Harvesting Chimay Red Yeast

I attempted to harvest the yeast from a bomber of Chimay Red last Thursday and pitched it to a 1/2 gallon starter wort made by boiling LME and cooling to 70 degrees. I never actually observed bubling from the airlock I had placed atop the growler the starter was in, but a thick layer of yeast appeared to be visible at the bottom of the growler (+/- 3/8" thick). I brewed on Saturday and pitched the starter to the wort, and I am approaching 24 hours after the starter yeast was pitched and there is still no sign of activity. Has anyone had success harvesting Chimay Red yeast? I am trying to determine if I am better off buying another bomber of Chimay and direct pitching it to try and save the 5 gallon batch I've brewed or if I should go pickup a WLP550. Please help!

Welcome to HBT!

I have not tried the Chimay yeast but if you scroll down to the bottom of this page you will find several threads about it. Good luck, I think it is a worthy endeavor! Chimay = Yum!

Not to piss in your cheerios,but I'm pretty sure(I could be wrong) that chimay uses a second yeast strain for bottling.On the plus side wyeast 3787 works great.I have a chimay blue clone brewing right now

I actually think WLP 500 is Chimay's. I think 550 is Achouffe's

bump8628 said:

I actually think WLP 500 is Chimay's. I think 550 is Achouffe's

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Thats correct, the WLP500 is Chimay's strain.

It's really tough to harvest from stateside bottles as they've been on such a long journey. Stick with it though. I carried fresh bottles back from Belgium for harvesting and my Chimay yeast is is by far the most used. While WLP500 was cultivated from Chimay, it's no substitute for the real thing. I see far, far better attenuation from my harvested yeast.

Joos said:

Not to piss in your cheerios,but I'm pretty sure(I could be wrong) that chimay uses a second yeast strain for bottling.On the plus side wyeast 3787 works great.I have a chimay blue clone brewing right now

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Chimay uses the same yeast for all beers, in primary and refermentation.

Take the airlock off your starter and use some foil. You want O2 exchange for yeast growth.

Wyeast 1214 Belgium Abbey Ale is suggested in "Clone Brews".

I agree w/ TommyBoy, only because my chimay red clone tastes VERY close... I'm diggin it... It didn't attenuate as well as I had hoped, but it got down to 1.020 instead of 1.012, and is really yummy.

Edit: I never said "because I used the wyeast 1214 belgian ale"