Commercial Beer Yeast Harvest List

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I used the Unibroue bottle strain for my latest Belgian Strong and its fermented out quite nice (1.084 to 1.010). The beer is still far from ready, but the sample taste I took was quite nice. It definitely had that unique unibroue flavour in it.

Just my 2 cents but considering it had the Unibroue flavour characteristics, I would think that the bottle strain may be similar if not the same as the actual yeast used in their primary fermentation.
 
I brewed a pumpkin wheat with Harpoon UFO Hefeweizen harvested yeast. The beer started @ 1.053 and finished at 1.009 and is as clear as can be. It doesn't have the look or flavor of a Hefe. It doesn't taste too bad so far but it just isn't to style.
 
imtrashed said:
Aren't all of the Allegash beers bottle-conditioned with the original fermenting yeast?

Yeah, that's true. However, I chose the white because it is the lowest abv, therefore less stressed yeast from fermentation.
 
You can add OMalley's beer from Weston Mo. They make a Drop Kick Ale, a Cream Ale, a Ruddy Wheat, and others. I talked to the brewer and he said their house yeast is American Ale Yeast 1056.
 
PagodaBrewingCo said:
I'm pretty sure Unibroue has one specific strain of yeast they use for carbonation though. Could be wrong but they seem to be the same.

I've harvested the yeast from Driftwood's Farmhand Ale, the Unibroue offerings, and the dregs from Cantillon. Won't really know how well that least one worked for a while.

+1 on different bottling strain for Unibroue based on my research, too. I've purchased the Wyeast Private Collection Belgian Canadian when it comes out. It is the Unibroue strain. They didn't release it this year. I wrote Wyeast and they told me they were thinking about releasing it in 2012.
 
does anyone know what yeast they use in the bottle conditioned WESTMALLE TRIPEL.is the yeast in the bottle the same that is used for the primary fermentation?
 
My understanding is the White Labs WLP530 is the Westmalle yeast.

I've used this yeast a lot over the past few years and agree that it's either the same or ultra close. A few Triples I made could pass for Westamalle.
 
Harvested viable yeast from Rogue Brewery's Sig's Northwestern Ale. Used it in my weekends brew and its fermenting like a champ!
 
Great Divide's Colette has yeast that you can harvest. Apparently they use a blend of 4 strains, but whichever one that took off in my starter made a pretty good saison. May be worthwhile trying to get a separate strain of each going on a streak plate or something.
 
I brewed a pumpkin wheat with Harpoon UFO Hefeweizen harvested yeast. The beer started @ 1.053 and finished at 1.009 and is as clear as can be. It doesn't have the look or flavor of a Hefe. It doesn't taste too bad so far but it just isn't to style.

I bet Harpoon's Hefeweizen is like Widmer, Shiner, etc. where it is a neutral wheat strain (like an American wheat strain) rather than a German weizen strain that throws banana and clove.
 
I bet Harpoon's Hefeweizen is like Widmer, Shiner, etc. where it is a neutral wheat strain (like an American wheat strain) rather than a German weizen strain that throws banana and clove.

IIRC you're dead on. they mentioned something along those lines when I was at the brewery.
 
I'll second the Ommegang confirmation. I got the strain from a bottle of Rare Vos. It makes great beer.

There is a lot of conflicting information out there about the Unibroue strain/strains. I just did a post on this a few days back that includes a few links: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/la-fin-du-monde-clone-955/index3.html

Not trying to contradict anyone's claims, as there are a good number of possible explanations. I'll update on my progress here, since more people who might be interested will see it here rather than in the other thread.

I put the dregs from a bottle of La Fin du Monde on a malt agar plate. This method has never failed me. Several days and zero growth on the plate. I usually have a thick patch by now. I'll give it a few more days. Hard to believe that every cell could be dead....

So I can't confirm or deny anything about the Unibroue strain/strains yet. But I will get to the bottom of it.
 
Rogue amber ale is good to go, as is their chatoe black lager (an oktoberfest strain of some kind according to their website)

Also, anything from Boulevard Brewing Co in their Smokestack Series is a no-go. They filter out the primary strain and bottle condition with a champagne yeast.
 
Also, anything from Boulevard Brewing Co in their Smokestack Series is a no-go. They filter out the primary strain and bottle condition with a champagne yeast.

And you just saved me half an hour and a few oz of DME. I was about to try to culture from Tank 7. Kinda sucks though, that's probably one of my favorite saisons.
 
I bet Harpoon's Hefeweizen is like Widmer, Shiner, etc. where it is a neutral wheat strain (like an American wheat strain) rather than a German weizen strain that throws banana and clove.

Thanks for the info! I bottled this a bit ago and I'm almost ready to taste a tester bottle.
 
Instead of having 'confirmed' and 'unconfirmed', maybe you should list the # of confirmed cases.

I started out researching everything that was posted but that really is a lot of work. I am probably just going to put up what is posted and if lots of people complain then i will take an item off of the list. Keeping track of the number of confirmed accounts is a lot of work. :drunk:
 
Confirmation direct from Allagash that you can not harvest their primary yeast from their Tripel, but you can from their White, and it's the same yeast...

It is true. This yeast in our Tripel bottles is our bottling yeast, which is a different strian from our primary yeast. The yeast in our White 12oz bottles is our primary yeast, and the one we use for the primary of the Tripel. I know of quite a few people to have success growing it up. Of course, the fresher the beer, the better.

Good luck!
 
Great thread. I am just getting into harvesting yeast and this list is very good. a great reference source.

Anyone try harvesting Pranqster? Seems to be a lot of yeast in the bottles.
 
I have a New Glarus spotted cow going right now. Not sure if it is the primary or bottling strain yet. Starter started within about for hours of adding the wort to the bottle. I will update with how this one turns out.
 
You are correct. My original statement on that was off and It must have been a drinking night because I have no Idea where that info came from... Well one Idea but other stuff comes out of it too.:tank:
 
I've had success harvesting microorganisms from dregs of 't Gaverhopke Extra, De Dolle Oerbier, Jolly Pumpkin Oro De Calabaza, Brasserie Ellezelloise Saison, de Zenne Brouwerij La Taras Boulba, and Valeir Divers.
 
I've done two batches now from the dregs of a DFH squall. Workhorse yeast. First batch went from 1.056 to 1.004, second went from 1.050 to 1.004. Seemed to ferment pretty clean and bring the hops out front.
 
I called myself reading through the list so my apologies if I missed any obvious ones but are there any commercial lagers out there that bottle carb and can be cultured? I've never tried a lager but I watched my storeroom and it stayed between 50-58 last winter so I was thinking of giving one a try.
 
I can confirm Anheiser busch shock top, I've got activity in my starter but used only the end of one beer so its lagging bad, but I can see small bubbles in my glass
 
I am trying to harvest the yeast from a bottle of Norwegian Wood Ale from Haandbryggeriet. There was sediment in the bottom, though I am starting to wonder if it was yeast or not...
 
Bradinator said:
I am trying to harvest the yeast from a bottle of Norwegian Wood Ale from Haandbryggeriet. There was sediment in the bottom, though I am starting to wonder if it was yeast or not...

It takes some time, that bottle may have been on the shelf for a while so that yeast is pretty weak. Its gotta reproduce a **** ton to become real noticable
 
It takes some time, that bottle may have been on the shelf for a while so that yeast is pretty weak. Its gotta reproduce a **** ton to become real noticable

I may step it up again with a bottle of malta this weekend to try to get a more noticeable amount of yeast.
 
Yeah I put part of one beer in a starter and its taking forever but I do see little bubbles rising and if I shake it my airlock bubbles, its just taking a while lol
 
If the bottle is old beware that the yeast remaining may be pretty stressed and you may be selecting for yeast with mutations that are not going to be beneficial for brewing. My first rescued yeast was from a Stone IPA that had sat around quite a while in the warm and I seem to have grown up something that produced a lot of off flavors. I also just heard second hand that Stone uses a different bottling yeast. Not sure if that is the case but it is worth considering the possibility.
 
Looks like my attempt to harvest from a 750 of Ommegang is going well, I inoculated 250ml of 1.030 starter wort with the last inch in the bottle and put that on my stir plate for 4 days and saw only a little action (but did see some). Then pitched that into one liter of 1.040 starter wort and in 48 hours it has (as you can see) a nice thick krausen and smells like it should! I'm going to cold crash it when the krausen falls and brew a BPA and harvest from that and wash the cake.

starter.jpg
 

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