curiosity about culturing yeast

Some of the beers we've brewed have turned out great. We're going gung ho with three fermentors and we tend to either bottle, brew, or open a beer once a week.
I think it would be really cool if we could isolate a strain of yeast and culture it so that our beers will have a genuinely unique quality. People in this forum really seem to know their $#!*, so I thought I'd submit the question to you. How do you get the sludge at the bottom of your carboy to turn into viable yeast cultures?
I await your knowledge.

There was a thread about that just not long ago. Here you go:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=2605&highlight=washing+yeast

Thanks. Maybe I should search this thing a few times over when I have a question, huh?

To go along with the thread Scott mentioned, here's a good read: BT - Yeast Culturing Practices

Washing yeast isn't exactly what you're looking for, though. The only way to get you own strain is to let wild yeasts into your brews and when you get something usable start the washing/cluturing cycle. The toughest part of yeast culturing is keeping the strain you've found pure.

Many microbreweries have their own strains, Roque calls theirs Pacman. They maintain the culture line themselves, but also pay a yeast lab to maintain a culture of Pacman. Everybody has infection problems at some point and it's good to have a backup.

david_42 said:

Many microbreweries have their own strains, Roque calls theirs Pacman.

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Has anybody successfully snagged Pacman from a bottle of Rogue? Any particular Rogue better than the other for having some yeast left in it?

while lookinf for sources of yeast from commercial beers i came across a somewhat informative website, although i think some of the info on it was wrong, that said they had re-cultured pac-man yeast. I bought a bottle of the hazelnut brown from rogue last night to check it out and didn't see a lick of yeast in it. so...who knows, you just gotta try it i guess. i also think one way of 'making' your own yeast is giving it different sorts of food to thrive on. tinkering witrh yeast like that is extremely hard to get any sort of predictable result though. why not try combing yeast strains to come up with unique flavors, like british ale with burton ale or something like that.

Reviving this thread from the dead...
I'm drinking a bottle of Rogue Brutal Bitter as I type, and it has a pretty nice yeast sediment at the bottom of the bottle. Has anyone re-cultured a Rogue yeast and reused it in a recipe? I read that there was a rumor that their PacMan strain was similar/identical to Wyeast's 1272 American Ale II (I'm not sure how valid this is).
I'm planning on brewing up an English Bitter and bought a series of singles at the store to sample a spectrum of the style...the Brutal Bitter is definitely more of an IPA; but I guess the style has a lot of similarities (bitter vs. ESB vs. pale ale vs. IPA) along a spectrum of hops.
I haven't tried to re-culture yeast from a commerical brew yet. But it seems like a good project... We'll see!

Marc.

A lot of breweries filter then bottle with a diffrent yest strain. It ensures nobody gets their strain and produces something too close to their own.

D*Bo said:

A lot of breweries filter then bottle with a diffrent yest strain. It ensures nobody gets their strain and produces something too close to their own.

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Is Rogue one of those? I have heard that some breweries do this, but I was hoping that someone could relay direct experience instead of just speculation. Has anyone put together, or come across, a list of re-culture friendly brews? Thanks for the help.

Marc.

mbreen01 said:

Has anyone put together, or come across, a list of re-culture friendly brews?

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http://www.nada.kth.se/~alun/Beer/Bottle-Yeasts/