Has anyone tried to harvest the year out of a commercial beer such as boulevard wheat or shock top lemon I know there is a small amount of yeast in the bottom of bottle. I'm thinking about trying it and making a small starter and growing it up to enough for a 5 gal batch. Has anyone ever tried this? Do you think it will work
harvesting commercial yeast
- Thread starter Dmanshane
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
A lot of breweries, especially the big ones, will filter their primary strains out and bottle with lager yeast. What you want to do has been tried and does work, you just have to figure out if the beer you are after contains your desired strain or a bottle conditioning strain.
Parrothead1
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2013
- Messages
- 30
- Reaction score
- 19
They talked about it on Brew Strong. Take the freshest bottle conditioned beer that you can find and put it in the fridge for about a week to make sure as much yeast as settled to the bottom as possible. Pour out most of the beer. Flame the end of the bottle and add starter wort.Cover with sanatized Aluminium foil, 1.02 to give them a chance to recover, Then step up bigger to 1.04 I never tried it but they said that it was easy and the starter tasted just like the beer they were trying to clone. As Setesh said, The hardest part was making sure that you are getting the right yeast.
khawk95
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2013
- Messages
- 145
- Reaction score
- 24
I have harvested a few commercial beers. You need to do research to make sure they use the original strain to condition in the bottle. It's a high risk of contamination. You have to be as close to sterile as possible.
It can be fun, but after stepping up 3 times to get a pitchable amount, it's cheaper to just buy new yeast.
Roed Haus Brewery
It can be fun, but after stepping up 3 times to get a pitchable amount, it's cheaper to just buy new yeast.
Roed Haus Brewery
I live in Michigan and a fan of Bells. They use same yeast for most of their beers and I've harvested it with no problem. I get beer, bottles, and yeast for about what I'd pay for liquid yeast.....seems like a no brainer to me. Yeast are survivors....brew on!
I've got one going right now I'm using for a clone of its source beer. I've got it in the fridge compacting down the yeast layer after the first round of dilute starter wort. I'll decant off and top off with some full strength starter wort in a couple days.
Really? $6 to $9 for the yeast and about two dollars for DME for the starter.
I make a starter with any liquid yeast anyway, and doing a 3 step starter only takes about 100 grams DME that I wouldn't use anyway. Maybe $1.00
So buying yeast = $7 to $11
Cultivating = About $3
So for me it is far cheaper to cultivate from commercial beer. (not counting the beer itself)
I have just made my first attempt so I don't know the results. Hoping that it is the house yeast and not a conditioning yeast.
khawk95
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2013
- Messages
- 145
- Reaction score
- 24
Yes. It can be cheaper to buy new. You need to cultivate more than one bottle to have a realistic amount for propagation unless you want to step up 4-5 times. I use a full 6 pack to get enough dregs for a starter. Cost of a 6 pack of beer with yeast in the bottles= at least 12 bucks where I'm from. Cost of DME is negligible, until you start to think about the amount of time needed to propagate enough yeast = 1.5 hours likely. I'm not willing to spend that much time for yeast that may or may not be cheap lager yeast. Plus it could easily get contaminated.
I also reuse all of my yeast so I don't have to spend anything after the initial purchase unless I want to try a different yeast.
Cost= too much time money and risk. The cost benefit analysis doesn't prove out for my purposes. Maybe when I have some free time, I will try it again.
Do it if you want. It's a lot of fun! I felt like a yeast master after my first successful harvest. Bells was my favorite yeast. Definitely not lager yeast.
Good points from both sides there IMO. It all depends on where you're coming from. If you are buying that 6 pack of beer anyhow because you like it so much then there is no need to include the cost in the harvest/step total. If you enjoy the process of making a multi step starter then the large time requirement wouldn't need to count either.
From my perspective, I would rather buy the tube of yeast and make a single step starter because I find the whole starter process tedious and I'm already short on brew time. I can see why some people would enjoy it though, especially when it is from harvesting. It's an experiment and a challenge every time (keeping it sanitary, and getting a good pitch in the end), which is rewarding when you succeed. A lot probably depends on how much 'scientist' is in your blood too. If the chemistry is strong with you then cultivating bottle harvested yeast is right up your alley.
From my perspective, I would rather buy the tube of yeast and make a single step starter because I find the whole starter process tedious and I'm already short on brew time. I can see why some people would enjoy it though, especially when it is from harvesting. It's an experiment and a challenge every time (keeping it sanitary, and getting a good pitch in the end), which is rewarding when you succeed. A lot probably depends on how much 'scientist' is in your blood too. If the chemistry is strong with you then cultivating bottle harvested yeast is right up your alley.
