Yeast Washing

I had read a bit about yeast washing online and it sounded like a bit of a hassle, required good sanitation practices (who does that?), and I wasn't sure how to determine cell counts once washed so I never followed through with it. Kind of spur of the moment I saved the yeast cake from my Saison de Noel #2 batch (still need to post). It sat in my refrigerator for a few weeks until the night I tried the first bottle and I realized that I really liked the saison yeast strain, so I re-read the instructions online and started my experiment with yeast washing.

I didn't have the patience to boil up a bunch of water and then let it cool, so I used some sanitizer to sanitize a large pyrex mixing bowl (the kind with a handle and spout). I poured in 3 bottles of bottled water and then the yeast cake that I had saved. Even though it was very thick, I could still see the layers of beer, yeast, and trub. I poured out most of the beer in the sink and then added the yeast layer and part of the trub to my pyrex bowl. Then I mixed it up with a sanitized spoon.

I covered with a piece of sanitized aluminum foil and tossed it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. After that time, I could pretty clearly see a layer of yeast and a layer of trub.

The one thing that I don't have at home are the mason jars, so I thought about similar containers that I have around the house and came up with the idea to use old 12 oz. beer bottle and then just cap them. I sanitized four 12 oz. bottles and used a sanitized funnel to pour the yeast layer into the bottles. I put a cap on each and then labeled them with a permanent marker for the yeast strain. In to the refrigerator they went for a long nap.

Time will tell if either i) leaving the yeast cake in my refrigerator in a cup covered with foil, or ii) using bottled water rather than boiling will result in the yeast being infected. Hopefully not, because I will be upset if I ruin a whole batch using bad yeast....

The finished product:

Now I just need to find out approximately how much yeast is in each bottle to try to get the pitch rate correct!

Update: I re-used my washed yeat in my Farmhouse Saison recipe (still need to post) and it seemed to work. Although I seemed to have a problem with incomplete fermentation. Not sure if that was a  result of the washed yeast or the honey in the recipe.