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  • Re harvesting dry hopped yeast slurry

    A search didn't show much on this. I know the conventional answer is "no" but has anyone with any luck re pitched yeast from a tank that had been dry hopped at the tail end of fermentation (with 1/2deg P or so) and then harvested and re pitched that slurry?

    I ask because I've really liked the results of dry hopping at the tail end but as a 7bbl tasting room with modest distribution model, I can't always harvest yeast from a non dry hopped beer. I use to do it while homebrewing, and before the eye rolling gets too serious, I realize these are two different animals. I'm set up to do cell counts and plan to look at some green slurry to see if it's countable but haven't yet. I'm too chicken to try it until I hear one way or the other. I've been hearing lately that many breweries are dry hopping this way that I can't imagine they are all always dumping yeast from those tanks and never reharvesting it.. All opinions/experiences welcome.

  • #2
    I wouldn't be comfortable pitching slurry from a tank with dry hops in it. No matter what you do short of boiling them (which I presume you wouldn't want to do with aroma hops,) there's going to be lots of wee beasties on those hops you chuck in there. The low pH and alcohol will keep them in check in a near-finished beer (so conventional wisdom goes) but I wouldn't want them mixed in with yeast going into a fermenter of fresh aerated wort...

    If your brew/harvest schedule is that tight, you might want to get or make some sort of yeast brink so you can harvest before your dry hopping and store the slurry for later batches.

    -Mike

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    • #3
      I did it 1 time only because my lil brewer flushed my other yeast. I went from a dry hopped IPA to a Yellow american beer. Now this was some time ago but there was no adverse flavors in the yellow beer. Did I just get lucky and got the yeast at the bottom of the ferm that had less hops in it perhaps. HAve I ever done it again no but I had no choice that day and I was unable to notice an increased hop presence in the yellow stuff. NOt scientific but just sharing
      Mike Eme
      Brewmaster

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      • #4
        I heard someone suggest adding hop pellets to collected yeast for their anti microbial properties. Can't remember where now.

        A couple of potential issues: yeast is very surface active, and hop compounds will cling to them and reduce effect of dry hopping. they will also carry the hop components over to the brew they are pitched into, so If you are going to make a lighter brew it may bring undesired hop bitterness/ flavour over?


        If you are totally stuck, try it once, and taste the beer critically and decide if you want to do it again...

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        • #5
          Originally posted by woohokie View Post
          A search didn't show much on this. I know the conventional answer is "no" but has anyone with any luck re pitched yeast from a tank that had been dry hopped at the tail end of fermentation (with 1/2deg P or so) and then harvested and re pitched that slurry?

          I ask because I've really liked the results of dry hopping at the tail end but as a 7bbl tasting room with modest distribution model, I can't always harvest yeast from a non dry hopped beer. I use to do it while homebrewing, and before the eye rolling gets too serious, I realize these are two different animals. I'm set up to do cell counts and plan to look at some green slurry to see if it's countable but haven't yet. I'm too chicken to try it until I hear one way or the other. I've been hearing lately that many breweries are dry hopping this way that I can't imagine they are all always dumping yeast from those tanks and never reharvesting it.. All opinions/experiences welcome.

          We do all the time. Our IPA is 15° and we dry hop with 1° left to terminal. I understand the concerns, and it also depends on the ratio of dry hop to total volume. Our warm dry hop for this beer is 1/4#/bbl. We check our the viability on all pitches with a cellometer, and with this beer our viability is still in the low 90s, high 80s. We drop about 20 gallons of the cone prior to pitch, you can tell when you have yeast and not hop trub. Our batch size is 120bbl for reference. If you're still concerned, perhaps brink the yeast and add fresh wort to pitch healthier yeast, if it's possible at your brewery.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by MikeS View Post
            I wouldn't be comfortable pitching slurry from a tank with dry hops in it. No matter what you do short of boiling them (which I presume you wouldn't want to do with aroma hops,) there's going to be lots of wee beasties on those hops you chuck in there. The low pH and alcohol will keep them in check in a near-finished beer (so conventional wisdom goes) but I wouldn't want them mixed in with yeast going into a fermenter of fresh aerated wort...

            If your brew/harvest schedule is that tight, you might want to get or make some sort of yeast brink so you can harvest before your dry hopping and store the slurry for later batches.

            -Mike
            This. You are putting your beer at risk for contamination by unwanted organisms. We also avoid this due to hop character and IBU carryover in to the new batch.

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            • #7
              I have done a cone to cone pitch with a dry hopped yeast as long as I have been brewing with no problems (about 5 years now). In my experience most of the yeast is settled out by the time I dry hop and rarely have I seen much if any hop particles come through in the slurry. If I am making a dramatically different beer I just start with a fresh pitch of yeast. This is only because of flavor carry over paranoia. Hops were put in beer in part because of their antimicrobial/preservative properties and it is my opinion that the alcohol from the beer it was first put into takes care of the rest of the baddies that can survive on the hops themselves. I dry hop 1 day before the beer reaches terminal and then crash as far as my SOP is concerned. Currently on an 8.5 bbl system.

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              • #8
                Pediosdoom: Thanks for having my back here. I think a 0.00001% chance of f*cking up a batch precludes harvesting yeast where I am not absolutely sure of its purity.

                Aaron Inkrott: St Arnold's, I presume? You guys have a lab, right? Have you (and I don't mean this snarkily, I'm honestly curious...) ever plated out your pitching slurry and compared dry hopped vs not dry hopped for wort spoiler, or other, organisms? I would be terrified of introducing something from dry hops into my pitching stock.

                Cheers- Mike

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                • #9
                  i don't have any lab space, but does somebody want to put some hop pellets on an agar plate and see if anything grows? better still, slurry a pellet up with some sterile water and filter it and plate it?

                  I know that malt husks are known to have lacto and other bugs, but i don't remember hearing about hops.
                  ???

                  i guess i could take a forced wort sample and drop some fresh pellets in...

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                  • #10
                    Besides flavor and bitterness, hops are traditionally used in beer above other bittering agents because of their antibacterial qualities. Some say dryhopping was started way back for this reason alone. I have never heard of a batch being spoiled by dry hopping and though not ideal, I have had to repitch dryhopped yeast many times. Contamination from hops should be the last of your worries, definitely behind cleanliness of your cropping process.

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by el_mocoso View Post
                      Besides flavor and bitterness, hops are traditionally used in beer above other bittering agents because of their antibacterial qualities. Some say dryhopping was started way back for this reason alone. I have never heard of a batch being spoiled by dry hopping and though not ideal, I have had to repitch dryhopped yeast many times. Contamination from hops should be the last of your worries, definitely behind cleanliness of your cropping process.

                      I agree with this to a point but remember you are dry hopping into beer. There is alcohol present. The hops are going to carry bugs with them into the beer. I assume no one is sanitizing their hops? No? Ok then, so the bacteria is there and the presence of hops and alcohol keep it all in check. Now take that slurry of a mixed culture of hops, yeast and other unknown beasties and introduce it into fresh wort. Perfect environment for the aliens. Is the small amount of hop material enough to fight this off? Maybe, Maybe not. It's a gamble, but a rather safe gamble as well. It's more the sheer numbers of yeast cells vs anything foreign that wins this battle in my opinion. I have pitched a dry hopped slurry a few times and have no ill results to report. That being said I don't make it a common practice but if need be I feel confident enough to do it. I haven't found and huge difference between dry hopping with a point left vs at terminal. SOP for me is terminal, cap tank to build a little pressure, drop temps to 65F, harvest whats needed then dry hop away. There is still plenty of churning mixing activity just from all the nucleation points with the natural CO2 present in the beer.

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                      • #12
                        Thanks for the responses and info everyone. I'm not terribly worried about IBU or flavor carryover given that it's likely going right into another hoppy beer. I'm more concerned about pitching healthy viable cells as usual.. If they're green then oh well as long as they're healthy. I'll take a look at some diluted dry hopped slurry next time I have some and report back.
                        Last edited by woohokie; 05-12-2015, 10:03 PM.

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by MikeS View Post
                          Pediosdoom: Thanks for having my back here. I think a 0.00001% chance of f*cking up a batch precludes harvesting yeast where I am not absolutely sure of its purity.

                          Aaron Inkrott: St Arnold's, I presume? You guys have a lab, right? Have you (and I don't mean this snarkily, I'm honestly curious...) ever plated out your pitching slurry and compared dry hopped vs not dry hopped for wort spoiler, or other, organisms? I would be terrified of introducing something from dry hops into my pitching stock.

                          Cheers- Mike
                          Yes, St. Arnold's. We do have a decent lab: LWYM, LCSM, LMDA, and HLP media on every batch into FVs, BBTs, and packaging. No beer spoilers in our dry hop beers for pitching. Probably should have mentioned our lab in my previous post, but we have not had any infection due to dry hopped beers being pitched. It's not ideal...I understand that. Ideal meaning for viability of the yeast, not because of your fear of contamination. We've been brewing our Elissa IPA for 11 years and haven't had an issue. Several California breweries that specialize in dry hopped pale ales and IPAs have been doing it as well for a very long time.

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                          • #14
                            I harvest from dry-hopped beer all the time too. Add hops, finish fermentation, crash the tank, dump most of the hops the next day, and harvest away! Whatever hops are left over don't interfere with hemacytometer counts at all. Dan Carey of New Glarus once said something along the lines of "there are two kinds of contamination: the kind you know about and the kind you don't know about." We can't autoclave our tanks, and all of our beer (and therefore our yeast slurry) has bacteria in it. It's just not enough to cause problems with good sanitation practices because we give the yeast such a huge competitive advantage. I haven't heard of dry hops impacting the microbial behavior of yeast pitches, and I certainly haven't experienced it. Good luck!

                            Joe

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by woohokie View Post
                              A search didn't show much on this. I know the conventional answer is "no" but has anyone with any luck re pitched yeast from a tank that had been dry hopped at the tail end of fermentation (with 1/2deg P or so) and then harvested and re pitched that slurry?
                              Been doing it for 15 years. Hops are antibacterial, and the yeast would be layering in the cone (assuming ccv's) before the hops get in.

                              Scotty
                              Head Brewer Rocks Brewing Co.
                              Sydney, Aust
                              scotty@rocksbrewing.com

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