing something (Im not sure what I'd be loosing, but maybe something flavor contributions/characteristics) So I guess the question is, does the anaerobic (without oxygen right?) stage of fermentation have an affect on future generation's characteristics, or will I see the same results with yeast cultured from the growth period?
