Sierra Nevada Porter culture?

I'm new to brewing, so this might be a dumb question, but:

I'm looking to do a clone of Sierra Nevada Porter, and was wondering if they bottle-condition so I could culture the yeast they use.

Does a beer need to be bottle-conditioned in order to culture from it?

How can you tell if you can culture from a certain beer?

Thanks!

To be able to culture the yeast, it has to be unpasteurized, unfiltered. You should be able to see a bit of yeast in the bottom of the bottle. As far as I know, Sierra Nevada leaves all their beers unpasteurized, not sure about unfiltered, but they used to be unfiltered. So you might be able to do it.

However, in this case, I'd say why bother? All SN beers use the same yeast and it is probably the single most popular homebrew yeast ou there. You can buy it as Wyeast 1056, White Labs WLP-oo1, or Safale US-05 dry yeast. The dry yeast is so inexpensive that it doesn't seem worth the effort. You'll spend more money on extract to step up the starters than you would on US-05.

mkling said:

However, in this case, I'd say why bother?

Click to expand...

because I did not know that.

thanks mkling!

Yep! Use one of the other yeasts with utter confidence that you are using SN yeast. SN Porter is a great beer. Good luck with the clone.

yeah, it's gonna be clone-ish....since i'm an extract brewer. i just hope it gets close.

we'll see what happens!

thanks again!