Rogue Chocolate Stout bottled with Pacman?

I bought a bottle of Rogue Chocolate Stout today and I am pretty sure it has a layer of yeast on the bottom of the bottle. Can anyone confirm that this is 'alive' Pacman yeast? Don't want to bother harvesting it if it has been pasteurized/UV treated or if this is a special bottling strain. Missed out on the Pacman VSS offering from Wyeast and I am looking to get my hands on some...

I distinctly remeber someone talking about this but could not find anything...

I just cultured some yeast from a Rogue Shakespeare Stout, at another brewer's suggestion. I am assuming it is Pacman yeast (he claimed it was, and so does this site). It was from an old bottle that sat in my fridge for quite some time, but I figured what the heck.

It took off like a rocket at each wort addition and feremented like mad on the stir plate. It also smelled great, so I assume I have success. Will pitch this week when I figure out what to make.

After reading about being able to harvest pacman yeast from Rogue's brews, I bought some mocha porters and a 22oz Shakespeare Stout. I poured out all but the last 1/2-1 inch in the bottle and pitched it to a 1.040 starter, but nothing grew from any of it. Is there something I'm missing? I did use a large volume that I really didn't need (800ml) but could that really hurt its efforts to multiply? I left it for about 3 days on the stir plate with no real results, only a very small dark layer of what I thought to be hot/cold break. It wasn't the nice light yeasty color. Any suggestions? Thanks!

knowltonm said:

After reading about being able to harvest pacman yeast from Rogue's brews, I bought some mocha porters and a 22oz Shakespeare Stout. I poured out all but the last 1/2-1 inch in the bottle and pitched it to a 1.040 starter, but nothing grew from any of it. Is there something I'm missing? I did use a large volume that I really didn't need (800ml) but could that really hurt its efforts to multiply? I left it for about 3 days on the stir plate with no real results, only a very small dark layer of what I thought to be hot/cold break. It wasn't the nice light yeasty color. Any suggestions? Thanks!

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Well, you could try checking the SG of the liquid. If it's lower than 1.040, it's fermented.

I dunno, do you have and Ghosts left? :fro:

i was surprised the other day when i bought some Shiner Hefewiezen and there was yeast sediment in the bottles.

On Rogue's website it states that they use Pacman for Chocolate Stout and I have heard a few times that they dont use any seperate bottling strain of yeast for bottle conditioning.... so your most likely good. I harvested from two bottles of shakespeare stout because they had the most sediment out of any Rogue beers at the store.

It's in there culture it, I have done it before with great success.

If you buy the bombers it says so right on the labels....The only one I cannot confirm or deny is Dead Guy...I've not seen it on any of the labels...so I don't culture from it, or if I do I mix it with the dregs of another confirmend rogue beer.

But I can confirm that it was in the Chocolate stout when I was harvesting it.

knowltonm said:

I bought some mocha porters and a 22oz Shakespeare Stout. I poured out all but the last 1/2-1 inch in the bottle and pitched it to a 1.040 starter, but nothing grew from any of it. Is there something I'm missing? I did use a large volume that I really didn't need (800ml) but could that really hurt its efforts to multiply? I left it for about 3 days on the stir plate with no real results, only a very small dark layer of what I thought to be hot/cold break. It wasn't the nice light yeasty color. Any suggestions? Thanks!

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Two things I can think of: use the freshest bottle possible and you need to culture it in steps. When I say culture in steps, be sure to gradually increase your wort volume in the starter from something small (say 50 - 100 ml) to a moderate amount (say 500 ml) to your target volume.

Also, that dark layer is probably residue from the stout, not yeast. Don't worry if the culture looks a little darker than normal.

Hope this helps, I emailed Rouge last year with the question "Do you prime any of your beers with a yeast other than the pacman strain?". Here is the reply:

Hi Ryan, we don't but we do use different strains for our lagers such as Kell's. I'll copy our other brewers in our Issaquah Brewhouse and Eugene City Brewery so they can help you out with their awesome beers. I can only speak for the Rogue in Newport beers.

Cheers and thank you for your support!
Stacey Maier

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And here is the further reply from one of the brewers:

Hi Ryan,
For the Menage A Frog I used a Belgium Trappist yeast.

Hutch
Issaquah Brewhouse

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I've made one attempt at innoculating slants from the dregs of a Shakespeare Stout with no success. I guess I'll have to keep drinking more of it until I get it right!

The guy at my LHBS (Cornhusker Beverage, Omaha, NE) says Pacman is in all of the Rogue brews. Try culturing it and see how it does!

Ok, I will be trying this again tomorrow. Damn, I have to drink yet ANOTHER 22oz Shakespeare Stout. Life is so rough. This time I'll use a smaller volume to start and work my way up. Thanks for the input!

An update: I'm about 90 hours in with this now, used about 150mL total in the erlenmeyer at about 1.040. Nothing has really been happening, except yesterday and especially today there are little chunks flying by (it's on the stir plate). All of my yeast starters have been nice turbulent swirls of yeast, not chunks. Can this be from the small amount of yeast that is in there? Thanks.

knowltonm said:

An update: I'm about 90 hours in with this now, used about 150mL total in the erlenmeyer at about 1.040. Nothing has really been happening, except yesterday and especially today there are little chunks flying by (it's on the stir plate). All of my yeast starters have been nice turbulent swirls of yeast, not chunks. Can this be from the small amount of yeast that is in there? Thanks.

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With those smaller volumes of starter wort, fermentation can happen really quickly and you can easily miss it. Your best bet is to inoculate the first starter, let it sit for 8 - 12 hours, then step it up to the next volume. Just before you do, smell the starter to see if it still smells like sweet wort. If you have good yeast activity, it may start to smell more yeasty or bready. Often it is hard to tell at that small volume. If so, wait 12 - 24 hours for the next step to ferment out, and try again. At this volume you might see a small krausen ring in the flask, or other signs of active fermentation. I still prefer to smell (or if you can do it in a sanitary manner) taste the wort for evidence of fermentation. A hydrometer sample would be the best way, but since you shouldn't return the sample to the starter flask, that might represent a big loss of yeast.

Best of luck.

It smells like I think it should after a fermentation, so I think I will step it up to 800mL. I don't think I'm able to put pics up here, but check out 45thparallelbrewing - Pictures
I've never seen yeast behave like this before, but I guess I haven't had too much (4-5 times) experience with starters.

Thanks for the help flyguy, I really appreciate it!

knowltonm said:

An update: I'm about 90 hours in with this now, used about 150mL total in the erlenmeyer at about 1.040. Nothing has really been happening, except yesterday and especially today there are little chunks flying by (it's on the stir plate). All of my yeast starters have been nice turbulent swirls of yeast, not chunks. Can this be from the small amount of yeast that is in there? Thanks.

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Turn off your stirplate... I don't know if it's becasue of the relatively small volume of yeasties, but I didn't have much success while the stirplate was running....but it was after I turned it off, I got krauzen (on some) and yeast in the bottom of the flasks. I think spinning such a small colony of yeast might not be good for them. I run it for a couple hours to aerate then turn it off.

Just as a clarification, Rogue, Newport bottles with Pacman, except for the lagers. Which BTW, John just released the Oktoberfest which is an actual Oktofest beer and used a German lager yeast in it. Very good beer if it finds itself your way.

And for what it's wort, and those that get them and might be interested, the Rogue, Eugene, AKA Eugene City Brewery uses WY1272.

This could be a stoopid question, but...

Is there an advantage to harvesting Pacman from a bottle rather than just buying it? Or is it the challange?

Have you been able to find it? I'd gladly buy some but I was under the impression it was unavailable. Also, harvesting from a bottle is something I haven't done before and wanted to give it a shot. If I knew what I was doing from the start I think I would have done well with it, but I'll do it right next time. Hopefully.

I believe one of my LHBSs carry it.

Whats the big draw to the pacman yeast? A local hbs has a bunch of the Wyeast smack packs of it, I was thinking of grabbing a couple.

Sager Brewing Co. said:

Whats the big draw to the pacman yeast? A local hbs has a bunch of the Wyeast smack packs of it, I was thinking of grabbing a couple.

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I was really wondering the same thing... What is the big deal w/ Packman Yeast???? I want some now, don't get me wrong.. I am just not sure why
JJ

yeah, they have it at mine and they sell it online.
Home Brewing Supplies, Kits from Homebrew Heaven

There are a few bottles of Rogue's Mom's Hefeweizen at my local beer place... Any thoughts on harvesting from that?

Remember patience is a virtue. I made a mini-starter from two bottles of Rogue's Glen Ale and I saw no signs of activity (though some sediment on the bottom) for 5 days. Then, I bumped up the starter with some fresh wort and it took off. Now, I have a batch pale ale in bottles and a slant full of pacman in the fridge.

Natas-- how have I never seen you posting on here? Any other CHB peoples on here?
BTW: I'm the lowly Rogue slave pouring you guys all those firgin beers.