Harvesting Rogue Pacman from bottle - what I learned

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I don't know about all that, but mine has been fermenting a 1.045 batch of beer for over a week and I am barely below 1.020 at this point. I am sure not impressed.


UPDATE/EDIT **** Well, I take that back. I measured 1.019 this morning, day 9. I just measured now and I got 1.011. I was so suprised I measured with two hydrometers at the same time. It's legit! Looks like it is going to finish below 1.010. I am happy with that. I underpitched so it just took a while. ******
Just checked my IPA after 7 days @ ~60 degrees and its down to 1.020. SG was 1.063. Surely its not done! I am gonna move it to warm it up a bit for another week or so...hmmmm.
 
Just checked my IPA after 7 days @ ~60 degrees and its down to 1.020. SG was 1.063. Surely its not done! I am gonna move it to warm it up a bit for another week or so...hmmmm.

yep, warm that hog up.......a nice little trick would also be to add 8 0z corn sugar and warm it....

I had a recent pacman brew stall at 1.020....I warmed it up to 68 and threw in 8 oz sugar. 1.008 is the final gravity now.

I have my 1.090 double IPA sitting at 62 degrees right now and the ferment is sure not super fast by any means, heck there is barely even krausen. My thinking is that this yeast is much slower at cold temps.
 
I actually did exactly that. Although I only added 2.5 oz corn sugar and gave it a bunch of swirls. Its sitting at 66-68 degrees. Looked at it this morning and its got another krausen. Hopefully this does the trick.
 
I harvested some Pacman yeast this weekend and figured I would share my experience. I started with 3 22oz. bombers:

-Dead Guy Ale - didn't say Pacman anywhere on the bottle, though it did have a bit of yeast in the bottom of the bottle.
-Brutal bitter - did indeed say Pacman yeast in the ingredients on the bottle, had tons of yeast at the bottom.
-Shakespeare Stout - did indeed say Pacman yeast in the ingredients on the bottle, had tons of yeast at the bottom.

Basically I just decanted the beer off and drank it, poured a little sterilized water in the bottom of each bottle, swirled, then poured the contents of all 3 into the bottom of a clean/sterile White Labs vial and threw it in the fridge. A day later there's about a half inch of slurry in the bottom of the vial. Whenever I feel like brewing with it I'll step it up into a starter.

Just wanted to update with with how this method worked out... The yeast sat in my fridge for about 3 weeks and then I decided to brew with it. I made a starter of 1 qt. 1.040 wort (it was extra runnings from a previous brew day that I had frozen) - there was about a solid teaspoon of yeast in the vial.

I did the "stir whenever I walk by" method of aeration and let the initial starter go for about 24 hours. By then there was a solid pastey ring of yeast around the bottom of the bottle. I then added another quart of 1.040 wort and swirled it up again (was lazy and didn't decant). 24 hours later there was a ton of yeast at the bottom.

I brewed a Rogue Shakespeare Stout clone and dumped the entire starter right in - it was bubbling away in about 6 hours and had a very strong fermentation. After about 3 days at 67* it appeared to have completed most of the fermentation. Now it's just sitting in primary for another 2 weeks.
 
Heya, I believe I was partially successful in harvesting pacman from a bomber of brutal bitter but I need some feedback/reassurance.

I poured some of my starter off for a taste and it is fairly sour. I am afraid I got some unwanted bugs in there. Actually tastes good, but distinctly sour perhaps with some sort of fruity smell to it, maybe kinda citrus. I did make my starter out of wheat DME by accident, but I don't think that would account for the taste.

Would you guys save or pitch this starter or do you figure I'd end up with a lambic?
 
Oh... found a fruit fly in my glass of starter wort I tasted. Not sure if it was in there when I poured or not but that might be a contributor to the sour taste...
 
If the fruit fly got into your starter, you're going to want to toss it and start over. Fruit flies carry around huge colones of acetobacter. No sense risking an infection in your beer.
 
Actually after posting that I realized the fly was still alive. I'm guessing it wasn't in the starter, just dove in the glass I poured.
 
Did you use hops in your starter? If not, it will taste funny. I've had starters that I swore smelled wrong but they were fine. I think I was just getting a big whiff of CO2.
 
I usually sample my starter hooch. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's absolutely awful. Strange flavors are often present. As long as your sanitation was good and if you're sure that fly didn't touch the starter itself, you're likely good to go.
 
anyone harvest rogue yeast from the Mocha Porter? I bought a six pack the other day and theres a lot of sediment in each bottle! :)
 
Just an update, I have brewed 14 batches of beer from the yeast cultured from a single bomber of stout and I am only on my second generation of washed yeast. I have no reason to beleive that I cannot get 50+ batches out of all my washed samples.
 
I'm on my second attempt of harvesting Pacman (this time from Shakespeare Stout). If it doesn't work this time would anyone from Michigan be interested in selling me a slant? I have Pacman fever.
 
ok so i was gonna try to harvest some yeast from the bottom of 1 or 2 bottles of brutal bitter but is does not say pacman on the label. Does that mean its not the same? would i be better off buying 2 or 3 packs of it?

Brutal definitly is pacman and it is not filtered so it should work if there is some sediment(yeast) on the bottom.
 
anyone harvest rogue yeast from the Mocha Porter? I bought a six pack the other day and theres a lot of sediment in each bottle! :)
Mocha should work if there is yeast on the bottom. Not a filtered beer. It all depends on how fresh the beer is. Buy it from a place that keeps their beer cold and goes through it pretty quickly.
 
yep, warm that hog up.......a nice little trick would also be to add 8 0z corn sugar and warm it....

I had a recent pacman brew stall at 1.020....I warmed it up to 68 and threw in 8 oz sugar. 1.008 is the final gravity now.

I have my 1.090 double IPA sitting at 62 degrees right now and the ferment is sure not super fast by any means, heck there is barely even krausen. My thinking is that this yeast is much slower at cold temps.

62 degrees is a good temp for pacman 60 is optimal. but you definatly want a diacetyl rest at about 68-70 degrees for a couple days to finish up fermentation
 
I am just finishing up a fermentation from a 3rd generation of washed pacman that I cultured. The beer tastes fine and finished perfectly, but the yeast is starting to lose it's ability to floculate on it's own. I think for the first time I am going to have to cold crash pacman before kegging and start a new colony out of a bottle of stout! No big deal
 
yup, cultured shakespeare stout in the bottle, stepped up to a 2 qt starter, and it went INSANE when I pitched it into my stone ruination clone (thanks yooperbrew for the recipe, you are my hero). When I bottle, I will wash the yeast, and keep some in my fridge for future brews.
 
im in the process of harvesting some pacman from 1 22oz oatmeal stout so far so good. Here is my plan of atack.
1. 4 oz (1.025 OG) of sterile wort for 24 hrs
2. another 4 oz of sterile wort (1.025).
3. 16 oz of sterile wort (1.040) in a sanitized 2L flask with stir bar
4. 2L sanitized wort (1.040) in 2L flask with stir wort

I do have a few questions though. Is using a sanitized and not sterilized flask and sanitized wort in step 4 a problem? I would like to make some frozen yeast vials from the final 2L starter but I am worried the sanitized equipment and wort will cause a problem on future step ups
 
i think my harvesting didnt go so well. The yeast hit the OG on the brew but the yeast never quite dropped out of suspension and the flavor wasnt as clean as I was wanting brewed down in its lower range
 
I am attempting to wash yeast for the first time soon. I found this thread and figured this would be something I could attempt to do before my batches are finished fermenting out.

If I wanted to get several small mason jars of Rogue yeast, can I just start with one or two bombers, make a small starter, then place that starter in the fridge, make a larger starter and continue to grow the Pacman yeast until I have as many jars of yeast as I'd like?
 
Considering the beers would come from the fridge and would be cold what steps do you take before pitching it onto a starter to make sure the yeast are active and/or don't go into shock?
 
To answer your first question in Post #63, you can do that, but why not make a beer with it to get the same amount of yeast?

To answer your second question in Post #64, just let the yeast come up to room temp and decant the spent wort before adding your starter wort to the yeast.
 
So pretty much all I need to do is pour myself 3/4 of a Rogue bomber and pour the last 1/4 into a 1 liter (maybe 1.5 liter) starter and 24 hours later I'll have enough healthy yeast for a 5.5 gallon batch?

Side note: I don't own a stir plate but always make my starters on Friday night or Saturday so that I can shake them as frequently as possible during the weekend and obviously brew as well.
 
It will likely take much longer than 24 hours to get up to enough yeast for a 5.5 gallon batch. If my pacman harvest is even remotely typical, it will take you closer to 5 days of stepping up the starter from a few ml up to the normal 1000 ml size.
 
The reason you could not harvest the Pacman Yeast is because you did not have the right tool for the job. I give you the Ultimate Pacman Tool.

2117-ultimate-pacman-tool.jpg


Put that guy to work and he will eat it all up and give it to you
 
So pretty much all I need to do is pour myself 3/4 of a Rogue bomber and pour the last 1/4 into a 1 liter (maybe 1.5 liter) starter and 24 hours later I'll have enough healthy yeast for a 5.5 gallon batch?

Side note: I don't own a stir plate but always make my starters on Friday night or Saturday so that I can shake them as frequently as possible during the weekend and obviously brew as well.

Sorry, I thought you were going to step up until you grow enough for a full batch and then split it into the mason jars without brewing a beer with it.
 
do any considerations needs to be made as far as which style of beer you are harvesting from an which style of beer you intend to brew with?

will starting with such a small culture avoid any carry over flavor concerns?

will eventually brew a rye IPA with the harvested culture
 
I have harvested from Brutal IPA and Shakespear Stout, both succesfully. Another good piece of advice is not to overwhelm the yeast with a quart of starter. I like to put my dredges, depending on how many I have, in 8-16 oz of 1.035 starter wort with a touch of nutrient just to get the party started. I also keep it just a little warmer then normal, like 70 degrees to encourage activity.
 
Fyi, I was able to haverst some pacman from 2 12oz dead guy bottles, took about 1.5 weeks, but after using about 1.040og of 400mL, saw nothing of airlock activity, so I stepped it up to 650mL and airlock is bubbling nicely.
 
I had success harvesting Pacman from two Rogue Mocha Porter bombers. I let them sit out on the counter for a couple of days, undisturbed, then carefully poured them, leaving an inch in the bottle.

Then, I recapped them and put them in the fridge for a week.

After a week, I uncapped them, swirled vigorously, then poured those dregs into DME starter wort in a sanitized pint mason jar. I let that go for two days. Not much activity. Then, I swirled this up and stepped it up to a quart mason jar of DME starter. Now, activity started showing. I stepped it up again to 2 2-quart mason jars. So, I treated it like a starter, I guess.

Once done, I split up the yeast into four 1-pint mason jars and put them in the fridge to go to sleep for a few weeks.

I pulled out two 1-pint mason jars and made a big starter out of these for my last brew. The started ended up being half-gallon after step up. I didn't use a stir plate, just the shake-bottle method every time I thought about it.

It turned out great so far. When I pitched it I got vigorous fermentation and dropped my wort from 1.064 to 1.015 in ten days. Kept the temp around 63 degrees. Would have preferred 60, but just can't get it that low with my set up at the moment. On day 8, the temp went up to 70 due to a weather change and stayed there for two days. That was not intentional, but may have been good for the brew (diacetyl rest?) not sure.

Either way, I love harvesting this yeast and using it!
 

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