Commercial Beer Yeast Harvest List

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It would be nice if we could have a note of the verified yeasts that actually ferment clean. Its easy to slant bottle slurry, but to have them work out is a totally different ball of wax.
 
also if anyone is interested in sharing slants for verification I would be more than happy to test batch things.
 
Anybody know if these three belgians are have live, primary yeast strains in the bottle? I'm reasonable sure Blanche de Chambly does, but not sure about the other two. Thanks in advance.
 
Anybody?

I managed to find a short description on Wikipedia relating to Zinnebir that sounds promising (translated from Dutch):

Bernard Leboucq and Yvan De Baets, two Brussels brewers, first had a microbrewery in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw , but because it was too small, she fled to Brussels. They brew several beers in a traditional manner, unfiltered, unpasteurized, without any additives.

There's a ton of yeast in the two bottles of Zinnebir I have here, so I think I'll start with these. If anyone knows about Westmalle, I'd like to hear about your experience with it.
 
rhys333 said:
And now the pic...
Click to expand...

Westmalle im sure is good. Its the same as WY3787 / WLP530 if I remember correctly

I wouldnt do Unibroue. I tried hravest from La Fin du Monde without knowing they used a champaign yeast to carb in teh bottle. Cut to an entire batch of bottle bombs. Ive heard some (mostly older posts) say they had success so maybe it was a more recent switch? I dunno wouldnt chance it

The Zinnebir I would be willing to bet is good. Unfiltered, unpasteurized? sounds fine to me. Just get some weak starter wort and taste it after a week. If its belgiany and good then go for it
 
On the subject of Westmalle/3787, I recently spent a month in Belgium and was informed multiple times that Westvleteren now has its own strain and is not using the same yeast as Westmalle. After many side by side tastings between the two, I agree.

That said, I successfully harvested and plated the Westy yeast from a fresh bottle of 8. Have a simple blonde fermenting with it now, will post back with results.
 
m00ps said:
Westmalle im sure is good. Its the same as WY3787 / WLP530 if I remember correctly

I wouldnt do Unibroue. I tried hravest from La Fin du Monde without knowing they used a champaign yeast to carb in teh bottle. Cut to an entire batch of bottle bombs. Ive heard some (mostly older posts) say they had success so maybe it was a more recent switch? I dunno wouldnt chance it

The Zinnebir I would be willing to bet is good. Unfiltered, unpasteurized? sounds fine to me. Just get some weak starter wort and taste it after a week. If its belgiany and good then go for it
Click to expand...

Thanks for the Unibroue word of caution m00ps. I'll research some more into this on the offchance the lower alcohol Blanche de Chambly is the primary strain. I recall reading somewhere that the higher abv brews at Unibroue use a secondary strain but B de C does not. Probably wishful thinking on my part though.

I'll try the Zinnebir tomorrow and see what happens.
 
Glad to see this thread is up and running again, after the umpteenth armchair brewer posted on the FB group Homebrew Network the usual, "You KNOW most breweries use a different strain when bottling" chestnut...I pointed out that that's the exception not the rule, and linked this thread. I'm assuming whoever bumped this back up the same day must have read "Michael F. Copado's" post.

This is an important thread on so many levels, because once again it debunks one of those brewing myths that people who have never even bothered to try like to repeat because "that's what they heard." And nothing pizzes me off more than just repeating brewing stuff over and over without ever actually EXPERIENCING that which they are so quick to repeat. [/soapbox] :)
 
I emailed the brewery and can confirm Jack's Abby's sours have pitchable sour dregs. Lacto, Pedio, and Brett. The primary strain is centrifuged before they sour, so little to no Sacc
 
I can confirm that Grimm's Gradient has a saison strain that is not commercially available to homebrewers. I emailed with the brewer and grew some up on a stirplate. No other bugs as it is a quick sour that is boiled before the sacc is pitched.
 
Confirming Zinnebir has live yeast. Quick to start on the initial step (bubbles and small krausen 2 days into first stage plus plenty of fresh yeast visible). Likely the primary strain, but will confirm after a couple more step-ups.
 
Anyone ever have any luck with Night Shift dregs? I'd like to attempt a Saison, Belgian and Weisse eventually, and they produce some of my favorites in those styles.
 
m00ps said:
I wouldnt do Unibroue. I tried hravest from La Fin du Monde without knowing they used a champaign yeast to carb in teh bottle. Cut to an entire batch of bottle bombs. Ive heard some (mostly older posts) say they had success so maybe it was a more recent switch? I dunno wouldnt chance it
Click to expand...

Interesting, fwiw, their distributor was pouring in the bottle shop yesterday and said they use the primary strain to condition.
I will try to harvest and maybe do a small 1gal test batch as a follow up so I don't blow a full batch.
 
Reporting back on stage two Zinnebir Belgian yeast harvesting. I pitched the stage one slurry that's been in the fridge 6 weeks into a 300ml 1.030 wort yesterday at 3pm. By 6pm i was surprised to see visible activity. Missed overnight activity but by this morning it has a full cap. Bubbles are bigger than I'd expect for a primary strain, and activity occured faster than I'd expect as well. I'll keep stepping up but I"m wondering if this could be a refermentation strain.

View attachment 1460304071661.jpg

View attachment 1460304083737.jpg
 
I've harvested yeast successfully from Bell's Oberon, Prairie Artisan's Birra (Farmhouse), and Urban Chestnut's Schnickelfritz (Weissbier). Currently having a lot of fun with yeast!
 
I think I'm going to pitch me second stage zinnebir yeast into a 1 gallon batch of 90% wheat dme + 10% invert sugar and see what I get. If its good, I should have enough yeast to do 5 gallons.
 
danthebugman said:
I've harvested yeast successfully from Bell's Oberon, Prairie Artisan's Birra (Farmhouse), and Urban Chestnut's Schnickelfritz (Weissbier). Currently having a lot of fun with yeast!
Click to expand...

Prairie told me they use different yeasts for bottling than primary fermentation. It might be different depending on the beer though.
 
this is my 3rd step up from a duvel bottle. a bit over a half gallon of 1.030 wort. smells belgiany. going into a golden strong soon

duvel.jpg
 
tgmartin000 said:
Prairie told me they use different yeasts for bottling than primary fermentation. It might be different depending on the beer though.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure. I sent a couple e-mails and some Facebook messages, but never heard anything. What I can speak to is that whatever it is I cultured, makes some tasty beer. Turned out a couple fruity/funky Saisons so far. Just finished a split batch where I pitched Wyeast 3711 and the Birra strain and fermented them side by side. I just bottled it this past Saturday so it'll be a little bit before I can compare them.
 
danthebugman said:
I'm not sure. I sent a couple e-mails and some Facebook messages, but never heard anything. What I can speak to is that whatever it is I cultured, makes some tasty beer. Turned out a couple fruity/funky Saisons so far. Just finished a split batch where I pitched Wyeast 3711 and the Birra strain and fermented them side by side. I just bottled it this past Saturday so it'll be a little bit before I can compare them.
Click to expand...

Right on. I just checked my old emails, and for Merica, they bottle with a wine yeast and 2 brett strains, which is not the primary strain obvs.
 
danthebugman said:
I've harvested yeast successfully from Bell's Oberon, Prairie Artisan's Birra (Farmhouse), and Urban Chestnut's Schnickelfritz (Weissbier). Currently having a lot of fun with yeast!
Click to expand...

The folks from Urban Chestnut got back with me on Twitter and confirmed that the yeast is a proprietary Bavarian strain. Pretty cool :mug:.
 
You can get yeast from Great Divide Colette. Just some DME, no hops and you can get something extremely close to the original beer. Crazy how that yeast works...
 
Well I started a gallon test batch for my Zinnebir Belgian strain. Dregs from the 1.030 stage 2 starter had no taste to them so that doesn't bode well (possibly refermentation strain). I started my 1 gallon batch on saturday and its doing some interesting things. I ended up adding 9% medium lovibond invert sugar and it started chewing away crazily on this within 24 hours. Then it slowed, the krausen fell somewhat, and its been chugging slowly and steadily for the last day and a half on malt sugars. Still going as of this morning. Smells from the airlock are sulfury combined with something else. Btw, I opted to let this ride at close to room temp, so fermentation could be pushing the high end of the range. Will know in another week or so what I have here.
 
I've successfully harvested dregs, made starters, and fermented batches with yeast from Great Divide Collette and Great Divide Orabelle. They both use a blend, so I cannot confirm exactly what I came up with. Both of my experiments ended up as a 'belgiany' type beer, but I think I got some single strain domination. Either way, they made good beer and it was a fun experiment.

I also confirmed with the Great divide brewer, there are no wild/sour/brett strains in either beer.
 
Another update... I harvested from Prost Weisbeir from Denver CO. It turned out great. I'm pretty sure it's 3068...
 
danthebugman said:
I'm not sure. I sent a couple e-mails and some Facebook messages, but never heard anything. What I can speak to is that whatever it is I cultured, makes some tasty beer. Turned out a couple fruity/funky Saisons so far. Just finished a split batch where I pitched Wyeast 3711 and the Birra strain and fermented them side by side. I just bottled it this past Saturday so it'll be a little bit before I can compare them.
Click to expand...

How'd this turn out? I'm interested in potentially harvesting Prairie dregs.
 
I got a bunch of prarie dregs in a mixed sour culture. Did this before I realized wine yeast was in the mix. But I dont think its one of those "killer" strains that would mess up a beer fermentation. The sour mixture can easily ferment decently strong starter wort down to normal beer levels so either the wine yeast got outcompeted, or its not preventing all the brett (and possibly sacch) in there from doing its thing

I'd harvest it if you are interested in using it for a secondary or something
 
Coopers Pale Ale, Stout, Mid Strength and Sparkling Ale all use the same yeast. Sparkling Ale is higher alcohol so the yeast isn't in quite as good condition.

I have harvested from Pale Ale and been successful. Dregs from 6 bottles rinsed out with cooled boiled water. 500mL starter at 1.020 then stepped up to 2L of 1.040.
 
Saison Brett | Les Trois Mousquetaires

Confirmed from the brewery. Stepping up some dregs right now.
 
I'd imagine any brewer who doesn't want to be copied would use different bottling yeasts than fermentation yeast.
 
Imagination is, indeed, a wonderful thing.
But considering the Chimay process in which there is only one fermentation step of only 3 days, it is very difficult to imagine that the final unpasteurised product would contain small enough amounts of the valuable yeast strain to prevent it's use by an interested party.
 
When did I ever say anything about Chimay? I've never even heard of it before.

If imagination is a wonderful thing, what can be said of lacking any? Many obvious don't care or don't fear others "stealing" their yeasts. That doesn't mean none do, and that these have no options. Honestly I don't even see how the number of days has anything to do with it anyways, even with highly flocculent strains there'll still be yeasts in suspension no matter how long to age it or how often you rack it.

Pasteurisation is one means of preventing yeasts from being usable, it's not the only one (and I don't see on the bottle any mention of it not being so, though I really don't care). Sterile filtration is another. And then there's a handful of means that don't remove the original yeast in any way, but who offer a mix that will simply not yield the same results if used in the primary (ex: adding brets for the bottle conditioning).
 

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