Harvesting Belgian blonde yeast.

My cousins babys baptism is in the end of april, so I figured I'd brew a beer to keg and bring out to MD. He's a National Bohemian drinker, but his brother said he likes belgian beers. I figure a nice Belgian blonde would be a beer that everyone can drink. So instead of me buying a vial of yeast, which always results in the ol' "Well, since I"m ordering one thing, I might as well get the most of my shipping and order a bunch of stuff", I'm thinking of harvesting some yeast from bottles.

So has anyone had any decent luck harvesting Belgian blonde yeast from bottles? I can get Leffe, but wanted to see if anyone had any other suggestions. Thanks for any input anybody can offer.

Why not get Ommegang bottle and harvest from it?

Checked Ommegong at my distributor, no blondes. I dont think Leffe even bottle carbs. Bottom of the bottles were clean as a whistle

Ommegang uses the same yeast for all their beer, and bottle conditioning too.

I guess I"m shifting my focus on this beer. Now I'm confused on which belgian yeast to use. So many numbers......500, 550, 530, 1388, 1762..... it's getting confusing. Based on BCS' Belgian blonde recipe, JZ uses wlp 500 or wy 1214. I guess I'll just use one of those and see what happens. I'm definitely overthinking this, but it's my first real beer that will be consumed by more than myself and maybe one or two other people. I guess I should just be happy they're drinking something other than Natty Bo.....IF they even drink it.

I just grew some yeast from a Duvel with success but I can't say for sure if they use the same yeast to ferment and carbonate and I haven't brewed off it yet to offer much else except that it was easy to get going. Plus, you can't go wrong with a bottle of Duvel...

Duvel was one of the beers I was going to try to grab the yeast from, but I wasn't sure about the application in a blonde. Belgian golden strongs are nice, but at the time, I didn't think it applied. Turns out, at least in BCS, belgian blonde is considered a belgian strong ale. It's hard to find a clear belgian blonde yeast. I was thinking it was kind of a style in it's own, but I don't think that's the case. It's a hard style to get a definition of and a clear choice for yeast. I guess i'll find a bunch of belgian blonde recipes and narrow down what yeast they use.

Here this might help.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/commercial-beer-yeast-harvest-list-262713/

If you're dead set on using yeast from a blonde, Affligem blonde is bottle conditioned. However, you can use any of the Belgian strains to make the blonde.

I'd like to use a blonde yeast, but its starting to get less important. I'm thinking of just using any belgian yeast