Capturing yeast from bottle conditioned beer

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MattHollingsworth

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Well, did a search on here but couldn't find this topic. Guess too many threads with all the needed keywords.

Anyway, I was just in London for the Great British Beer Festival. While there, I bought some bottle conditioned beers specifically to steal their yeast. I also attended a tutored tasting with bottle conditioned beers that the brewers attended. And I specifically asked all of them if they used the same yeast at bottling, and they all said yes, including the guy from Fullers.

Reading about it online, seems easy. Sounds like I should pour the beer, leave the last couple of ounces, sanitize and flame the lip of the bottle, make a starter and pitch that yeast and treat as I would normally.

I figured might be a good idea to make a slightly weaker starter, maybe aiming at 1.025 or something.

Any extra precautions or info I need about culturing from the bottle?

Incidentally, I brought back 2 bottles of Worthington's White Shield, 1 of Fuller's 1845 and one stout from Hook Norton (as well as 2 Fuller's Vintage Ale, but those are just for aging and drinking).

The Fuller's beer is in the mid 6% abv range. Any worries there? Guess if I give it decent O2 and am using a stirplate and a touch of nutrients, it can do okay.

Thoughts?
 
Thanks. Same procedure as I thought. Nice and easy!

For me it's an easier way to get British yeast. I tend to go to the UK once a year or something and can buy bottles rather than paying expensive Fedex to me for liquid yeast.
 
BTW, for anyone traveling to the UK who wants to buy Worthington White Shield for this very purpose, not every place has it. But the LARGE Sainsbury's stores have it. I found it at the Sainsbury's on Cromwell Road at the crossroad of Collingham Road, nearby Earl's Court in London.

Search for this on Yahoo maps. Linking won't work correctly for me at the moment.

Collingham Place, South Kensington, london
 
I'm struggling with this right now too. I'm trying to culture some yeast from a La Chouffe bottle and I can't really tell if I have yeast growing or whether it's just proteins from the extract boiling. The volumes used are too small to tell whether the stuff has fermented or not too, so who knows whats going on inside my flask.
 
Watch yourself. Many breweries don't use the primary yeast to seed bottle-conditioned product. You could go to an awful lot of trouble for naught.

In fact, I'm positive White Shield uses a lager yeast for bottle-conditioning! :eek:

Good luck, though!

Bob
 
Watch yourself. Many breweries don't use the primary yeast to seed bottle-conditioned product. You could go to an awful lot of trouble for naught.

In fact, I'm positive White Shield uses a lager yeast for bottle-conditioning! :eek:

Good luck, though!

Bob

If you check one of the links I put up, there's a list of who uses what for bottling. White Shield is listed as likely using a bottling yeast but the results the person got from it are listed as good.

How are you *positive* it's lager yeast? Any link to such information? I've read around a bit now and haven't seen that anywhere but I *have* seen a number of people who've said they had good results.

Not trying to argue for argument's sake. But any links would be appreciated as I try to research this. Thanks for any help.

As for Fuller's, I directly asked them myself, in person, and they said they use the same yeast for primary and bottling.

Hook Norton, I don't know.
 
Aha! Found something. So, they use a second yeast at bottling, but sounds like a highly flocculent strain rather than a lager strain.

From here, Roger Protz...

Worthington White Shield

Following primary fermentation, the beer is conditioned in bulk for three weeks and is then bottled with a "sticky" yeast - a different strain to the one used for the first fermentation. The sticky yeast sinks to the bottom of the bottle where it continues to turn the remaining malt sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

And from here, evidently directly from their brewer:

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/...sid=98d2e46281e44dd6973bc79bc1e2bec4&start=30

As far as the yeast is concerned, the yeast you will find in the bottle is a secondary yeast that is put into the beer prior to bottling. It will be more difficult to brew with as it tends to sediment quickly, sometimes before fermentation is complete. This is quite important in a bottle conditioned beer as we want the yeast out of solution when fermentation in bottle is complete, preferably sticking to the bottom of the bottle like glue. Our primary yeast is quite different and is a mixture of two strains.
 
Hey sounds like your on your way.
Personal experience with doing just a few has been to fill the bottle just under halfway up with around 1.030 wort. Shake it up like a crying baby (not nice I know, but it makes the point) a couple of times a day.
Once it is going well I then fill it up just enough to keep it from bursting out with 1.040 wort.
Once that is going well I move out of the original bottle to yeast starter vessels. The only downside to this is that bottle is now a real pain to clean out well for reuse. Being lazy I usually don't unless I really want that bottle.
The good thing is you can chill and decant the wort and taste it to ensure you do not have a bad population. I would recommend doing it at every step up just to not waste time and effort.
Best of luck.
 
Good finds, Matt! Sorry I couldn't cite any support other than "I knowI read that somewhere", but...beer kills brain cells. :D

Most beers that use a second strain for bottle-conditioning use a highly-sedimenting and flavor-neutral strain. There are Belgian breweries which use a lager strain for bottle-conditioning. So there's no reason you can't use such a strain for the primary ferment. I just wouldn't necessarily expect the same yeast-flavor profile as you can get from that brewery's primary yeast. It's a crapshoot.

Bob
 
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