Creating your own hybrid yeast?

[hopcop]

I've been thinking about this idea for sometime now and I have no idea if it could work. This all stems from a conversation I had with this guy at my lhbs. I read the book Yeast and didn't see anything about blending two yeast (different strains) other than using (same style) one for the attenuation and the other for flavor and so on... I have a house yeast that has been great so far. I use 1056 and on generation 4 with it.

I currently have a Bock lagering with 2206 and was wondering what would happen if I washed the yeast and blended it equally with the 1056? My thought would be to make enough for two batches of beer and pitch. One being in the lager fermentation temps and the other in ale temps. It might be too expensive since I am risking losing both batches. I also thought about doing 1 gallon batches to cut the cost.

Has anybody tried this before with success? Any input would be great. This could be something awesome, or it could be another great conversation!

Cheers!

 

[Westel]

I think the 1056 at lagering temps would just go into hibernation so it wouldn't do anything.... as for the lagering yeast at ale temps I would do some research and see what kind of flavors it would produce.

I have always wondered about mixing 2 ale yeast to see if you could get some complex profiles going.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

White Labs sells a belgian ale strain blend (575). I have mixed feelings about it.

 

[redm18]

I don't that it works that way at all. I think lager yeast and ale yeast are separate species and what would happen is depending on condions either one yeast or the other would dominate and the other would die out. Different strains are developed by using one strain over and over until it developed mutations that were found to produce flavors that were desired.

 

[smokinghole]

Getting a hybrid takes a very specific environment its not just mixing yeast. This environment can be forced through a special agar recipe (i dont know the recipe) which I hope to use before this semester is over. I thought it would be cool to have my own hybrid. The only problem is just like when making babies the way the two genomes mix during sexual reproduction is a crap shoot. So the desirable chacteristics I hope for in the daughter cells might not be something nice at all.