Table Sugar for Starter from bottle condition dregs

Hey everyone,

So I know table sugar shouldn't be used for a starter due to the yeasts not wanting to switch from sucrose to maltose. However, I was wondering if table sugar would be satisfactory if you were making a "starter" (I use the word loosely) from the dregs of a bottle conditioned beer for the purpose to putting the yeast into vials and freezing them for a bank. Then when you thaw them, a proper starter could be made using DME or the like. I ask cause my LHBS is a ways away and I am itchin to see what the yeast at the bottom of my Unibroue Le Fin de monde and Ommegang Abbey ale do

I would use honey, with yeast energizer (for nitrogen), or some of that gluten free Soya malted drink, before using straight table sugar.

I can get honey just as easily. I just hoped that if it was going to be frozen down and reconstituted it wouldn't matter what the original starter was made in.

You can also use Malta Goya. Essentially, it's an un-hopped wort and can be found in the international foods aisle of many grocers.

If you are freezing your yeast, there are a lot of things you need to consider to ensure the yeast remain viable and aren't killed by the freezing process.

Check out this thread for more info:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/guide-making-frozen-yeast-bank-35891/

I already have. Also, I work as a microbiologist, so I have access to laboratory grade reagents. Unfortunately I don't work with yeast, just T cell lines and the media used for these cells are different. Malta Goya actually sounds exactly what I am looking for.

Thanks eddie.

Kyle, that Birmingham must be the Alabama one if you can get Malta Goya.
At any rate, any organic/no preservatives juice will work too. And whatever your "media" is, it won't matter when you add the glycerol; they'll freeze just the same.

By the way, back in the 90's, a buddy upstairs at work was giving me crap about visiting my lab because yeast must have gotten in his hybridoma cultures, due to me visiting his lab. So we tested; yeast only go under one doubling in modified Eagle's media (that pink stuff, anyway).

Malta Goya...not Soya :| Thanks for posting the right stuff for me!

JohnMc said:

And whatever your "media" is, it won't matter when you add the glycerol; they'll freeze just the same.

By the way, back in the 90's, a buddy upstairs at work was giving me crap about visiting my lab because yeast must have gotten in his hybridoma cultures, due to me visiting his lab. So we tested; yeast only under one doubling in modified Eagle's media (that pink stuff, anyway).

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Hey John.

That is kind of what I was hoping. I didn't know if the freeze and dormancy would let the yeast kick back to using DME when I thawed them. But I think the Malta Goya or something like that will probably be my best bet.

My boss actually warned me about bringing outside yeast strains into the tissue culture room in my lab. "once those things get on you, they are tough to entirely get off" She was worried I would bring yeast strains into our primary cell line area. Guess I better be really careful.

Kyle, I figured your PI would worry, but yeast aren't as much a worry as E. coli. Like I said yeast just grow a little then crap out in the mammalian cell media my buddy used.
As far as "they are tough to get off" goes; so's bread yeast, spores from the air, fungus from blue cheese and on and on. Maybe RDWHAHB needs to spread...
Does your lab never use plasmids to transfect? If so, they've got to come from E. coli.

yeah we use some plasmid but it only consists a small portion of our lab. However, I think I found the absolute perfect starter available at the grocery store.

It is from Publix. and its called "Malta". It is basically malt, syrup, and hops. a quick boil, cool and poof. starter. However, I will have to check the gravity to see what I got goin on.

Good luck, but I'm sure it'll be fine.