Where to take cell count sample?

[Yohan]

Hello Brewers, I recently worked for a large brewery(60k+bbl year) that didn't take cell counts. It bothered me that we didn't(we had inconsistent fermentations in our high gravity beers and the brewers got blamed for not oxygenating even though we did..frustrating!)and when I asked the head brewer the reason for this his answer was basically that without a large fancy yeast prop. tank that could mix the yeast and make it homogenous, that a proper sample couldn't be taken to get an accurate cell count, because the yeast that collects at the bottom of a conical is not homogenous and your cell count wouldn't be accurate. I'm certain that many/most breweries do not have fancy expensive yeast prop tanks and they take their cell count sample right off the bottom of the cone(after trub dumps) and that they have success with this. My feelings on brewing is that yeast handling is up there with most important stuff in regards to great tasting consistent beer and just wondering what other brewers techniques/opinions are on this subject. Thanks!!! PS-we just did cone to cone transfer and looked at volume

[Junkyard]

+1 for an answer to this!

[BrewMage22]

New Brewer

+1 for an answer to this!

The BA magazine technical issue had an awesome article in their past technical issue that covered this topic, featuring Avery Brewing's cone to cone pitching system. It detailed cell counts and yeast slurry counts by weight and many great practical tactics for yeast management. Check it out, it might open some doors.

Cheers

SD

[Bainbridge]

Didn't they use an Flow Densitometer though? Good way to do it, if you've got $10k lying around.

[BMan1113VR]

Manually taking a cell count from a cone on cone to cone transfer is not going to help you much as the cc will definitely change during transfer. You could harvest yeast into another vessel (brink), shake or otherwise agitate it, then look at the cell count/viability to determine your pitching rate.

That said, there are expensive flowmeter/cell counting devices that will measure CC on cone to cone transfers.

[mmussen]

One thing that I've done in the past when harvesting to a brink is take the sample to count at the end. In my experience it seems like the yeast gets thinner the more is pulled off. And personally I'd rather underestimate the cell count going into the next beer than guess too high. Its worked for me in the past when filling up brinks.

One other thing that I remember being told several times by some brew gurus of mine, it doesn't matter too much if you're off in a number, as long as you do it the same way every time.
By making sure you're following the same process every time even if the numbers are off you should be off consistently and by a similar amount. So in the long run the number being off shouldn't matter as much to the quality of the beer.

[woohokie]

I've found for us it's yeast strain dependent also. We harvest from the bottom into the gwkent yeast kegs. After collecting ~ 70lbs of slurry I'll then shake up the keg for a few minutes and then pull a sample from the keg. With Cal ale, the slurry seems pretty homogenized after this and cell counts back up what the % solids show as well. With other strains, getting an even homogenous sample can be tough, especially in my experience, with the fullers strain. I typically just utilize % solids to measure density with that strain and have great luck doing so. YMMV

[Yohan]

Didn't they use an Flow Densitometer though? Good way to do it, if you've got $10k lying around.

No, we had regular flow meters but they didn't get used for yeast transfers. Just filled up to the same point in the cone each time

[Bainbridge]

Ok I was thinking of this presentation from the CBC earlier this year. Derp, not a densitometer, just a flow and mass meter. Maybe it was the lautering presentation from Iron Hill I was thinking of.