Can anyone confirm or deny that you can harvest yeast from Bell's Two Hearted?

I know we have the Commercial Beer Yeast Harvest List thread and I asked in there, but didn't get much response. I've heard 2 people say that you can't harvest from Bell's Two Hearted. One said they use a different bottling yeast and the other said they filter.

I was able to harvest some yeast from a bottle back in October. I had activity in the starter with just the dregs and I stepped it up and I successfully made the Bell's Two Hearted clone with it and it tasted great. I also saved some of the yeast, but haven't used it yet. I'm at the point where I want to either use it, regrow some more because it's almost 6 months old or pitch it because I'm concerned I may just have their bottling yeast.

I did find this on the Bell's website:

They don't specifically mention Two Hearted (probably because of the higher alcohol content making it not as good of choice as their lower alcohol beers for harvesting). But at least they gives me hope that what I have is their house primary fermentation yeast and not a bottling yeast.

So can anyone confirm or deny that you can harvest their primary yeast from Bell's Two Hearted?

 

I've never done it myself but everything I've read says you can. I think maybe your seeing people not recommend to do it since 7% is a tad high and the yeast are probably stressed out/ possibly mutated at that point. Everything I've read suggests harvesting their yeast from lower abv beers from their line up like their brown ale or Oberon.

 

Yeah, I know about that, but I was able to find a single of Bell's Two Hearted at the time and not a single of the others and I know people said they did it before.

But the one person said they filtered it now and the other said they used a different bottling yeast.

(Would filtering mean you can't harvest from the bottle because clearly I got something unless I got some wild yeast?)

 

I made a two hearted clone once.

I also used a yeast harvested from bells. but i had read that harvesting from a 2h bottle would be hard due to the higher alc.

Found out that the Amber ale uses the same yeast as 2h. I was successfully able to brew a beer with that harvested yeast.

Try the amber!

 

Yeah, I may do that. I think I'm leaning towards just throwing out what I have due to the uncertainty.

 

Wow, I should have just emailed Bells sooner. I just emailed them and had a response in less than an hour. Here is the response:

So just like I thought it's due to the higher ABV. But at least I know what I have now.

 

Yeah bells uses only 2 strains for all brews. One is ale yeast and other is lager yeast. When I toured it they stated it would be rather difficult to propagate but didn't say why. I say challenge accepted.

 

I successfully harvested yeast from Oberon 2 weeks ago, they use the same yeast as 2 hearted from what i have read.

You will probably have better luck harvesting from Oberon since it was just released 2 weeks ago and has pretty fresh yeast.

I took the last ounce or so from a 6 pack and a 1.030 starter and it took about 2 days on the stir plate before i saw any activity.

I split that yeast into 3 mason jars and used 1 to make an Oberon clone last weekend and am going to make a 2 hearted clone this weekend.

 

It's always worth trying the brewery if you have yeast questions. A lot of them are really cool, and have no problem sharing information with homebrewers.

Hater - how big of a starter did you use? I very rarely see that kind of delay on bottle cultures. All personal experience of course, but I've grown more pitches from bottles than I've purchased.

 

Both times I've harvested from bottles/cans (Heady Topper and Two Hearted), they both took 4-5 days to show any signs of fermentation. But they both eventually did start and I was able to do multi step starters to grow more. I think I started with ~100 ml both times and didn't use a stirplate.

 

100 ml at what gravity? I normally I start bottle cultures with 30-50ml at 1.040, but my most recent I tried it as a two step. 100ml at 1.020 to 1500ml at 1.040. The first step was still within the mentioned timeframe, and the ferment is just starting to slow down now.

 

I too harvested from two hearted. Started with 250 mls @1.020 and went up from there, no problem.

 

I have just done it using amber ale. Worked fine and stepped up twice nicely.


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1.015-1.020. Here's what I did:

 

Okay, I think I see why there's a noticable difference. If I start at 100+ ml I use the stirplate on low speed. Less than 100 I pour it into a bottle. I also dont really worry about it other than to shake it occasionally until I pitch to a stirred step. I do expect those to be active within about 2 hours however.

 

Sure you can.

I harvested from two bottles of Two Hearted because that's all I could find. Spun it up on a stir plate. Not much evidence of activity after two days. Stepped it up. Good tan yeasty color after a couple more days on the stir plate. Pitched it into a Two Hearted clone and it was fantastic.

I've harvested Conan before too. Just try to get it as fresh as you can and be patient stepping it up and letting it develop on the stir plate.

This was pretty straight forward.

 

I used a 1200ml starter at 1.030. It worked great and got more than enough yeast to split 3 ways. I made another starter then and pitched that last weekend and it had my 1.054 batch going strong in 12 hours.

 

How did your beers turn out with this yeast? Harvested the yeast from a sixer of smitten, pitched into 300ml of 1.020 and had activity within a day. Added another 500ml of 1.020 and let that go a day then pitched it into a 1.020 1L starter. Took right off. Split that starter in half and made a 1.5L 1.040 starter for brew day. We have a 2 hearted recipe that went from 1.066 to 1.015 with this yeast and will be dry hopping it tomorrow hopefully. Early tasting results seem pretty clean with a light orangey citrus flavor. Fermentation started at 64 and ramped to 68 by the end.

 

No complaints. The Two Hearted clone I used it in came out very good. Very similar to the real thing.

 

good deal. I have another slurry of it spun up and ready for the next brew.

 

I had my Oberon go from an OG of 1.056 to a FG of 1.08.

My 2 Hearted inspired beer went from 1.062 to a gravity of 1.09 when I transferred to dry hop after 12 days.

Both were fermented controlled at 68

 

How'd they turn out?

 

I was just kegging Oberon and secondary transferring the 2 hearted today. They tasted about right without carbonation... as much as you can tell at least.

I shall report back in a week after I tap the Oberon

 

any results yet? I have the bells strain in 3 beers so far. seems great so far.

 

I love the Bell's yeast, it's my house strain for IPAs. I got my original culture 2 years ago from some oberon bottles. I bought a 12-pack before a few friends came over, made up some starter wort and asked everyone to pitch their dregs in when they got a beer.

It throws some great tangerine flavors that IMO go well with any sort of citrus-based hop scheme. The warmer you ferment the more pronounced the flavor (my experience has been between 62 and 72). I'd recommend keeping it below 70. It is also a beast - I've never had a stuck fermentation with it.