homebrewandbeer.com

Hi there,

Just picked up a vial of White Labs WLP 550 Belgian Ale Yeast.

At $16 a throw, it's a pretty hefty investment.

Tell me, is there an easy and reliable method to reuse this yeast? Can I make multiple starters?

I wouldn't mind getting at least a couple of goes out of it.

Will I affect the beer in any way if I do?

You shouldn't have any trouble getting 4-6 starters out of it.

Just make up your nutrient medium (100g malt per L water works) and innocuate each with the yeast. Piece of cake.

If you can make 4-6 starters out of one batch of this yeast, but didnt want to make 6 batches of beer in a row using said yeast, how long would it survive as a starter and how would you store it?

You can get 6 months in the fridge if you get conditions right- close to sterile, drop the temp slowly etc.

Then, rouse and re-culture for another 6 months. And so on.

You can freeze cultures, if you add glycerol to the medium prior to freezing. You may get as much as 2 years from that, but 1 year to be safe.

Thanks Chris. Good reply as always.

Danzar, IMO pitching a vial into a 1L starter (for the purpose of splitting) will give you minimal to no yeast growth & will stress the yeast. IMO if you don't want to be underpitching go for a bigger starter or research re-pitching the trub.

chris. wrote:Danzar, IMO pitching a vial into a 1L starter (for the purpose of splitting) will give you minimal to no yeast growth & will stress the yeast. IMO if you don't want to be underpitching go for a bigger starter or research re-pitching the trub.

Thought about repitching. I'll do some reading - need to be careful with that but if I got it right, it would probably be the most effective.

Try this link...
http://www.countrybrewer.com.au/webcontent26.htm

AND this one...
http://byo.com/feature/37.html

That will give you all the info you need. That is unless you're considering pitching from trub which ideally requires sequential washing steps in 50% cold cold water to sediment out the protein and fats.

Cheers