Cultured Bell's Yeast

[Alpotun]

I brewed what's intended to be a Two-hearted clone, cultured yeast from a sixer. Took a few weeks to build it up but ended up with a 2 liter starter, the amount of slurry I pitched looked like what I do with a White Labs vial when I make a starter with it. No idea about cell count...
My OG was 1.058, last week for 3 days it was steady at 1.013, so I dry-hopped. My plans were to bottle yesterday, but there's still stuff rising and falling in the fermenter as though it's not finished. Bubbles from the airlock, too (please, no ridicule, I know the drill). This Saturday will be four weeks in there, longest I've left one to ferment yet. I checked it again this morning, still 1.013.
62-64F temps, swamp-cooler.
Any experience out there with this yeast and does it just take a long time to finish or should I just get it out and bottle?

 

[Redhawk96]

Steady gravity reading is all you need to know. But leaving it another week wouldn't hurt anything, and would help it settle. I find I get increased air lock activity when I dry hop in the primary. i assume it is the hops providing a nucleation point for the CO2 that is in solution.

Funny to see this post, I just hopped on to see what was on here for a few minutes on my way to get my stuff to make a starter with some Bell's yeast I harvested from Oberon this summer!

 

[EtchyLives]

If this yeast is anything like Pacific Ale yeast you may want to bring your wort up to 68°F or so for a couple days. I had the same issue (LOTS of movement in the wort past when any fermentation *should* have been taking place) until I raised the temp with the idea of warming up the yeast so they could clean up after themselves. (I'm still learning the terminology... but is that called diacetyl rest?)

It worked (movement subsided) and it turned out to be a great beer.

 

[permo]

I have used this yeast for three 15 gallon batches of beer in the last 6 months. I pitch at 70 and ferment at 72-75 degrees. The yeast gives a very subtle fruity esther, reaches a very dry terminal gravity within a week and drops out like a stone when cold crashing.

I do find that it can mute hops a bit with its fruitiness, and I have found my favorite application for it to be subtle wheat beers and blonde ales.

Two clone two hearted ale it is a necessity though. The fruity nose on the two hearted is just as much a by product of their yeast strain fermented warmer as it is the hops.

 

[z-bob]

I've never harvested yeast from bottle-conditioned beer before, but I just poured the sediment from 2 cans of Bell's Oberon into 350 ml of sterile wort in a flask covered with aluminum foil. Is that enough, or should I add the sediment from another can? Should I put it on a stirplate? Or not, so I can tell if/when it starts fermenting? I know I'll need to step it up at least once.

 

[Oldskewl]

2 cans is fine, but 3 would be better. For the first step I'd put it on 0.25L of 1.020 wort. Then step up to 1L of normal 1.040 wort

 

[couchsending]

Their yeast is a mutated version of 1056/001/Bry96. You can buy it from the Yeast Bay. Acts and has a very similar flavor profile to cal ale but it floccs harder which is nice.

 

[Oldskewl]

My understanding is that it is a mutated version of 1272

 

[couchsending]

Bells yeast acts way more like 1056 than 1272

 

[z-bob]

It took several days to see any activity, and at first I thought it was a pellicle (sp?) forming, then realized it was just a weak krausen. I slosh the flask to stir it all up good again, and leave it alone. Been doing that for a couple of days. This morning, it was definitely a krausen, and when I sloshed it a bunch of CO2 was released and nearly blew the foil cover off.

I think I'll add some more wort to the flask and put it on a stir plate, and may pitch it tomorrow in a porter I'm going to be brewing.

 

[z-bob]

I didn't step it up but I did put it on a stir plate overnight. It was still actively fermenting Saturday morning. Early Saturday evening I pitched it into 4 gallons of 1.059 wort. This morning there was still no sign of activity at all, and I wasn't quite worried but almost. I checked it about a half hour ago (about 28 hours) and there's a nice thick layer of foam on top, so I guess it worked in spite of the under-pitch. Under-pitching can be good.

I may have to go out of town in a couple of days; if so I will transfer it early from the bucket to a carboy right before I leave, (hope I can keep the siphon running) and just harvest the yeast from that at bottling time. This has been a fun experiment.

 

[z-bob]

Bell's seems to be a good top-cropping yeast. I skimmed about a pint of foam off the top when I racked to a carboy last night. It settled out to about a half a cup of clean yeast. And the next morning the carboy (not quite full) had a nice new krausen on it. I will use the yeast I collected to brew a Bell's Two-Hearted clone in a few weeks. [note to self: order a pound of Centennial hops]

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Imperial Yeast A62 Bell's House Yeast?

 

[brownni5]

Bell's is really starting to cater to the home brewer, and I think it's great! Within the past month, they've supplied brew ingredients to James at Basic Brewing Radio and the folks at Brulosophy - I don't think that's a coincidence. I don't have any interest in using their hops or yeast, but it's cool to know that they're encouraging home brewers to try to clone their beers!

 

[kingmatt]

The Imperial A62 is awesome. I brewed a simple Pale Ale with it and it took off like a rocket with a huge creamy krausen. I topped cropped about 100ml of clean white yeast and made a 1000ml starter to pitch into a Two Hearted clone that was bubbling away less than 6 hours later.

I plan to top crop again to use in an Oberon clone. This may end up being my new go to yeast.

 

[kingmatt]

It is now 8 days from pitching for my Pale Ale and it looked like the krausen was finally starting to drop, until I checked this morning and it has now INCREASED to the point that I may have to put on a blowoff!

I took a gravity reading and it is at 1.016 now (down from 1.058) so it has a little further to go. I increased the temp up to 68F to hopefully help it along.

It smells and tastes great, I've just never seen a krausen act this way!