Harvesting Yeast after Biofine Clear

[NateBrews]

Hi All,

I am fining a pale ale with Biofine Clear to get the yeast out before dry hopping. I added the finings post fermentation to the primary fermentor (6 gal carboy) and am letting it settle out now. Once things are settled, what are your thoughts on harvesting the yeast? My instinct says no, since the biofine will cling to the yeast and may inhibit the correct behavior of the repitch. I don't really need to harvest it, as I have another fermentor that also just finished with the same yeast in it which I will clear in the keg (Ordinary Bitter).

In the past, I have never repitched yeast that I had finings in (generally gelatin). Since the biofine is doing roughly the same thing, I am applying the same logic. That said, I'm curious what others think.

The yeast is Wyeast 1968 London ESB for whatever that is worth.

Thanks,
-Nate

[brewinhard]

I have always seen 1968 clear extremely fast even without finings. Why not just cold crash your beer without biofine/gelatin and let the yeast settle (as it probably will be crystal clear in about 24 hrs) out naturally? Then you can let it warm back up, dry hop, and then cold crash again or add your finings prior to packaging?

Edit - If you already have another batch of this yeast then why not just save that one? That way it really doesn't matter.

[NateBrews]

I'm asking mostly just out of curiosity to see what others think. I wasn't really planning to use the yeast from this one since I have the other one, but someday in the future I might not be in the situation of having another one on hand.

I don't really have a way to cold crash my fermenter very well since I don't have a cask breather or something to keep CO2 in the head space when the temp drops and it starts pulling in gas, so I need to do it in a keg. I don't really want to do the dry hop in the keg since I've been unimpressed with my dry hopping with a bag results. Otherwise I would just put it in a keg, fine, then dry hop there.

In my experience, 1968 will clear up a lot pretty quick, but not to brilliance for a little while. I have been using a laser shot though the carboy and looking at the dispersion pattern in the beer to be a judge of how clear the beer is rather than just looking through a glass so I don't have to keep pulling samples to do it.

[Klickitat Jim]

Go for it. But instead of directly repitching, pull a small amount and do a starter. The finings wont reproduce