Commercial Beer Yeast Harvest List

[unionrdr]

I finally found a 6'r of cooper's sparkling ale. It's popular down under to harvest the commercial yeast from these to brew with. I'm gunna give it a shot. The ale has a dark sort of fruity taste to it,kind of malty with that.

 

[MDVDuber]

I've had luck with the "Chatoe" Rogue line (Rogue Oregasmic and Wet Hop) - but both times I've done it it's taken forever to really kick off. I should note that in both cases I harvested the dregs from 2 bottles and did it during the winter when my house is pretty cool - think 62-64ish. In the end though I get a really nice yeast harvest that chews through just about whatever I can throw at it.

The second time I harvested from the primary and I have a few jars left in the fridge. Gotta get brewing!

 

[badhabit]

This is much more a question than a reply. What is a bottling strain? I have heard that a number of producers use a yeast that will not reproduce the same as the original strain when they bottle. You can harvest and propogate and it may make good beer that may in fact be close to the original but will not be the same. I have specificaly heard this about New Belgian.

 

[PurpleJeepXJ]

The primary strain is typically closely guarded and proprietary so what most breweries will do is bottle condition with a separate strain in order to add a slightly different flavour and to sorta age the beer. You can brew with bottling strains and still make great beer. What you harvest from the bottle may or may not be the primary strain, bottling strain, or even a combo of both. Unless we are the master brewer of those breweries or a microbiologist with fancy equipment we will never really know which we are harvesting. Either way, this thread is of which successful harvests we have had and in reality that is all we need as home brewers since no matter how hard we try we can not as small brewers make the same beer as the big guys... no matter how full of ourselves we are. Hopefully the first part of that answered your question.

 

[mobrewdude]

You can add Boulevard Wheat to the list, I did it as my first harvest experiment and it took right off

 

[NuclearRich]

I've harvested from Allagash White. Delicious.

 

[TimT]

Cheval Blanc's La Blanche is harvestable and I have confirmed with the brewery it is the same strain used for conditioning and fermenting.

 

[shadows69]

Forget shock top. I tried it no good. Anyone ever try to harvest from blue moon?

 

[smokinghole]

Forget shock top. I tried it no good. Anyone ever try to harvest from blue moon?

It's pasteurized. So is Wittekerke.

 

[ThreeDogsNE]

The primary strain is typically closely guarded and proprietary so what most breweries will do is bottle condition with a separate strain in order to add a slightly different flavour and to sorta age the beer. You can brew with bottling strains and still make great beer. What you harvest from the bottle may or may not be the primary strain, bottling strain, or even a combo of both. Unless we are the master brewer of those breweries or a microbiologist with fancy equipment we will never really know which we are harvesting. Either way, this thread is of which successful harvests we have had and in reality that is all we need as home brewers since no matter how hard we try we can not as small brewers make the same beer as the big guys... no matter how full of ourselves we are. Hopefully the first part of that answered your question.

I understood that the bottling strain is often selected for flocculence, to leave a clear final product. They may well be a "clean" strain that produces few characteristic esters. There is not as much concern about or even desire for ester production with these strains, as the greatest part of fermentation has already happened with the primary strain, with its ester profile already accomplished in the beer.

 

[Bradinator]

I used the Unibroue bottle strain for my latest Belgian Strong and its fermented out quite nice (1.084 to 1.010). The beer is still far from ready, but the sample taste I took was quite nice. It definitely had that unique unibroue flavour in it.

Just my 2 cents but considering it had the Unibroue flavour characteristics, I would think that the bottle strain may be similar if not the same as the actual yeast used in their primary fermentation.

 

[diverpat]

I brewed a pumpkin wheat with Harpoon UFO Hefeweizen harvested yeast. The beer started @ 1.053 and finished at 1.009 and is as clear as can be. It doesn't have the look or flavor of a Hefe. It doesn't taste too bad so far but it just isn't to style.

 

[imtrashed]

Aren't all of the Allegash beers bottle-conditioned with the original fermenting yeast?

 

[NuclearRich]

Aren't all of the Allegash beers bottle-conditioned with the original fermenting yeast?

Yeah, that's true. However, I chose the white because it is the lowest abv, therefore less stressed yeast from fermentation.

 

[tcdehay]

You can add OMalley's beer from Weston Mo. They make a Drop Kick Ale, a Cream Ale, a Ruddy Wheat, and others. I talked to the brewer and he said their house yeast is American Ale Yeast 1056.

 

[kcpup]

I'm pretty sure Unibroue has one specific strain of yeast they use for carbonation though. Could be wrong but they seem to be the same.

I've harvested the yeast from Driftwood's Farmhand Ale, the Unibroue offerings, and the dregs from Cantillon. Won't really know how well that least one worked for a while.

+1 on different bottling strain for Unibroue based on my research, too. I've purchased the Wyeast Private Collection Belgian Canadian when it comes out. It is the Unibroue strain. They didn't release it this year. I wrote Wyeast and they told me they were thinking about releasing it in 2012.

 

[wackyvegan]

does anyone know what yeast they use in the bottle conditioned WESTMALLE TRIPEL.is the yeast in the bottle the same that is used for the primary fermentation?

 

[Landshark67]

My understanding is the White Labs WLP530 is the Westmalle yeast.

I've used this yeast a lot over the past few years and agree that it's either the same or ultra close. A few Triples I made could pass for Westamalle.

 

[Bradinator]

Harvested viable yeast from Rogue Brewery's Sig's Northwestern Ale. Used it in my weekends brew and its fermenting like a champ!

 

[phenry]

Great Divide's Colette has yeast that you can harvest. Apparently they use a blend of 4 strains, but whichever one that took off in my starter made a pretty good saison. May be worthwhile trying to get a separate strain of each going on a streak plate or something.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I brewed a pumpkin wheat with Harpoon UFO Hefeweizen harvested yeast. The beer started @ 1.053 and finished at 1.009 and is as clear as can be. It doesn't have the look or flavor of a Hefe. It doesn't taste too bad so far but it just isn't to style.

I bet Harpoon's Hefeweizen is like Widmer, Shiner, etc. where it is a neutral wheat strain (like an American wheat strain) rather than a German weizen strain that throws banana and clove.

 

[dcp27]

I bet Harpoon's Hefeweizen is like Widmer, Shiner, etc. where it is a neutral wheat strain (like an American wheat strain) rather than a German weizen strain that throws banana and clove.

IIRC you're dead on. they mentioned something along those lines when I was at the brewery.

 

[Sardoman]

I'll second the Ommegang confirmation. I got the strain from a bottle of Rare Vos. It makes great beer.

There is a lot of conflicting information out there about the Unibroue strain/strains. I just did a post on this a few days back that includes a few links: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/la-fin-du-monde-clone-955/index3.html

Not trying to contradict anyone's claims, as there are a good number of possible explanations. I'll update on my progress here, since more people who might be interested will see it here rather than in the other thread.

I put the dregs from a bottle of La Fin du Monde on a malt agar plate. This method has never failed me. Several days and zero growth on the plate. I usually have a thick patch by now. I'll give it a few more days. Hard to believe that every cell could be dead....

So I can't confirm or deny anything about the Unibroue strain/strains yet. But I will get to the bottom of it.

 

[tacticalhooligan]

Rogue amber ale is good to go, as is their chatoe black lager (an oktoberfest strain of some kind according to their website)

Also, anything from Boulevard Brewing Co in their Smokestack Series is a no-go. They filter out the primary strain and bottle condition with a champagne yeast.

 

[phenry]

Also, anything from Boulevard Brewing Co in their Smokestack Series is a no-go. They filter out the primary strain and bottle condition with a champagne yeast.

And you just saved me half an hour and a few oz of DME. I was about to try to culture from Tank 7. Kinda sucks though, that's probably one of my favorite saisons.

 

[PurpleJeepXJ]

Man it is good to see that my thread is actually helping people!! Update to list coming soon!!

 

[diverpat]

I bet Harpoon's Hefeweizen is like Widmer, Shiner, etc. where it is a neutral wheat strain (like an American wheat strain) rather than a German weizen strain that throws banana and clove.

Thanks for the info! I bottled this a bit ago and I'm almost ready to taste a tester bottle.

 

[LVBen]

Man it is good to see that my thread is actually helping people!! Update to list coming soon!!

Instead of having 'confirmed' and 'unconfirmed', maybe you should list the # of confirmed cases.

 

[PurpleJeepXJ]

Instead of having 'confirmed' and 'unconfirmed', maybe you should list the # of confirmed cases.

I started out researching everything that was posted but that really is a lot of work. I am probably just going to put up what is posted and if lots of people complain then i will take an item off of the list. Keeping track of the number of confirmed accounts is a lot of work.

 

[imtrashed]

Confirmation direct from Allagash that you can not harvest their primary yeast from their Tripel, but you can from their White, and it's the same yeast...

It is true. This yeast in our Tripel bottles is our bottling yeast, which is a different strian from our primary yeast. The yeast in our White 12oz bottles is our primary yeast, and the one we use for the primary of the Tripel. I know of quite a few people to have success growing it up. Of course, the fresher the beer, the better.

Good luck!