2015 Oberon is out - Who's harvesting yeast?

Just picked up case of Oberon at my local distributor... it's become a ritual of mine to buy a case of what i consider one of the best spring/early summer beers, drink a few, harvest the yeast, and then brew up a clone. I'll typically reuse the yeast on a couple additional brews (pale ale, IPA, etc) throughout the summer. Anyone else do this?

I know I could harvest bells yeast from other ales but for whatever reason I always use Oberon. Maybe its a subliminal reason for me to buy a case (one of the few commercial beers I actually buy a full case of).

This is the recipe I'll be using this year I think:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/bells-oberon-clone-31422/

Cheers to spring/summer (even though its snowing as I type this)!

 

Picked up a 6'er on Monday. I haven't harvested yeast yet, but it's been my plan to try a clone for a while now. I've got 3-4 beers on my to-do list as it is. I'm pretty well stocked for beer ATM. Lots of bottles and I'm giving some of it away. Just brewed a Witbier to go in my recently emptied keg.

If I'm going to do a clone I'd like to have it nailed down by the end of Oberon season. From now til then I can get the real deal easy enough.

If I did make one, I'd call it: Fauxberon!

 

I've done this before and plan to do it again this yeast. Though my next american wheat is going to be a gumball head clone with Vermont ale yeast. I do like Oberon a lot though.

 

I think Oberon is one of the best summer beers out there!

Has anyone ever made a business of taking commercial beers and selling yeast? Is it legal? If so, I think there would be a market. Yeah, I know that you can do it yourself, but for those who don't have access to certain beers, it would give us an option to clone.

 

TheYeastbay.com

 

....puts down enthusiastically drafted business plan...

 

Buzz Killington....

 

I've never tried harvesting my own yeast, but I've heard of several breweries that crash their brews and then bottle/carbonate with a different strain precisely for the this reason... so people won't rip their yeast. Are there resources out there that list which breweries do this and for which beers? I would imagine if a brewery were doing this, they probably wouldn't be so apt to divulge that info.

Even if they crashed and then used a different strain for bottling, there would still be some of the original yeast in there. So my question would be... if there are multiple strains in a bottle... is there a way to separate and cultivate one, the other, or both?

 

Check this out, not sure how up to date it is

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/commercial-beer-yeast-harvest-list-262713/

 

Interesting list. Thanks!

 

Worked late so didn't get to drink, er, harvest as much as I wanted. Two bottles worth, flamed the lips, sat the caps back on, and plopped the empty-ish bottles back into the fridge.

I'll say, bells really did a great job this year with the Oberon, it's the best I've remembered!

 

I harvested yeast from Two Hearted a few months ago and I've used it twice - once in a brown ale and once in a Centennial APA. It's great yeast - it's slightly fruity and attenuated around 80% when mash was at 151F. But does have a real buttery flavor early on in the bottle, but it was money at around week 3 and thereafter.

I'll probably use it to make an Oberon clone this spring. Looking forward to it!

 

Glad you mentioned about the buttery taste, I seem to recall that in a past brew with bells and I was thinking it was the start of infection.

Just made a 600 ml starter at 1.020, pitched dregs from 6 bottles.

 

I would love to make a Oberon clone. What's your step up method?

 

I thought mine was diacetyl. The first time I used it was in the brown ale, and it was a butter bomb at two weeks. This was before I had any temp control, so after fermenting at 67F, the temp went down to 61-63F for the remaining 2.5 weeks, which made me concerned about diacetyl. Then it happened in my next batch, even though I kept the temp at 68-69F after primary fermentation was complete. At that point, I thought it way have been an infection, too, but I read about others having the same issue with Bell's yeast.

After that butter goes away, it's got a great, almost creamy, fruitiness to it. I plan to keep this around this as a "house" yeast and use it as much as possible. I really love its utility, as well as the esters it produces.

 

Plans for this one are as follows (if anyone has any comments or suggestions I’m open to them):

1. Drink between 6 and 12 Oberons over the course of two days (easy!), decanting so sediment does not get poured into glass. Place cap back on top, store in fridge until ready for starter.

2. Make a low gravity (1.020) starter to get the yeast going. I went with around 600 ml, which came out to about 35 grams of DME. I probably should have started at a lower volume but I had active fermentation in less than 4 hours. Must be some fresh yeast!

3. (After starter is cooled!) Dump the sediment from all bottles (flame bottle lips again). I ended up with 8 bottles worth at starter pitch time and also added two more later that day for good measure.

4. Agitate the starter as much as possible by the ‘walk past, shake/swirl’ method, I don’t have a stirplate.

5. In a couple days, cold crash the starter in fridge, and then step up to a bigger and stronger starter, I think I’ll go with something around 1000 ml at 1.040.

6. I’m looking to brew ten gallons of Oberon, so I’ll probably need to step up at least one more time and likely split the starter into two containers (growlers).

 

I have Oberon on one of my tappers all year round. Its a great tasting "lawn mower" beer. Here's my recipe that I've had great success with many times. The American Ale II is also a great yeast to use if you don't want to reculture. It's a very close match.

Oberon Down The Road
Style: (null) OG: 1.052
Type: All Grain FG: 1.014
Rating: 4.0 ABV: 5.06 %
Calories: 170.97 IBU's: 21.65
Efficiency: 75.00 % Boil Size: 14.48 Gals
Color: 3.9 SRM Batch Size: 12.00 Gals
Preboil OG: 1.046 Boil Time: 60 minutes
Carbs: 12
________________________________________

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount Percentage Name Time Gravity
9.00 lbs 37.50 % Wheat Malt, Bel 60 mins 1.037
15.00 lbs 62.50 % Pilsner (2 Row) Ger 60 mins 1.037

Hops
Amount IBU's Name Time AA %
1.00 ozs 5.37 Saaz 60 mins 4.00
5.00 ozs 16.27 Saaz 20 mins 4.00

 

(EDIT: SEE POST #33 FOR UPDATED VERSION OF RECIPE I USED!)

Here’s my current working version of recipe, going to brew this on Saturday the 4th

11.5 gallon batch
75% efficiency
OG 1.057
IBUs: 15.8
Color 4.8 SRM

10 lbs wheat malt
10 lbs 2 row
2 lbs munich
1 lb C-10
8 oz acid malt

Mash at 154 for 60 minutes, batch sparge

1 oz hallertauer Hersbrucker 60 min
1 oz hallertauer Hersbrucker 45 min
1 oz Saaz 15 min
1 oz Saaz 5 min
Bell’s Yeast ~ 500 billion cells
Ferment at 64F for six days, ramp to 72F for two days, cold crash to 33F for kegging.
1 oz each Saaz / Cascade dry hop 7 days. (1 oz total per keg)

 

I just did this last night actually; brewing this up with my father-in-law this weekend.

Bell's actually has a guide on their website on how they recommend to do this: http://bellshomebrew.tumblr.com/post/66974707212/how-to-culture-bells-house-yeast-from-a-bottle

I ended up using the yeast from three bottles, and made a tiny tiny tiny starter (as Bells suggested). As of this morning, it was looking pretty good. I'm going to step it up probably on Wednesday.

 

That’s sweet, I hadn’t seen this on their site before. Funny how they are so accommodating to homebrewers, but lawyer up against other “innovative” craft breweries. Don’t want to see this thread turn into discussion on that, but I am happy that they at least share some of their recipes and knowledge to us homebrewers. TBH I do love Oberon but if it wasn’t for the yeast I would probably not purchase a case and just clone something close to it every year.

Oh, and I think it’s a great choice to start out small on the yeast starter. You get a ton more growth per amount of DME used that way I think.

 

A lot of times people will say, "this year's Oberon is great!" or the opposite. Or you get the people that say, "this 6pack isn't as good as the one I had last month".

Well, when I toured Bells a little while back, they showed us they have barrels upon barrels of wort sitting around that they add to each batch to tweak the flavor a bit, depending on what the brewer is looking for. Thus, you really never get the same exact batch of Oberon each time it's made.

Just a fun fact to further complicate the cloning process.

 

Odd, I thought blending was supposed to be FOR being able to replicate flavor...

In any case, I think I have everything I need to make Oberon. I'm going to start building my yeast up and maybe brew a batch next week. It's a beer I've been meaning to try to make for a while now.

 

As any business would. Bells is awesome.

 

About 36 hours after pitching, and my itty-bitty starter is looking good: this morning there was a real nice layer of yeast sitting on the bottom. I think tonight I'm going to step it up and pitch 750 ml of wort onto it. I'll let that ride a couple days, then throw it in the fridge in prep for Saturday's brewday.

 

Yep, I was thinking the same. But that's probably not real promising for our single one-off five or ten gallon brews coming close to concisely cloning the real thing!

Not gonna stop me from trying!

 

What size batch are you going with? 750 ml starter stepup may not be enough yeast for a 5 gallon batch.

 

It'll be a 5 gallon batch. I've been doing 750 ml starters with 5 gal batches and it's gone well (for the past 6 batches or so), so I just sort of figured I'd keep it up. Plus it's what was mentioned on Bell's site. BUT, since I have a bit of time, I may step it up again just to be on the safe side. Hmmmm now you have me thinking.

I've got to be honest with you guys. I'm stoked about this yeast harvest thing. I keep telling people about it, with honest enthusiasm, but no one seems to get it. I was on the phone with my dad a couple nights ago and told him, and he said, "oh." I'm like, "Come'on dad this is AWESOME!" Nope. I guess not?

 

I guess it really depends on what types of cell counts we think we have after that first initial step. 1 ml of “slurry” is about 1 billion cells. A typical white labs vial has about 100 ml of slurry or 100 billion cells. I started with 8-10 bottles of dregs and from looking at the bottom of starter flask I’d say I’m around there, maybe a little more (AFTER a 600 mL starter at 1.020). I’ll try to take a picture when I get home so I can get some feedback on that. But anyway, assuming you have 100 billion cells right now, yes a 750 ml starter will get you the proper amount for a 5 gallon batch (around 200 billion cells if starter is manually shaken, around 250 if using stir plate).

I’ve had the same response (or non-response)! At least us beer geeks have each other on HBT to geek out about this type of stuff with.

 

I don't know what you guys are using for recipes, but there are a number of different takes on this beer, that's for sure. I actually had a hard time finding the simple stuff, such as the IBU level - seeing 10 IBUs listed somewhere, and as many as 57 somewhere else. Kind of made a hybrid of a few recipes I saw, plugging numbers into Beersmith to hit around 22 IBUs and an OG of 1.058.

To complicate it a bit, I'm doing this one extract, for sheer simplicity. I'm trying to get my father-in-law back into brewing since he took about 30 years off after a few failed attempts. I'm hoping that if I keep this simple and it turns out well, he'll be giving me homebrew for a change

It's been a year since I did an extract, and I've got to say: just putting together my process list for the brew day, it looks so much easier (and shorter) than an AG day. I'm looking forward to keeping it simple again.

 

Here's a link to a site with comments from Bells http://alestolagers.blogspot.com/2010/05/recipe-of-week-bells-oberon-clone.html

 

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1427859701.116258.jpg

This is in a 2000 ml Erlenmeyer flask, about 700 ml at 1.020 starter volume. Anyone with a guess as to how much slurry?

Here is after I stepped up, split 2000 ml at 1.040 or so between 2 containers. Hoping this should be enough for 10 gal but I'll check the slurries and rerun the calc.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1427859900.211242.jpg

 

Thanks ibrew. I had seen that, along with this recipe here: https://byo.com/blogs/entry/bell-s-oberon-clone-woodberon

The main difference between the two is the hop schedule. I ended up basing my hop type/schedule on the Woodberon recipe, trying to get around 22 ibus.

 

Thanks, after reading this Im going to slightly tweak my recipe as shown below (got rid of the 45 min hersbrucker addition, moved 5 minute saaz to 30 minute and upped to 1.5 oz, and got rid of the cascade dry hop):



11.5 gallon batch

75% efficiency

OG 1.057

IBUs: 16.0

Color 4.8 SRM



5 g calcium chloride added to HLT





10 lbs wheat malt

12 lbs 2 row

1 lb C-10

8 oz acid malt



Mash at 154 for 60 minutes, batch sparge



1 oz hallertauer Hersbrucker 60 min

1.5 oz Saaz 30 min

1 oz Saaz 15 min

Bell’s Yeast ~ 500 billion cells

Ferment at 63F for six days, ramp to 72F for two days, cold crash to 33F for kegging.

1.5 oz Saaz dry hop 7 days. (.75 oz total per keg)

 

What's C-10?

 

Crystal I believe.

 

Of course it is. If he added the "L" i would have got it!

 

Yea crystal. Sorry for any confusion.

 

What does the acid malt do? My brew store only sells it by the pound. For a 2.5 gallon batch I would only need about 2oz.

 

Its to lower the mash pH based on my water profile, mineral additions, and grain bill. I use Bru'n Water. Also, didnt have it in the recipe before but I'm using 5g of gypsum and 5g of calcium chloride in the HLT. Those really depend on your water profile though, I have fairly soft water so YMMV.

I use acidulated malt in all my lighter beers. Some may find it not necessary, I've had good results with pale beers I've added a small amount to. If you havent already, I suggest reading up on the Brewing Water Primer if you're interested in water chemistry:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/

 

Well I built up my starter to 750 mL the other day. In an attempt of measure growth of yeast I had measured the amount of slurry on the bottom after the 75 mL starter and got 9mm, and after the 750 mL addition I was around 10 or 11mm. I'm not sure that it's accurate or anything, but I was just trying to figure out if there was much/any growth in the yeast.

I put it in the fridge, and I think I'm going to decant it Friday night and also add another 750 mL of wort to the yeast again to prepare it for pitching on Saturday.

What do you guys think? Is it worth it to add another 750 mL?