Malta Drink to harvest commercial strains

I got this idea from another thread a while back (I wish I could find it so I can give due credit) but I figured I would re-post it due to its success.

I have successfully harvested yeast for the third time using nothing more then a bottle of Malta, a sanitized jar and (obviously) a commercial bottle conditioned beer. This time I managed to grow some Pacman yeast from a bottle of Rogue Breweries Sig's Northwestern Ale.

I have used the previous strains harvested to make a Belgian Strong (1.084 >> 1.010 and its delicious, possibly the best I have made yet!). I still made a starter that time, though I am trying to see if I can get this latest harvested yeast big enough without the need of making a starter for today's beer.

It seems to be a cheap (around 90 cents a bottle for Malta), easy and quick solution for harvesting yeast from commercial beers. I now keep a few bottles of Malta on hand just for this.

I am curious if anyone else does this or has had success with this as well?

I have heard of many people using that Malta Goya drink. It is an unfermented malt beverage after all. I always wanted to try it, but never could muster up enough nerve to. Even though I had heard from a ton of other people that it works.

can you detail the steps a little bit? im really interested in giving this a try

edb23 said:

can you detail the steps a little bit? im really interested in giving this a try

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No real steps that are different than using any other maltose based liquid to harvest/build up/starter. Substitute your malt extract and water with Malta Goya drink.

Funny you're posting this. Being that this is a holiday weekend it turns out a lot of area lhbs are closed. All of us who want to brew have been scrambling for stuff.

I needed to make a starter last night, and thought I was out of dme, I was just about to head out to a big box store for a sixer of malta when I moved something in my GF's kitchen and found some dme from the last time I brewed here.

The nice thing about malta goya is that the big box stores that carry it around here in MI like Meijer's are open 24/7. So getting that stuff is usually easier than scoring some extract.

suprchunk said:

No real steps that are different than using any other maltose based liquid to harvest/build up/starter. Substitute your malt extract and water with Malta Goya drink.

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alright sounds good. i'll be trying this some time soon

I have not tried making a starter from Malta yet, but I have read some posts on people having great success with that as well.

edb23 said:

can you detail the steps a little bit? im really interested in giving this a try

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Super easy; Buy a beer that is bottled conditioned (ei: Rogue), drink most of the beer leaving the yeast sediment. Pour the Malta drink into a sanitized jar, then give the yeast a swirl in the bottle and add it to the jar as well. Cover it with something breathable (I use a coffee filter and rubber band). The next day you should see a nice layer of yeast sediment growing in the jar (more then what was in the bottle).

That sound great, I have a questions though.

Malta is unfermented beer but with lots of sugar.

Is it bad to have so much sugar when doing this? I know the yeast eats the sugar and all that but I thought I read somewhere that the kind of sugar you would find in malta is not the right kind.

Just wondering I'm thinking about trying this tonight!

One more thing. I guess you would step it up a few times? And then store it in the fridge for next brew day?

I plan on brewing again next Sunday.

Although it has HFCS in it, the first two fermentable ingredients in Malta Goya from the website are "pure malt, and caramel malt." I was always told the higher the % of the particular ingredient the earlier it showed up on the ingredient list. If that's truly the case then there's more malt than non malt fermentables for the yeast to eat.

For our purposes I think that's fine.

Revvy said:

Although it has HFCS in it, the first two fermentable ingredients in Malta Goya from the website are "pure malt, and caramel malt." I was always told the higher the % of the particular ingredient the earlier it showed up on the ingredient list. If that's truly the case then there's more malt than non malt fermentables for the yeast to eat.

For our purposes I think that's fine.

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I think so too Revy I'm going to give that a shot tonight.

What is the specific gravity of malta goya? Anyone take a hydrometer reading on it?

EDIT:

Nevermind seems from a bit of googling it's in the 1.058-1.060 range.

Someone did that in one of the threads discussing using it.

weirdboy said:

What is the specific gravity of malta goya? Anyone take a hydrometer reading on it?

EDIT:

Nevermind seems from a bit of googling it's in the 1.058-1.060 range.

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A little high for a starter but what the hey, I'll let you know how it turns out.

I have been wanting to try this myself has anyone tried the Malta "beer" from a starter? Cuz the Malta I saw at kroger had hops in it too!

I'll make up a malta goya starter once in a while, though I'll dilute it half with sanitized water to get around 1.035. I've never had any problems with malta, though I do feel that the yeasts started the traditional way take off quicker and have a healthier fermentation.

In a pinch, a bottle of malta goya works great.

I just got the malta and had to get some beer I didn't have any. Going to chill it pretty good for a couple of hours because I was mixing them all up at the store trying to find a rouge with a lot of yeast in it.

I've been using malta for my starters lately. I run it on the stir plate for a bit before pitching the yeast to get most of the CO2 out of solution, that stuff is SUPER carbonated.

It's been working well.

Alright I did it, now to wait. I used the yeast of two Rogue bomber bottle

I made my last starter w/ a 7oz (200ml) bottle of Malta Regal boiled w/ 200ml of water in a flask. Once cooled (ice bath), I added ~100ml of cold-crashed bottle-dregs (Pretty Things: Jack D'or) and shook the piss out of it. Before the dregs, the OG was ~1.038.

When I stepped it up, I decided to use light DME as Malta is REALLY dark. It works though. The flask is currently cold-crashing in the fridge.

I saw some yeast at the bottom of my flask so I'm going to cold crash it some and then pour out as much of the malta as I can then step it up to another starter. I can use another malta or maybe some DME this time.

So when you step it up, do you keep the same ratio of 2 parts Malta, 2 parts water, to 1 part yeast slurry?

Hey Daver77, let us know how this goes. I definitely cultured some of the rogue yeast, but its not enough to use. I am going to need to step it up a few times before I can actually pitch it into wort.

Bradinator said:

Hey Daver77, let us know how this goes. I definitely cultured some of the rogue yeast, but its not enough to use. I am going to need to step it up a few times before I can actually pitch it into wort.

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I'm going to step it up tonight when I get home but i'm not using malta this time.

The malta thing is a great way to harvest the yeast without going through the whole boiling DME process.

I wish I had a stir plate though

Note to self: Build a stirplate

OK I started out with this a mason jar



Then I ended up with this overnight after making a 1200 ml starter using DME That looks like it's the same amount of yeast that comes in a vial or packet.

All I need to do now is make one more starter I we good

The reason it's dark is because there's still a little malta in there.

It's in the fridge cold crashing now and when I get home I'm making a big starter so that I can brew Sunday!

So, for me, using more than 1 7oz bottle of malta in a 1000ml starter makes the starter too dark. I'm thinking of modifying my 1L Malta-starter-process as follows (I'm using a 1L flask):


1. Make a 600ml 1.040 light DME starter by boiling water in flask on stovetop, adding DME, bringing back to boil while capping w/ sanitized foil cap.

2. Cool in ice water bath to 70deg.

3. Pitch 50 - 100ml of bottle dregs (from a 22oz or larger cold-crashed bottle).

4. Cap w/ S-Style airlock filled w/ a bit of vodka. I like this at this stage as it allows me to really *shake* the starter wort until it foams. Be careful that you don't loose the vodka into the flask (tipping it sideways works for me).

4. Aerate the wort (shake the piss out of it). See above. I do this as often as possible for 2-3 days.

5. After 2-3 days: Sanitize top of a 7oz bottle of Malta and 1 foil square (~4in x 4in). I simply wipe all the dust off of the bottle and then submerge the top half in a bowl of sanitizer.

7. Aerate the starter work (Shake Shake Shake).

8. Remove airlock/stopper and flame the top of the flask.

9. Open Malta and flame the top of the bottle.

9. Pour in 7oz/200ml bottle of Malta, cap w/ sanitized foil, and swirl the mixture. There's no need to boil the Malta, it's already sterile. You should end up w/ 800ml of starter. I use foil here as my fridge can't fit an upright, airlocked 1L flask.

10. Vigorously swirl the mixture often over the next few days.

11. After 2-3 days, cold crash.

The advantage of this? The "stepping up" process is no-boil. Simply: shake, sanitize, pour, swirl. The OG of Malta is 1.060, so adding 200ml of it is the same as adding 400ml of 1.030. Whereas most of the sugar from the DME will have already been metabolized/fermented by the yeast, the Malta should get sufficiently diluted.