APA with european yeast?

[inkbob]

my dilema is whether or not to buy some new yeast for now... i brewed an alt style ale with wyeast 1338 a few months back, and want to try something more sierra nevada-like. i have to place an order with my HBS soon, and i am trying to decide if i need new, more style specific yeast, or if i can still get close to the target if i culture some of the 1338 from a bottle of the last batch. i'm 99% sure it's not contaminated, so that is not a concern. anyone with experience? how different are the strains? eventually i want to try all kinds of different combinations, rather than just follow recipes, but right now i'm not too familiar with the particular characteristics of the different yeasts, other than what one reads in the information paperwork that comes with the yeast, for example.

in short, using 1338 will i only end up with a hopped up alt beer? or can i get close to the american amber or pale ale styles?

 

[Mikey]

My guess is that you'll be fine, go for it. Neither yeast is particulalry distinct, and the elevated hop levlels of the APA will dominate the taste profile anyway

 

[cweston]

You could go ahead and give it a shot.

Something to file away fro next time: Keep in mind that when you harvest yeast from the bottle, you're selecting out the least flocculent yeast cells: the ones that didn't make it to the bottom of the fermenter in either the primary or the secondary. If you harvest the yeast cake from the primary after racking, you'll get a much greater amount of more robust and flocculent yeast cells.

 

[inkbob]

You could go ahead and give it a shot.

Something to file away fro next time: Keep in mind that when you harvest yeast from the bottle, you're selecting out the least flocculent yeast cells: the ones that didn't make it to the bottom of the fermenter in either the primary or the secondary. If you harvest the yeast cake from the primary after racking, you'll get a much greater amount of more robust and flocculent yeast cells.

so is that a genetic thing in the yeast? BTW, i only did a primary, then bottled, so maybe i can hope that these are still somewhat flocculent. either way, very interesting and informative. i thought of harvesting some of the primary sludge, but i don't even brew once a month, and at the time i didn't want to be "forced" to brew another similar ale as my next beer.

if i do end up reusing the 1338 from the bottle, is it also reccomended that i "wash" it?