Yeast Bank suggestions

I'm preparing to build a yeast bank of a few key strains that I can use on all of my brews. With a Witbier strain aside (because I understand it's hard to store these for any amount of time), what would be a good selection? I have WLP029 and Wyeast 1084 fermenting away right now in different beers, and am about to bottle harvest some Pacman from a Rogue Shakespear stout bomber. If I harvest all 3 of these well, could this round out a good variety? The only one I don't know about is the 1084, as the Wyeast website doesn't say that it's suggested for ESB and Pale Ales, which I'm a huge fan of. Any thoughts? Anyone bottle harvest a "british" yeast?

As a point of curiosity, anyone say Screw It, and just throw Pacman in everything? Seems to work for Rogue.

What kind of storage method and how many strains are you going to keep?

Depends entirely on what kind of beer you want to make. I've got (or usually do) stocks of WLP023, WLP037, WLP530, WLP775, and WLP300.

I'll be storing them in Ball jars, and in the fridge. I understand the useful life of fridge stored yeast is 9 months, give or take. So based on my brewing frequency I don't think it'd make sense to store more than 3 jars of each strain at a time.

Question of "how many" types is really the question I guess. I have 3 strains now, and so I'm wondering if this is good enough to cover most styles of beer. I'm pretty new to homebrewing, but have tried to brew a little bit of everything thus far, and loved every one of them. I'm partial to British pale ales, and ESB is a favorite...so I'd really like to get a great British strain in there. Will WLP029 serve me well for these?

WLp029 is the Kolsch straing right? Not really a standard in British beer making. WLP002 is a good, clean English ale yeast. If you want something slightly more ester, I would recommend the WLP023, its one of my favourite strains. I've been meaning to try the WLP013, but I was given some of the WLP037 platinum strain from last year and used that instead.

What is the problem with storing wit yeast? I have frozen (with glycerin) WLP400 and it is still great.

bknifefight said:

What is the problem with storing wit yeast? I have frozen (with glycerin) WLP400 and it is still great.

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Wheat yeasts decline faster than other yeasts. Even in your case, it will go faster, but it might be 11mo instead of a year.

With ball jars, its more like 2months instead of 3. 9 months is more like where you can salvage some of the yeast using a tiny starter and building up from there.

As for strains, I am a fan of the 1098 for the brits. Have made some great beer with it. I also keep some 3068 because I like hefeweizens, and my next most used would be plain old 1056. I am looking to make some stuff with 1214 though, I am liking belgians at the moment.

I'm about to start saying 3068 for Hefes, Pacman for the rest. -- although I really should look into some sort of American Wheat strain for the Honey Wheat brews.

That being said here's the list of frozen and washed:

• White Labs Edinborough Ale
• White Labs California Ale
• Wyeast Irish Ale
• Wyeast Weihenstephan Weizen
• Pacman from a bottle of Shakespeare Stout

I think that's all I'm sitting on now.

Your yeast bank sounds like mine. WLP0129 and Pacman are must haves in my book. I also keep the chimay strain around in case I feel the need to brew up a belgian.

Currently I keep the following...

WLP001
Nottingham
WLP029
Chimay (cultured from bottle)
Pacman (cultured from bottle)

I am beginning to use WLP029 more and more on APA's and such....

On hand right now I have:
WLP Cali Ale
Wyeast Kolsch
Wyeast London Ale
Wyeast Trappist

In a couple months I'm sure I'll also have Brett L too once I get it out of my trappist.

The Wyeast Kolsch is good because I pseudo-lager. The Cali-Ale is good because APAs are a staple. I'm not in love with the London Ale, and I haven't had a finished product with Trappist.

Sounds like a small variety (3 or 4) is enough to cover most types that i'd "normally" brew. I'm sure there'll be an outlier here and there. As for the Kolsch, i just brewed a german pilsner/amarillo smash with it and can't wait to try it....have read a ton about how clean it finished.

Now the search for a solid British strain. Maybe a side-by-side taste test in a split batch is in order.