Where do the micros get their yeast

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God Emporer BillyBrew

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And the big ones for that matter? Are they wild yeast that they have captured. Do they buy them from White and Wyeast like we do or are they mutated from commercially available yeasts.

Anybody ever read anything about this or have first hand experience?
 
When I toured the Pont Brewery a Regional in Steven's Point, WI, I spied a corny labeled Central Waters Brewery Yeast (a micro).

A cynic would say that Point was trying to steal/reverse engineer the micro's yeast. I'm of the opinion that Point was being rather magnanimous about sharing their yeast with Central Waters.

On a side note I read where the Boudin's bakery, founded in 1849 has the same mother yeast starter for thier signature sourdough bread. So that would be almost 160 years old.

When asked if thier rival, Parisian, lost thier mother starter, would Boudin help 'em out? Not a chance the spokesman said.
 
olllllo said:
When I toured the Pont Brewery a Regional in Steven's Point, WI, I spied a corny labeled Central Waters Brewery Yeast (a micro).

A cynic would say that Point was trying to steal/reverse engineer the micro's yeast. I'm of the opinion that Point was being rather magnanimous about sharing their yeast with Central Waters.

On a side note I read where the Boudin's bakery, founded in 1849 has the same mother yeast starter for thier signature sourdough bread. So that would be almost 160 years old.

When asked if thier rival, Parisian, lost thier mother starter, would Boudin help 'em out? Not a chance the spokesman said.
Isn't sour dough bread done with bacteria like a lambic?:off: I think BMC has yeast labs to keep the p[roduct consistent and the same for small breweries too, I know Shiner does.
 
The guy opening the new brewpub here told me he imports all his yeast from Germany. He was not any more specific than that. He brews mostly lagers.
 
Most of the breweries around here have isolated their own strains (Rogue/Pacman), but Wyeast has many of them for safe keeping. If a brewery runs into a contamination problem, they'll get a fresh culture. In other cases, they buy strains for Wyeast and White Labs. Both of these companies are constantly isolating new mutations and testing them.

There are several dozen yeast companies world wide.

"News: Congratulations to all winners at the recent Great American Beer Festival in Denver, CO. About 57 percent of all medal winners were White Labs customers, including 65 percent of craft brewer award winners. White Labs customers won all the awards in 15 categories."
 
Dude said:
Our 2 local breweries use a Whitelabs strain. IIRC, the brewmaster told me he pitches the equivalent of 400 vials for each batch.

Yeah, I caught the brewmeister at work at one of our brewpubs the other day and he showed me the yeast he used. It was a big @ss bucket from White.

I wonder how hard it would be to develop your own strain? Probably pretty dang hard or someone on this board would be doing it. You'd probably need your own laboratory, huh?
 
There was a show recently on the Brewing Network where Justin and the guys interviewed the White brothers - the ones who run White labs. It was very interesting to hear where Chris White acquires the strains he uses. He told a story that he was touring a German brewery and literally scooped up some yeast, took it back to his lab, cleaned it up, and farmed it.

He also mentioned taking some samples from beers that he liked and using those yeast.

The brewer at my local brewpub gets yeast from Safale, Saflager, and White Labs depending upon what he is brewing.
 
david_42 said:
Most of the breweries around here have isolated their own strains (Rogue/Pacman), but Wyeast has many of them for safe keeping. If a brewery runs into a contamination problem, they'll get a fresh culture. In other cases, they buy strains for Wyeast and White Labs. Both of these companies are constantly isolating new mutations and testing them.

There are several dozen yeast companies world wide.

"News: Congratulations to all winners at the recent Great American Beer Festival in Denver, CO. About 57 percent of all medal winners were White Labs customers, including 65 percent of craft brewer award winners. White Labs customers won all the awards in 15 categories."


Is there a way a homebrewer could keep yeast long term? For example if I only used london ale yeast and wanted to grow my own. Would it be as simple as saving a yeast cake? What about the rule of only using it for a few times?

While yeast is not that expensive it is about a 3rd of my brew cost, it would be great to have a large supply of my own to draw from.
 
Todd said:
Is there a way a homebrewer could keep yeast long term? For example if I only used london ale yeast and wanted to grow my own. Would it be as simple as saving a yeast cake? What about the rule of only using it for a few times?

While yeast is not that expensive it is about a 3rd of my brew cost, it would be great to have a large supply of my own to draw from.

You can always wash your yeast (do a keyword search of these forums!), then save it in the fridge for maybe a month before using it again. Then just do a starter and get the viable yeasts going again, and repitch.
 
Evan! said:
You can always wash your yeast (do a keyword search of these forums!), then save it in the fridge for maybe a month before using it again. Then just do a starter and get the viable yeasts going again, and repitch.


So save my current large yeast, then take a small portion of that and do a starter? I figure I probably have 2 quarts of clean yeast left after fermentation is done. I could wash that then use portions.. Gotcha.

Do you think that is how they do it? I saw on modern marvels the guys was spooning it from a freakin bucket. Must have been 4 Gallons of yeast!
 
there are also some people who grow it in slants and have many, many vials they can use. Just google yeast slants.

caution on the other technique. Supposedly it starts to mutate after about three generations and you should buy more at that time.
 
God Emporer BillyBrew said:
there are also some people who grow it in slants and have many, many vials they can use. Just google yeast slants.

caution on the other technique. Supposedly it starts to mutate after about three generations and you should buy more at that time.


I've heard the generation thing as well. If I save a large batch and take samples from it to use, then it is still just the second generation right? How does that whole thing get impacted by starters and such? How is white labs growing a bucket full of yeast?
 
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