How does a beginner manage their yeast farm?

I'm about 6 batches into my AG brewing and my fridge is slowly getting filled with jars of yeast I've been harvesting, each labelled so I can tell which batch they came from.

So far I've been harvesting yeast only from the primary fermenter but I'm thinking about harvesting from secondary too because, at the moment, I don't want to force natural selection on my yeast population, but this will increase my yeast volume even more.

In theory all of the yeast I've collected is of the same strain barring a few inevitable genetic mutations, so my question is this...

Am I wise to keep all my yeast harvests separate, should I mix my primary and secondary harvests from the same batch, or can I mix all of my harvests together into one big, amorphous, yeasty jar?

Topic harvest yeast-cultures reusing-yeast yeast homebrew

Category Mac

1
answered at

I assume they're all different re-pitches of the same original strain? Certainly you would want to keep different strains apart so you can pitch based on their desired properties.

But even still, I would keep the harvested yeast separate, if only so you can use them in a FIFO order of collection.

The method you're using the harvest yeast has a reliable shelf life of approximately 2 weeks, and a maximum shelf life of 6 months, according to Zainasheff and White in Yeast. As such, I would endeavour to use the harvested yeast ASAP.

I would only suggest harvesting from the primary fermenter, and employ the "yeast rinsing" technique to separate the yeast from the other trub. Yeast harvested from secondary are going to be composed exclusively of "late flocculators" that will skew your yeast population.

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