Homebrew4Scott
Active Member
I have seen a few threads where folks have harvested yeast from a bottle of beer. Could someone explain how this could be best accomplished?
Thanks
Thanks
Yeah, it involves being very careful with sanitation and stepping up the size of the starter. Google it but give yourself a week to build it up to a sufficient size. I did it with a bells two hearted ale and could barley see the yeast I started with.
caber2615 said:Just curious, how long did this take to kick off? I have dregs from six bottles of bell THA in a starter right now, been about 48 hour and no signs of activity...
caber2615 said:Just curious, how long did this take to kick off? I have dregs from six bottles of bell THA in a starter right now, been about 48 hour and no signs of activity...
What was your OG of your starter? It needs to be stepped up slowly.
Is it on a stir plate?
I have seen a few threads where folks have harvested yeast from a bottle of beer. Could someone explain how this could be best accomplished?
Thanks
I'd like to brew an Amber Ale much like Bell's Amber Ale. I think I've found a few recipes that might work.
I've read the section from Palmer's about this process, but I still have a few questions:
1. Someone suggested using the yeast from 6 bottles, though Palmer suggests harvesting from 2 or 3 bottles. I guess, if I can't drink enough beers in one sitting, I'll need to "step up".
2. Please explain the "stepping up" process. I think I know what it is. Is it simply decanting the liquid from the current starter, re-suspending the sludge, then pouring this starter into another 2 cups of starter wort as was done in the initial step? Then this process is repeated a few times?
3. Does anyone know if Bells bottle conditions with the same yeast that's used for fermentation? I've read that some brewers use a different yeast for bottle conditioning.
Edited: I continued to search a bit and found the following link referenced in another thread about yeast starters:
http://billybrew.com/stepping-up-a-yeast-starter
The stepping up chart referenced in the above link uses known starting points. IOW, you sort of know how many cells you're starting with when you prepare a starter from commercially prepared yeast. It also mentions that you don't continue to get doubling with subsequent steps. I imagine that is due to a quart of wort only being able to sustain a certain number of cells (overpopulation issue).
I'm guessing that no one knows how many cells are in a bottle of commercially prepared craft beer, so . . .
Question #4. how do you know if you have enough yeast cells to pitch if you're preparing the starter by harvesting from the commercial beer bottles? From how many bottles do you harvest, and how many step-ups do you undertake?
Thanks,
Keith
In short you need to start slow and small to grow the yeast without stress. When I've done this my first step is a very small 100ml starter which is 10g of DME, then p to 250ml starter and so on and it has proven successful. I will usually stop at 1L and store the yeast at that point for future use.
I guess I'm going to have to purchase the "book" about Yeast.
1. using sanitary technique, pour the yeast from a few bottles of craft beer (Bell's Amber Ale in this example) into this small starter consisting of 10g of DME dilluted to 100 ml water.
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