Yeast In a Bottle

I was thinking about doing a Ommegang abbey ale clone and wanting to get the yeast from one of their beers. I thought I read a post about someone doing this with Chimay or something. Can someone link me to a post or the wiki where a procedure for this is given (read wiki on yeast washing and freezing but couldn't find this)? Can you simply dump the yeast at the bottom of the bottle into a starter and then pitch it?

be careful. Sometimes brewers will bottle condition with a different yeast strain than they used for fermentation. Not sure how Ommegang does theirs though....


just saying it sometimes happens

Im basing my idea on 150 brew clones magazine where they say WYeast 1214 or Ommegang cultured yeast. Thanks for the heads up on the different yeast strains ill have to look into that.

woosterhoot said:

Im basing my idea on 150 brew clones magazine where they say WYeast 1214 or Ommegang cultured yeast. Thanks for the heads up on the different yeast strains ill have to look into that.

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I wouldn't put too much faith in the clones mag on details like this. For example, their Harpoon IPA clone doesn't have any Cascades in it, and the brewery web site specifically says they use Cascades.

Wouldn't want you to invest the time and effort in a whole batch, only to find you used the wrong yeast. If you can't find confirmation that the bottle yeast isn't different, probably better to be safe and go with the 1214 IMHO.

Give them a call or shoot them an email. I don't know if they're secretive about that sort of thing, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

http://www.ommegang.com/index.php?mcat=8

One thing I've learned is never screw with the yeast. If you're not absolutely sure that its the same strain or a bottling strain, or if you're able to get the right pitching numbers, then I wouldn't go for it.

Just buy a close strain from WL or wyeast-- its much more failsafe.

woosterhoot said:

I was thinking about doing a Ommegang abbey ale clone and wanting to get the yeast from one of their beers. I thought I read a post about someone doing this with Chimay or something. Can someone link me to a post or the wiki where a procedure for this is given (read wiki on yeast washing and freezing but couldn't find this)? Can you simply dump the yeast at the bottom of the bottle into a starter and then pitch it?

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I recently tried this with the yeast sediment left over from one of my favorite brews - Hoegaarden. I left the bottom 1/2 inch in each bottle of a 6 pack, tossed it in a starter and waited about 4 days. I then made a highly concentrated starter and pitched it in the 1st starter to really kickstart yeast multiplication. I then waited another 4 days and split the starter equally between 2 containers and made yet another starter wort and pitched an equal amount into each container.

4 days later I pitched one of the starters into a recipe of my own, trying to duplicate the Hoegaarden color (which I was not successful in doing - it looked nice and white coming out off the mash tun, but once I started adding hops it just turned a bland green). 3 days later and it's fermenting very well. I realize that this does not necessarily mean that I'm going to end up with the same taste because as some have mentioned previously they could very well bottle with a different strain than they ferment with, but I'll post an update in a few weeks when it's ready to taste side by side with the real thing and my other Hoegaarden clone that I made with WLP Belgian Wit.

Hope this helps.