Freezing Brettanomyces

[strumke]

Has anyone tried to freeze and use Brett or other bugs sucessfully with glycerol or glycerin? I came across this site and it doesn't look like he had much sucess (2nd paragraph of the conclusion).

http://sciencebrewer.com/2011/06/15/wild-yeast-project-plating-brettanomyces-on-wlnwld-media/

I'd like to have some bugs in the freezer, but I don't want to waste the time, $$, and be stuck without bugs when I would need to pitch.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I have and had no problem.

 

[CJLong]

I have and had no problem.

Great! I was just wondering about this as well. How much glycerine did you end up using? Since the blog post the OP was referring to just tried it once (I believe), were you able to freeze and revive several different times?

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I followed the same process in the frozen yeast bank thread here. I treated everything that got frozen exactly the same as the thread says. I think it's 1/3 slurry, 1/3 water and 1/3 glycerine.

I've only thawed out something with brett in it once but it was a wild blend that had bacteria, brett and a bunch of other stuff. Everything woke up and got back to work like nothing happened. I have some other stuff with brett in it in my bank but I haven't tried unfreezing it yet. I'm no scientist, so if I was able to do it I can't see why that guy couldn't. The most obvious reason why it has to work is that the big labs freeze all their base colonies and that includes brett. Otherwise, Wyeast and WL wouldn't be able to see consistent strains of brett.

 

[CJLong]

Thanks for the info. I'd be almost certain Brett could be frozen, but the right conditions could plausibly be different than for sacch. It's good to hear I can do everything the same way with brett. It looks like the guy in the blog didn't use cells he knew were viable. Instead he used some frozen dregs from a commercial bottle. There probably weren't many viable cells in the dregs in the first place, who knows what temperatures those yeast saw in the bottle and how long they were in there. Plus, glycogen and trehalose reserves were probably completely spent, and then he froze them and thawed. So, I have much more faith in your results than his.

 

[Calder]

Brett can be froxen the same as Sacc. I've done it. But I'm not too sure about bugs; Lacto and Pedio.

I generally take a sample of the fermented beer and put it in a mason jar and keep it in the fridge. Seems to keep fine.