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  • Yeast management

    What is everyone's yeast management process? Specifically, some things I was wondering if others do:

    Are you crashing temperature before cropping or warm cropping?

    Do you acid wash or dilute slurries with water?

    How long are you storing cropped yeast? During this time do you feed, aerate, release CO2, etc?

  • #2
    "Are you crashing temperature before cropping or warm cropping?"
    Cropping a day before transfer to BBT- so 4-5 days cold.

    "Do you acid wash or dilute slurries with water?"
    Without the ability to do cell counts and viability post wash, I feel its not a good idea.
    I use yeast performance as an indicator of health.

    "How long are you storing cropped yeast? During this time do you feed, aerate, release CO2, etc?"
    2 weeks usually, max 3. I instruct to vent Co2 used to push out doses as we get 3-4 pitches per brink.
    Brewmaster, Minocqua Brewing Company
    tbriggs@minocquabrewingcompany.com
    "Your results may vary"

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    • #3
      Thanks for the info. We notice our yeast viability drops pretty dramatically if stored longer than a week-ish. We started feeding and venting CO2 and have noticed a positive impact. We feed with wort if we are going to store the crop longer than 48 hours. Has helped our yeast health a lot. Also, taking the yeast we need off of the beer as soon as it reaches temp after terminal so that it doesn't sit under stressful environmental conditions.

      That's just our process. I'm sure everyone has found what works best in their brewery.




      Originally posted by Ted Briggs View Post
      "Are you crashing temperature before cropping or warm cropping?"
      Cropping a day before transfer to BBT- so 4-5 days cold.

      "Do you acid wash or dilute slurries with water?"
      Without the ability to do cell counts and viability post wash, I feel its not a good idea.
      I use yeast performance as an indicator of health.

      "How long are you storing cropped yeast? During this time do you feed, aerate, release CO2, etc?"
      2 weeks usually, max 3. I instruct to vent Co2 used to push out doses as we get 3-4 pitches per brink.

      Comment


      • #4
        Yeast Managment Protocols

        We store our yeast in converted half barrel brinks.

        We usually try to crash pretty hard (around 35F) 1-2 days before collection

        As of right now we do not do any yeast acid washing or a wash with tetraisohumulone (we have never had any issues whatsoever with Lacto in our brewery so we dont open up the brinks more than we have to)

        We have stored yeast up to 2 months in our cooler, however rule of thumb is that anything longer than a week generally gets repropogated before it gets pitched. We have the luxury of an extra smaller jacketed fermentor that we often use as a propogator for exactly this.

        We run yeast viabilities on every batch and so far our calculations for most yeast strains have turned out pretty accurate.

        When we collect yeast we sanitize the brinks, hoses and valves with 180F water in a recirc loop with our HLT for 20 minutes. With everything mating up valve to valve. One done we disconnect loop and purge brink and collection hoses with CO2 from the top while still hot, then once empty pressurize to roughly 5psi and let it sit to cool down for about 10 minutes until just warm to the touch, usually we put a sight glass in line to make sure we dont draw in too much beer into our slurry. Once we collect it we take viabilities and stick it in the fridge and dont touch it till the next brewday.

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        • #5
          Harvest into converted 1/2 bbls after diacetyl has passed and crashed to 45. Yeast health, viability, and shorter lag phases of the pitched batch seem to be significantly better when I harvest at 45 as opposed to 32 F. If I think I'm going to be storing the yeast in the walk-in more than a week, then I harvest ~25% more yeast than calculated to account for viability loss during storage. No addition of sugars or venting while in storage.
          Peter Landman | Brewmaster | Seabright Brewery | Santa Cruz, CA

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