reusing sour beer yeast.

Could i get away with washing and reusing the 3763 Roeselare yeast(sour)? A search gave mixed results about reusing sour beer yeast.

I'm thinking about fermenting with nottingham for a few days and then adding some washed roeselare yeast.

It's for a sour cheery lambic if that matters.

I was told yes you can wash that yeast by someone on this forum.

don't see why not.

Well you could use it but you may not get the flavor you expect. Since it is a wild yeast the profile may change after initial use. If you read Wyeasts information on the sour yeasts they state that "Propagation of this culture is not recommended and will result in a change of the proportions of the individual components." In other words one of the bugs may become stronger and give you a different flavor with each batch.

I did. The beers keep getting more fantastic. Next time I pitch I'll probably pitch with S-05 as well. Almost getting too sour. Almost.

Might be kind of cool to keep using it as a house strain, and let it continue to evolve and mutate and see how it progresses (at least until it ends up with a result you don't like). I've heard a number of folks do this with various saison yeasts.

I don't pitch on yeast cakes because the 1 time I did my beer was not very good... BUT I plan on racking about 4 1/2 gallons of my Lambic in a few months and then racking a recently fermented beer on to it.... and see where it goes from there.

BradleyBrew said:

I don't pitch on yeast cakes because the 1 time I did my beer was not very good... BUT I plan on racking about 4 1/2 gallons of my Lambic in a few months and then racking a recently fermnted beer on to it.... and see where it goes from there.

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That sounds good. YOu'll have to post the results on the forum.


i've had good luck with reusing yeast. But I only pitch some of the old yeast cake on the new beer. Otherwise they rocket off and make a huge mess.