Rhoman
Active Member
DO IT!
First, thanks to all for the quick responses to the questions I've asked so far - you both put my nerves at ease and made this a success (hopefully!). When I was researching about harvesting the Pacman, I found it difficult to find all of the "how to make a starter" and "harvesting Pacman" information on one thread -maybe I just suck at using the search feature- so I thought I'd start a thread to make the info slightly more accessible.
I recently harvested some Pacman from two Rogue Shakespeare Stout bottles to use with an Oatmeal Stout. I split the batch, so 2.5 gallons is fermenting with Pacman, the other with Irish Ale 1084 from Wyeast. The Pacman was a great success and has been fermenting like crazy for the past couple days (more vigorously than the 1084!). To anyone that wants to try harvesting some from one of Rogue's bottles, it's incredibly easy and a great way to start altering your extract recipes to learn how different yeast strains change your brews (even a Newbie like me could do it!)
-Bought two bottles of Shakespeare Stout.
-Built a stir-plate via the instructions on this forum (search "home made stir plate" or something similar), which was free and very easy. I was lucky enough to have mom send me a stir bar from her pharmaceutical lab.
-Being far away from my LHBS I used several bottles of Malta Goya (found in International Aisle in grocery store) instead of DME. Worked like a charm, tasted like crap.
-Poured off 4/5ths of the Shakespeare Stout into my stomach, then the yeast at the bottom went into my starter container.
-I used 1:1 ratios of Malta Goya and water, boiled to sanitize and remove CO2, started with half bottle of MG and half bottle of water in a large Erlenmeyer (sp? who knows) flask loosely covered with tin-foil, then stepping up each day (3 days) by doubling the size until 2000mL, keeping the starter on the stir plate continually.
-Two days before I brewed, I crashed the yeast in the fridge for a nice cake, then poured off most of 90% of the fermented Malta Goya in my wort (gross).
-Used a strong magnet to hold the stir-bar in the starter flask so it didnt go in with my brew.
If I left out any important steps, which I'm sure I have, as I've been having myself a few Old Rasputin's add them in, or if you have better instructions, please clarify mine.
I'll let you know how the brew turns out!
First, thanks to all for the quick responses to the questions I've asked so far - you both put my nerves at ease and made this a success (hopefully!). When I was researching about harvesting the Pacman, I found it difficult to find all of the "how to make a starter" and "harvesting Pacman" information on one thread -maybe I just suck at using the search feature- so I thought I'd start a thread to make the info slightly more accessible.
I recently harvested some Pacman from two Rogue Shakespeare Stout bottles to use with an Oatmeal Stout. I split the batch, so 2.5 gallons is fermenting with Pacman, the other with Irish Ale 1084 from Wyeast. The Pacman was a great success and has been fermenting like crazy for the past couple days (more vigorously than the 1084!). To anyone that wants to try harvesting some from one of Rogue's bottles, it's incredibly easy and a great way to start altering your extract recipes to learn how different yeast strains change your brews (even a Newbie like me could do it!)
-Bought two bottles of Shakespeare Stout.
-Built a stir-plate via the instructions on this forum (search "home made stir plate" or something similar), which was free and very easy. I was lucky enough to have mom send me a stir bar from her pharmaceutical lab.
-Being far away from my LHBS I used several bottles of Malta Goya (found in International Aisle in grocery store) instead of DME. Worked like a charm, tasted like crap.
-Poured off 4/5ths of the Shakespeare Stout into my stomach, then the yeast at the bottom went into my starter container.
-I used 1:1 ratios of Malta Goya and water, boiled to sanitize and remove CO2, started with half bottle of MG and half bottle of water in a large Erlenmeyer (sp? who knows) flask loosely covered with tin-foil, then stepping up each day (3 days) by doubling the size until 2000mL, keeping the starter on the stir plate continually.
-Two days before I brewed, I crashed the yeast in the fridge for a nice cake, then poured off most of 90% of the fermented Malta Goya in my wort (gross).
-Used a strong magnet to hold the stir-bar in the starter flask so it didnt go in with my brew.
If I left out any important steps, which I'm sure I have, as I've been having myself a few Old Rasputin's add them in, or if you have better instructions, please clarify mine.
I'll let you know how the brew turns out!
