Slants VS Distilled Water

[bullfrog]

Morning Brewers,

I've been doing a lot of reading on yeast storage, as I've decided it's time that I accumulated a respectable yeast bank, and I'm looking at either making slants or using the distilled water method. I wanted to get people's opinions on the two methods, as it looks like they both have pro's and cons. The distilled water looks to be quite a bit easier and won't require any valuable fridge space, but it doesn't look like you can continually re-culture them in perpetuity like you can with slants.

Does anybody here use either of these methods? Any pointers on what would be the best way to go?

[drsmurto]

I have slants given to me by other brewers but yet to use and did have a yeast bank using the boiled/cooled water method.

I prefer doing the latter as its simple but they don't last as long. 3 months, 6 at a stretch. I threw out my bank at the start of the year as they were all off.

Now i just reuse a yeastcake 3-4 times then move onto another yeast. Either that or grab a yeastcake when one is advertised on the local forum. I'm too lazy to maintain a yeast bank and i don't brew enough to warrant having a heap of yeasts on hand.

[bullfrog]

Assuming one had a yeast bank of the distilled water type and they wanted to reculture a strain to save losing it to expiration, would you need to make a slant to do that, and then transfer back into the water? Also, I assume that the samples in the water are very small, so does one have to step starters from like 50mL before it is a decent enough size to pitch?

[drsmurto]

I used 50mL tubes for my yeast bank and they had 5-10mL of yeast in them at most. I generally make a 2500ml starter to use in a beer, poured off the beer and added a small amount of the yeast to 5 tubes then pitch the rest into a a wort.

From each tube step up to a 50mL starter first then 250mL, then 1-2L.

My technique was to have 5 tubes per yeast strain so i never needed to redo the bank. Each time i used one i would then reuse the yeastcake a few times and end up getting 3-5 batches per tube. The thought was that if i ran out of tubes of my yeast strain i should have made in excess of 20 beers from the one pack so could afford to buy a new one.

In reality, i had 15 strains and 2 racks of tubes. Most of the strains i was given so didnt actually buy them but the majority were never used.

With smackpacks $12-13 and good dry yeast closing in on $5 a packet the cost of the LDME and my time vs reusing a yeastcake a few times just didn't add up.

[bullfrog]

Just thinking, I suppose that you would have to start with very small starters with slants as well, and then gradually step up. That isn't something that is exclusively for the water storage method.

I'm more towards going with the slants, at this point. Will it be more messing around? Yes, but I do think that the slants would probably be more versatile.

It is interesting that your samples went off though, Doc. My reading has indicated that distilled water storage should keep the samples viable for at least 6 months, but with some people reporting perfect storage over a year. Most sources say that you should get more shelf-life out of the water storage as opposed to slant storage, in any case.

Oh well, time to order some beakers and stuff. I'll be sure to announce my triumphs and tragedies with this little venture, if for no other reason than a good laugh at my expense

[drsmurto]

Yep, they do last 6 months underwater.

They don't, however, last 18 months