1st attempt at bottle harvesting - single bottle of Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar

1 of the 3 LHBS here sells pacman yeast. The most successful of the three gave me a lecture about how the sole source of pacman yeast smack-packs doesn't like to ship them with cold packs and they got tired of selling dead yeast and getting angry customers. Whatever.

I made 800ml of 1.030 wort w/ DME and boiling water in my 1L flask and waited for it to cool to room temperature before pitching the pacman yeast in it.

It's spinning now. I'll pitch that into the fermenter tomorrow night i suppose.

Oh, and i inoculated 7 slants. Because paying $7 for liquid yeast pushes my cheap bastard buttons.

How'd it turn out? Did you ever figure out if Rogue uses a different yeast in bottle? I'm looking at doing this same recipe. And which LHBS sells pacman? last time i was in beernut they didn't have any.

Geohound said:

How'd it turn out? Did you ever figure out if Rogue uses a different yeast in bottle? I'm looking at doing this same recipe. And which LHBS sells pacman? last time i was in beernut they didn't have any.

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Salt city brew supply had pacman. Beernut gave me attitude.

I have 7 good slants of the stuff now, too.

Rogue never responded.

I have been pretty busy. Moved this beer to a keg and purged and sealed but did not carb. I am going to test some more samples this weekend - properly degassed - and then if i am still unconvinced i will start feeding the stuff to a champagne yeast starter.

Geohound said:

How'd it turn out? Did you ever figure out if Rogue uses a different yeast in bottle? I'm looking at doing this same recipe. And which LHBS sells pacman? last time i was in beernut they didn't have any.

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If the Rogue bottle says 'Pacman Yeast' yeast in the ingredients, then it's Pacman in the bottle. Harvest away.

NordeastBrewer77 said:

If the Rogue bottle says 'Pacman Yeast' yeast in the ingredients, then it's Pacman in the bottle. Harvest away.

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Well, it's well known that dead guy ale is filtered.

TimpanogosSlim said:

Well, it's well known that dead guy ale is filtered.

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Hmmm, never heard that before. I've heard of a lot of guys harvesting from Rogue bottles, not sure if they're doing it from Dead Guy. I know the Shakespear Stout works, done that. I think a few of their other lighter beers are also good for a harvest.

Edit: with a simple search here on HBT, I seem to have found some things that contradict the 'well known' fact that Dead Guy is filtered. I was pretty sure I'd seen a lot about harvesting from Dead Guy before, but I wanted to be sure. Here's a link to one thread, there's links to other's in that thread, lot's of guys talking about harvesting Pacman from Dead Guy Ale.

NordeastBrewer77 said:

Hmmm, never heard that before. I've heard of a lot of guys harvesting from Rogue bottles, not sure if they're doing it from Dead Guy. I know the Shakespear Stout works, done that. I think a few of their other lighter beers are also good for a harvest.

Edit: with a simple search here on HBT, I seem to have found some things that contradict the 'well known' fact that Dead Guy is filtered. I was pretty sure I'd seen a lot about harvesting from Dead Guy before, but I wanted to be sure. Here's a link to one thread, there's links to other's in that thread, lot's of guys talking about harvesting Pacman from Dead Guy Ale.

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Alright, I thought I'd come across threads indicating that Dead Guy is filtered.

But i agree that if there's sediment in the bottle, and it says pacman on the label, go for it.

Just build a larger starter than i did.

TimpanogosSlim said:

Just build a larger starter than i did.

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The key to harvesting is actually to start the starter steps out small and low gravity, then slowly step it up to size. A typical bottle only have a few (give or take) million cells.... think like a year old smack pack or vial, like <1% viability.... that first step is really jut to wake up whatever yeasts survived the whole commercial packaging, distribution and wholesale process. After a slow build at low gravity (1.02), you then wanna slowly step it up at 1.04 until you reach brewing size with the starter. It helps to measure ml of yeast solids, that way you can at least guesstimate cell count in these starters.
I think I posted a link to my blog on harvesting and stepping up, but in the vein of not over posting, there's a link to my blogs in my sigline.

TimpanogosSlim said:

Salt city brew supply had pacman. Beernut gave me attitude.

I have 7 good slants of the stuff now, too.

Rogue never responded.

I have been pretty busy. Moved this beer to a keg and purged and sealed but did not carb. I am going to test some more samples this weekend - properly degassed - and then if i am still unconvinced i will start feeding the stuff to a champagne yeast starter.

Click to expand...

I've started going to slc brew myself. If you need help sampling any of that beer im free Let me know how it turns out. If its close i'll be brewing your recipe next week now that I have a carboy free.

Well, i cracked open one of the 12oz bottles i made, and, it's good! one way or another it worked out in the end.

Not enough hazelnut in the bottles - they got 2 drops each from a disposable pipette. Dunno how it's going in the keg, but I'm looking forward to it.