Sanitary cultivation of yeast from the bottle

So I just attempted to do a stepped yeast starter cultivated from Heady Topper dregs. I collected the dregs from 5 or so cans and kept them in the bottom of the first can. I would pour my beer into a glass, then the last bit of the beer into the can, cover it with tin foil, and left it in the refrigerator. After about 2 weeks I had enough dregs and began the starter. Everything seemed to be going well until I took a sniff after about a day and was immediately aware of a sour acrid smell. I tried a small sample and sure enough it was infected with something wild. I dumped it out, but I'm trying to figure out the best way to make a starter with my remaining 4 pack. I imagine that I must have picked up the infection when I transfered the dregs from one can to the other along with the extended stay in the refrigerator. Would it be best to start a very weak starter with a single can and add to the starter with the dregs of more cans as I drink them? I suppose I should have sprayed the tops of the cans with starsan before pouring the beer, I will do this next time. Any other suggestions? Thanks!

Hello.... Hello.... Hellooo... Is there anybody in there?.. Just nod if you can hear me... Is there anyone at all?

Never done this, but the one thing that came to mind is the one you already suggested - sanitizing the cans before opening. Good luck!

Whenever I do a step starter I take a lighter to the lip of the bottles prior to pouring them into a glass and immediately recap them. I'll also flame the lip of the bottle prior to pitching into starter wort.

I'd suppose with a can you'd do the same thing, and make sure to sanitize the foil as well. If you have any ball jars it'd be worth making smaller step starters first...drink 2 cans of HT and pitch the dregs into a 1/2 cup or so starter that night instead of keeping them around for a week or two.

Just build it up from a single can. The more you transfer, wait, expose to elements, etc, the more risk involved. Prepare a malt starter and simply pot the dregs into that - in a sanitary container like a glass jar with lid, of course. Once that fermented out, do it again and again until you have a decent amount of slurry. A half cup our more will likely be enough for your version of the beer.

I will second SSLocal's advice: I needed a Wyeast 1728 starter, and, like a noob, had tossed the entire primary batch of yeast from an earlier LME batch(no trub, pure yeast!!!). Damn! That beer was started Oct '12, aged till June 22, '13. Took a chance: saved the small amt. of carbonating yeast from a single bottle, and stepped it up a coupla three times. The resulting beer is ready to be bottled, and smells good.

Thanks for the advice everybody. Yesterday I scrubbed and boiled my 2L flask to make sure nothing else was living in there, I prepared a small amount of 1.040 wort (boiled everything) sanitized then flamed the lip of a Heady Topper can before pouring most of it into a glass and the remainder into the flask. We'll see if I can get the yeast to work its magic this time without anything wild interfering!

So I'm now on my FOURTH ATTEMPT and I seem to still get a slight tart smell from the starter after a day or two... Could this just be how it smells as a starter? or is something wild still getting in... I know its impossible to tell without swab testing it on an agar plate and getting all scientific... but does this sound right to anyone? Heady Topper is NOT a tart beer, and I've made many successful starters on my stirplate before (though no bottle clones), but none of them have smelled like this...

When I harvest, I always streak for isolation. But, sanitation wise, here is what I do:

1) Always work under a flame.

2) I spray/wipe the bottle/can top with 70% alcohol.

3) I flame the alcohol-sprayed top.

4) If I need an opener, I spray it with alcohol and flame it.

5) Once I open the beer, I spray with alcohol again and flame.

6) Once I pour out most of the beer (leaving a little for sediment resuspension), I spray the bottle top/can with alcohol and flame it again.

7) I pour the dregs into a sterile tube.

8) I plate using sterile cell spreaders.

thanks for the tips biobrewer. I'll let the batch finish up on the stir plate, just in case the tart flavor is coming from the starter being a warmly fermented, no hop wort. but otherwise, if it doesn't work out, I'll be getting super anal about sterilizing my cans before adding to yet another starter!

working as cleanly as possible is always smart, working next to an open flame is a good idea. the flame will help keep airborne stuff from landing in/on your cultures. but unfortunately as you pour beer from the can, the beer in the can is going to be replaced with regular old air from the room, and that air can contain dust, bacteria, whatever. so unless you can work in a sterile laminar flow hood you are always running the risk of catching something in the dregs. if you can streak some out on a plate and start cultures from single colonies you will at least have greater confidence that you have minimal or no contamination, but in the mean time, as lots of people successfully culture in the way you are doing, are you sure the culture is acidic/sour? sometimes yeast just smells weird...

dinnerstick said:

working as cleanly as possible is always smart, working next to an open flame is a good idea. the flame will help keep airborne stuff from landing in/on your cultures. but unfortunately as you pour beer from the can, the beer in the can is going to be replaced with regular old air from the room, and that air can contain dust, bacteria, whatever. so unless you can work in a sterile laminar flow hood you are always running the risk of catching something in the dregs. if you can streak some out on a plate and start cultures from single colonies you will at least have greater confidence that you have minimal or no contamination, but in the mean time, as lots of people successfully culture in the way you are doing, are you sure the culture is acidic/sour? sometimes yeast just smells weird...

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So long as you have a flame going for a minute or so prior to opening the beer, and open and pour under the flame, the air space should be practically free of dust, bacteria and the like as a result of the updraft created by the heat of the flame.

I have been doing sterile culture outside of a laminar flow hood for years and not had an issue. So long as you keep a flame, the work space should be largely free of contamination. Though, for my company that is launching at the end of October, The Yeast Bay, I will likely make a small, quality laminar flow hood my first major capital investment. Our guest bedroom has already largely been converted to a lab, so might as well make it official

Cheers, and good luck with the culturing!

Quick update: I'm cautiously optimistic about my starter. I made a small 1 Gal test batch to try out the yeast before doing a full 5 gallon batch, and when I pitched it, it still smelled a little tart and slightly off. After the first day however The yeast has taken off like wild and it still smells normal. When I had an infected batch before I was able to tell very shortly after the yeast got to work. Now however it smells fairly standard, so I'm hoping it was just a funky smelling yeast but a successful cultivation. I'll know for sure shortly and I will post the results as they come in! Thank you everyone for your advice. I was not familiar with the pouring over a flame method. I'll have to use that for future cultivation.

Biobrewer said:

So long as you have a flame going for a minute or so prior to opening the beer, and open and pour under the flame, the air space should be practically free of dust, bacteria and the like as a result of the updraft created by the heat of the flame.

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in practice it's usually fine, i work with sterile cultures often (at work) and mostly just use the flame of a gas burner (even though we have laminar flow hoods down the hall...). indeed the updraft keep things from landing in/on plates and bottles. but still air must be sucked in to replace the liquid that comes out of a bottle, and the flame can't keep that air clean. hence every few weeks i get a contaminated bottle of media. no big deal, i expect it and just make lots of small bottles. ah- anyways just saying. it's good technique but not as good as using clean air. i look forward to your yeast company, do you have a website up yet? (plans to ship to western europe/ sell via brouwland be?)

OP- nice to hear your yeast is looking successful. if you want to go the next step, and you have a pressure cooker to autoclave a few things, you can pour some simple agar plates, streak out your yeast, and then propagate your yeast from a single colony. then you are (nearly) certain you have a pure strain. it definitely requires some extra effort but if you feel like some science geekery it's not too difficult, can be done with just the open flame (you can pour next to it, but over it also works...), some old glass petri dishes, DME, agar, a bit of steel wire for streaking. and once you learn the technique it's dead simple! and if it goes wrong or gets contaminated, you see if right in front of your face, minimal guessing. there are loads of details online

dinnerstick said:

do you have a website up yet?

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sorry- i had clicked on the link at it was broken, clicked again and got there! looks nice, congrats and good luck on the business!

I've had good success flaming openings, starting small (like 200ml of 1.020 wort), and building up the culture progressively with more volume and higher concentrations of sugar (up to 1.040 or so). My latest attempt:

http://www.thepourreport.com/culture-tasting/

dinnerstick said:

in practice it's usually fine, i work with sterile cultures often (at work) and mostly just use the flame of a gas burner (even though we have laminar flow hoods down the hall...). indeed the updraft keep things from landing in/on plates and bottles. but still air must be sucked in to replace the liquid that comes out of a bottle, and the flame can't keep that air clean. hence every few weeks i get a contaminated bottle of media.

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Interesting. I usually clean the space really well, and have a couple of torches running for a few minutes before, and wear a mask while working, and I've never had an issue. That is true that the air sucked in will not be *as* clean as in a laminar flow hood with HEPA filtered air, it's pretty darn clean. I am also a neat freak, as is my wife, and we religiously clean the house. Most labs I've worked in over the last 10 years are... uh... let's just say they could use some work on the cleanliness end.

Cheers dinnerstick! Hopefully we'll have some yeast you're into!