Harvesting Pacman from bottles

I guess this isn't news or anything, but I thought I might elaborate on my overwhelming success with harvesting Pacman from bottles of Rogue beer. Last night I made a starter using 600ml of water and 2/3 cup of DME. I carefully emptied out all but the last 1/8th or so of 2 bottles of Mocha Porter (down the beer chute of course!), then swirled and pitched the yeast and small amount of beer remaining. Lo and behold when I woke up around 10hrs later, that beast was producing yeast like crazy.

Several people have reported harvesting the yeast, but usually had sluggish starters or no success. I was really shocked to see that in under 12 hrs I had a nice yeast cake developing in my starter.

I guess at this point I'm going to step it up til I get a good sized batch I can use to pitch in my Black IPA (1.103 grav) later this weekend.

Anyone else find it this easy to harvest Pacman? I didn't even use a stir plate, I just shake it whenever I walk by.

Congrats on harvesting the yeast from the bottles.

Can't you still buy this yeast from wyeast?

godofcheese said:

Congrats on harvesting the yeast from the bottles.

Can't you still buy this yeast from wyeast?

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Yup, but it can cost more than a bottle of the beer, plus you get the beer with it.

No better (or cheaper) way to get this yeast than to have a beer and harvest.

I just pitched a quarter of my pacman that I had harvested and stepped up over the last month. It took 24-30 hrs to start but now it is massively fermenting.

What was the gravity of the wort you pitched it in? I'm just curious, as the IPA I'm pitching it in has some serious density to it. I'm not worried about it not fermenting, but am curious as to how long I estimate it'll take to take off once pitched.

1.050

I only removed my big collection from fridge the night before so the starter didn't have as long of a running start as it should have.

Actually a krausen was formed at about 12 hours, but nothing in the airlock for 24-30 and now it is rolling