Pacman problems

So after reading about a dozen posts on this forum on the various experiences people have had harvesting Pacman yeast from a bomber of Rogue, I decided to try my hand at it. I followed all the directions in the video that's been floating around here, making a sanitized vessel, allowing an inch of dregs from the bottle to warm to room temp, etc. I tossed the sediment from two bottles into some extra light wort, and... nothing. After 3 days there was a millimeter thick line of dark brown sediment on the bottom of the vessel.

A couple weeks later, I tried again, this time starting really small and stepping up. I used a 1:1 malta goya:water solution (sterilized) and went from 200 ml to 400 to 800 after about 30 hours each time. What I am seeing now is once again that same very dark sediment. There is more sediment each time I step up, but I am not sure if that is from the malta goya or if it is the yeast multiplying. It doesn't cake or hang together, it just sits at the bottom of the vessel.

There is no discernible activity in the vessel; no bubbles, carbonation, etc. There is a thick foam that forms when I shake to aerate, but I don't think it's krausen.

So, what am I doing wrong? Why can't I harvest some Pacman? What can I do that's a tried and true method?

For the record, the beers I used were: Brutal Bitter, Choc Stout, Mocha Porter, Brutal IPA.

I tried to culture some yeast from a bottle and was only confident when I plated it on agar and streaked it out to see and individual colony and that there were no nasties growing on the plate.

I grew a slant or two from a few clean looking single colonies.

When I tried doing the dump and swirl method I did not really trust that the process had worked cleanly and was functioning properly. I like to see something of the process going on to know it is happening.

They say to use the low gravity beers to get the less stressed yeast.

Clem

Jtc2811 said:

So after reading about a dozen posts on this forum on the various experiences people have had harvesting Pacman yeast from a bomber of Rogue, I decided to try my hand at it. I followed all the directions in the video that's been floating around here, making a sanitized vessel, allowing an inch of dregs from the bottle to warm to room temp, etc. I tossed the sediment from two bottles into some extra light wort, and... nothing. After 3 days there was a millimeter thick line of dark brown sediment on the bottom of the vessel.

A couple weeks later, I tried again, this time starting really small and stepping up. I used a 1:1 malta goya:water solution (sterilized) and went from 200 ml to 400 to 800 after about 30 hours each time. What I am seeing now is once again that same very dark sediment. There is more sediment each time I step up, but I am not sure if that is from the malta goya or if it is the yeast multiplying. It doesn't cake or hang together, it just sits at the bottom of the vessel.

There is no discernible activity in the vessel; no bubbles, carbonation, etc. There is a thick foam that forms when I shake to aerate, but I don't think it's krausen.

So, what am I doing wrong? Why can't I harvest some Pacman? What can I do that's a tried and true method?

For the record, the beers I used were: Brutal Bitter, Choc Stout, Mocha Porter, Brutal IPA.

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This is an interesting post from the brewer at Coopers
http://www.coopers.com.au/the-brewers-guild/talk-brewing?g=posts&t=1876

I do not know about using malta goya as I only use DME at a ratio of 10gms / 100ml water. Perhaps the malta goya is causing the very dark sediment? I have never had a problem culturing yeast from bottle conditioned beers. I start with 150ml of wort at 1.040 SG in my little erlenmeyer flask and add the dregs of a 375ml bottle. I put it on my stir plate and keep the temperature of the flask around 21°C. After about 24 hours I generally see the wort becoming increasingly milky coloured. I then know it is all go.

I've had succes with cultivating from a single bottle of DGA. It just just took a lot of patience and many decanted and restarted starters.

Sounds like you're throwing out the yeast, that's the sediment you're seeing at the bottom of the vessel.

You're ignoring the end result while you're looking for "signs" that often don't occur in starters.

Activity in a starter really only means one thing and one thing only.

It doesn't matter one blip in your fermenter or your starter flask if the airlock bubbles or not (if you are using an airlock and not tinfoil if you are using tinfoil, you aren't getting bubbling anyway,) or if you see a krauzen. In fact starter fermentation are some of the fastest or slowest but most importantly, the most boring fermentations out there. Usually it's done withing a few hours of yeast pitch...usually overnight when we are sleeping, and the starter looks like nothing ever happened...except for the little band at the bottom. Or it can take awhile...but either way there's often no "activity" whatsoever....

I usually run my stirplate for the first 24 hours, then shut it down, if you are spinning your starter it is really hard to get a krausen to form anyway, since it's all spinning, and there's often a head of foam on it from the movement.


All that really matters is that band o yeast at the bottom.




This is a chilled sample so it's flocculated, but even with an unchilled sample you should see a band of yeast at the bottom. Here's an unchilled version



Same thing, a band.

As it is I've only ever seen two or three krausens actually on my starter (one blew off a bunch of krausen and knocked the tinfoil off the flask,) and the evidence of one on the flask at the "waterline" once. But I've never not had a starter take off.

Look for the yeast at the bottom, don't worry what it looks like on top.

If you have yeast on the bottom....that's all you really need.

If it looks anything like that, your are ready to either feed it again, or use it.

There's nothing IN malta goya that would be produce sediment. It's in essesnce soda pop. When you pour coke into a glass do you have sediment in the bottom of the glass?

The only thing that is "sedimenting" on the bottom of the vessel is more than likely yeast.

Once you get that, start feeding it incrementally and see what you get.

So, we are on day three of this attempt; I have started to get some CO2 buildup when I leave the vessel sealed for about an hour, which seems like it should be great! What I have been getting in terms of scent, though, is less so. The gas released now smells pretty sour, very much like a lambic, so I am thinking wild yeast have finally gotten their claws in the wort. I will keep the starter going, though, to see if I can build a colony. If I can, I can test it on a batch of beer and see what happens. Thanks for the advice, guys!

Also, the sediment at the bottom looks nothing like those pictures - it is almost as black as the malta goya, and does not clump.

Throw in some photos of the starter, I just started a slant growth of some WLP380 last night I will up load some photos as it grows so you can compare.

Clem

Jtc2811 said:

So, we are on day three of this attempt; I have started to get some CO2 buildup when I leave the vessel sealed for about an hour, which seems like it should be great! What I have been getting in terms of scent, though, is less so. The gas released now smells pretty sour, very much like a lambic, so I am thinking wild yeast have finally gotten their claws in the wort. I will keep the starter going, though, to see if I can build a colony. If I can, I can test it on a batch of beer and see what happens. Thanks for the advice, guys!

Also, the sediment at the bottom looks nothing like those pictures - it is almost as black as the malta goya, and does not clump.

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The beer on top of a starter often smells sour, since there are no hops added as a preservative. Especially in the summer it will turn quickly. But it doesn't mean anyhting, nor does it affect the starter itself. Especially if you decant it off.

Some folks DO add a hop pellet or 2 during the boil to keep the starter beer from souring.

Clementine said:

I tried to culture some yeast from a bottle and was only confident when I plated it on agar and streaked it out to see and individual colony and that there were no nasties growing on the plate.

I grew a slant or two from a few clean looking single colonies.

When I tried doing the dump and swirl method I did not really trust that the process had worked cleanly and was functioning properly. I like to see something of the process going on to know it is happening.

They say to use the low gravity beers to get the less stressed yeast.

Clem

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Did you just put the inoculation needle down in the bottle and then streak the plate with it?

I made a loop from some nichrome wire wound on a pencil (ghetto I know) i had for foam cutting. I made it long enough to get down into the 22oz bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale I was using as a test on the process aka playing. Yes i know it is WLP001/1056, at the time I did not know that and it was sort of good as I was also plating some WLP001 at the same time and when it turned out the same it confirmed my process. Anyway I seem to have got side tracked.

So yes ran it around the bottom of bottle of the slurry, I left a little less than the 1/4" as it wanted the slurry thick to stick to the loop. I denatured alcohol and then flamed it to kill anything on the lip that might come in contact with the loop and also just for procedure, I'm religious about the sanitation procedures. Plated it like recommended there are dozens of places on the internet about this procedure you basically stretch it out by streaking all over the plate to get a single cell isolated from the other that will grow into a single colony. I should have taken a photo of the plate when finished, but once again there are plenty on the internet

Once it had incubated for 48hrs I took the single colony, it was a bit moist as my agar had some condensation on it, so the colony go a bit mushed and spread that on a slant. And it grew into a good slant.

Clem

So I figured I should write an ending to this post. After much effort and time, the attempt to wrangle Pacman was a failure. I washed the slurry from the starter I made 3 or 4 times, and was left with a black substance. I have no idea what it was, but it was definitely not the yeast I wanted. I ended up getting a smack pack of it from Brewmaster's warehouse (great customer service and speed, btw). I made a starter with that, and ended up with the familiar off-white yeast at the bottom. So it was a fun experiment, and I will try again, but not for a while.

Jtc2811 said:

So I figured I should write an ending to this post. After much effort and time, the attempt to wrangle Pacman was a failure. I washed the slurry from the starter I made 3 or 4 times, and was left with a black substance. I have no idea what it was, but it was definitely not the yeast I wanted. I ended up getting a smack pack of it from Brewmaster's warehouse (great customer service and speed, btw). I made a starter with that, and ended up with the familiar off-white yeast at the bottom. So it was a fun experiment, and I will try again, but not for a while.

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What beer did you pull the yeast from?

The brutal IPA and the Mocha Porter