post disclaimer:
I am no where near anything close to a scientist. a love for physics and chemistry in highschool and brewing is about as close as I come.
I have played with the idea of having a house yeast that I use - with all beer, it evolves to what we like and then we keep it there. I would like to know if this can be done with yeast.
obviously since they are single cell organisms they do not mate thus mixing characteristics that they pass along, but the enviroment they are in greatly determines their reproduction - if they are stressed vs don't have to work at all.
With that in mind could you introduce two yeast strains to each other and end up with a generational mix if you keep harvesting, washing and re-pitching. Will they genetically end up crossing and giving you characteristics from both yeast (or some from one and some from another or some characteristics will be less dominate). Or will I just end up with yeast that is just some of this some of that that happens to be all mixed together.
Obviously the results will end up being very similar in initial generations, but if you keep harvesting yeast and re-producing if they don't cross you can not guarentee a 50/50 mix of one strain to another.
does this make sense?
I am no where near anything close to a scientist. a love for physics and chemistry in highschool and brewing is about as close as I come.
I have played with the idea of having a house yeast that I use - with all beer, it evolves to what we like and then we keep it there. I would like to know if this can be done with yeast.
obviously since they are single cell organisms they do not mate thus mixing characteristics that they pass along, but the enviroment they are in greatly determines their reproduction - if they are stressed vs don't have to work at all.
With that in mind could you introduce two yeast strains to each other and end up with a generational mix if you keep harvesting, washing and re-pitching. Will they genetically end up crossing and giving you characteristics from both yeast (or some from one and some from another or some characteristics will be less dominate). Or will I just end up with yeast that is just some of this some of that that happens to be all mixed together.
Obviously the results will end up being very similar in initial generations, but if you keep harvesting yeast and re-producing if they don't cross you can not guarentee a 50/50 mix of one strain to another.
does this make sense?