yeast harvesting from bottles

there are tons of how-tos and threads on harvesting/washing yeast from the bottom of your fermenter, but i have searched a bit trying to find a step by step of harvesting from bottle conditioned commercial brews.. is the process for the most part the same? sorry that its probably been asked but didn't want to get everything ready and try it out only to find out i did everything wrong.. thanks!

Easy way: Take the dregs of 3-4 bottles (one is possible, you just have to step it up from a very small amount), pour into sterilized starter wort, 4-500ml around 1.030 OG, cap, and wait.

Technical way: Make wort-agar culture plates, spread some of the dregs out of a bottle, grow for 3 days at room temp, pick individual colonies (fluffy white yeast, not shiny bacteria), streak onto a new plate, allow to grow and scrape all that into a small starter, maybe 100ml. Grow it up to a larger volume.

Overall, it's very similar to reusing yeast from the fermenter, you're just starting with a very small amount. The culturing method just allows you to pick one individual yeast cell for a very homogeneous culture.

In between way?

do the same as the first; pour dregs into boiled/cooled 500ml wort let it spin for 24-48 hours.. boil/cool another 500ml wort in separate flask, cool and decant original starter, pour into new flask and spin for 24-48 hours.. cool/decant/pitch

would that give me plenty from 2 or 3 bottles for a 5 gallon batch of IPA?

I would step up the second growth to at least 1L for a 5 gallon batch to be safe. Make sure the starters are at very dense growth too. What bottles are you using to culture?

i wanted to make a two hearted clone.. i have a 2000ml flask, so i can bump it up to a 1.5L with the last step

Yep, that would certainly do it.

good deal.. thanks guys.. will be a good one for me to try this out for the first time.. if it turns out good this'll be a good one to make a 10 gallon batch for someday as i know a lot of people (including myself) who like it despite not always a fan of IPAs

Also, common sense I suppose, but make sure you smell it or even taste the decanted wort before using. A lot of steps from the brewery to your flask that could introduce something nasty.

Your process sounds good, but just fair warning it's better to harvest yeast from one of Bell's lower ABV beers that use their house strain, rather than Two Hearted. The higher the ABV of the beer, the more strain on the yeast, plus extra hops in 2HA compared to say their Amber. That being said I've harvested Duvel's yeast from a bottle and brewed an amazing Duvel clone. Good luck!

good point.. if i can find a couple bottles or a 6er of oarsman i'll get that.. i was just planning on buying a case to enjoy as mine was fermenting and utilize a few of those.. we'll see whats in my area when i get to the point of getting it all set up