Harvesting Commericial Yeast (Pacman or other) - Be Patient

[MNBugeater]

In an attempt to harvest some Pacman yeast for a DGA clone this weekend, I emptied 4 bombers of Rogue Shakespeare stout and collected the bottom 1/3-1/4 inch from the bottles. 2 bottles each in 2 flasks. I added the yeast/sludge to about 1 Cup of wort starter and placed the flasks on stir plates Monday evening.

Tuesday morning I noticed a little foam on top but didn't notice an appreciable amount of yeast. I checked again about 24 hours into the process and no change. Slight foam. Didn't know if this was from yeast reproduction or just aeration from the stir plate. But again no visible yeast.

I came home from work on Wednesday afternoon and still no change. I turned off the stir plates giving up hope and figured I would try it again someday but that there just wasn't enough yeast in those bottles to harvest.

I went back in the fermenting room to get the flasks later than night to clean them and noticed obvious signs of fermentation. I looked at the bottom of the flasks and there was a nice thin film of yeast. Success...small, but success.

I shook the hell out of the flask to get the yeast back in suspension and put them back on the stir plate. I plan on adding more wort tonight to step up the starter and hope to pitch them this weekend.

Lesson Learned...be patient when harvesting commercial yeast.

 

[gregs765]

I grew up some yeast from a six-pack of Oberon last summer, and I agree that it takes patience and multiple steps. Tiny starters leading to small starters... building through about 4-5 steps until it got to something pitchable. So patience is a necessity, as it a near-obsessive approach to sanitation; if you aren't careful, you can grow bacteria just as easily as yeast.

Oh, and one last hint: Do all the sanitizing and prep you can before emptying out those bottles. Woo hoo!

 

[Revvy]

+1 to both posts in this thread...

These things are subtle and should take time, you are trying to grow a few cells of tired yeast into a big enough starter to ferment 5 gallons....it should be done gradually.

 

[flyangler18]

Getting any growth from a bottle-harvest on a slant takes even more patience. I'm just now seeing a small colony on a slant I streaked from the dregs of a bottle of Le Fin du Monde over a week ago.

In hindsight, I should have built the sample up in incremental starters first. Oh well.

 

[Brewing Clamper]

I was able to step up Pacman from a single 22oz Shakespeare Stout enough to make 10g of beer. It took a while but it was great!

I believe Austin Homebrew Supply has Pacman available right now in a smack pack. At least that's what I saw on their website today. I'll probably order some for my next brew.

 

[MNBugeater]

Follow up on my harvesting attempt...

I would say complete success based on purely visual evidence. I have yet to taste the final product, but I have 2 carboys sitting at about 58-60 degrees and the harvested Pacman yeast is going like crazy. If it weren't for 6-8 drops of FermcapS (great stuff), this one would have needed a blow off tube for sure. I pitched a good 1 inch slurry from the bottom of a 2000mL flask into each carboy on Saturday afternoon (4/18) and had active signs of fermentation within 4 hours. Today (Monday 4/20) it is still extremely active. I am very pleased to see this much activity from bottle harvested yeast and at this nice cool fermenting temperature. Can't wait to try this beer.

 

[humann_brewing]

Good job with your progress. I was wondering what the yeast should look like after the first run.

I have some on the stir plate all weekend and through it in the fridge overnight. There was some stuff floating on the bottom this morning but wasn't white like I expected. I decanted and put in another 500ml of wort and back to the stir plate. We will see what happens I guess.

 

[MNBugeater]

Good job with your progress. I was wondering what the yeast should look like after the first run.

I have some on the stir plate all weekend and through it in the fridge overnight. There was some stuff floating on the bottom this morning but wasn't white like I expected. I decanted and put in another 500ml of wort and back to the stir plate. We will see what happens I guess.

I wonder what it should look like too...after 24-36 hours I really didnt think I noticed anything. But it was on a stir plate so its hard to see any appreciable change in color. Usually the slurry gets lighter in color as the yeast propagate and considering I harvested from a stout i thought I would notice.

But after 48 hours the increase in yeast count wasnt really that much to change the color of my slurry. It wasn't until I had turned off the stir plate and it sat for 1-2 hours that I noticed a nice thin layer of yeast on the bottom. This is when I turned the stir plate back on, went and made 2-3 more cups of wort, cooled it, and just poured it in the flask. Two days later, i put in the fridge overnight, then decanted and pitched the remaining slurry. I had probably a 1/2 inch yeast cake and decanted to about an inch or so.

I did notice a day or so after I added the second round or wort that the color had paled in color significantly. It wasn't until I had a large enough starter that I could really tell the yeast were reproducing. It was at this stage that I also had small visible krausen, but I rarely get much krausen anyway on the stir plate.

 

[Brewing Clamper]

I have some on the stir plate all weekend and through it in the fridge overnight. There was some stuff floating on the bottom this morning but wasn't white like I expected. I decanted and put in another 500ml of wort and back to the stir plate. We will see what happens I guess.

The first time I harvested this yeast from a Shakespeare I had the same issue, It didn't look white so I wasn't sure if I did it right, but I guess that's what happens when you get the yeast from a stout!

After a few step-ups it was more of what I expected.

 

[humann_brewing]

The first time I harvested this yeast from a Shakespeare I had the same issue, It didn't look white so I wasn't sure if I did it right, but I guess that's what happens when you get the yeast from a stout!

After a few step-ups it was more of what I expected.

Ok, well I hope so, I will keep trying. How long do you think I should wait for it to go through the new 500ml I put in?

 

[Brewing Clamper]

Hard to say. The very first wort I put it in took a week to ferment completely (hydrometer reading) but after decanting that and adding new wort, it blew through it in a couple of days! I did 3 step ups and then pitched to a 10 gallon batch. It fermented it vigorously in less then a week. Great stuff. For my next beer I decided to order some pacman from Austin Homebrew Supply. I'll probably brew it next week.

 

[humann_brewing]

Hard to say. The very first wort I put it in took a week to ferment completely (hydrometer reading) but after decanting that and adding new wort, it blew through it in a couple of days! I did 3 step ups and then pitched to a 10 gallon batch. It fermented it vigorously in less then a week. Great stuff. For my next beer I decided to order some pacman from Austin Homebrew Supply. I'll probably brew it next week.

Great advise, in thinking about it I probably should have let the first one go a little longer. It was smelling like fermented wort when sniffing but too late now, it just has some fresh wort to munch on for a few days. I hope I get to a pitchable level by this weekend though.

 

[Brewing Clamper]

As long as there's plenty of O2, you should be ok.

 

[humann_brewing]

Well something is definately happening. I have a little bigger white ring around the edge water line which is a little bigger than it was last time. I will crash cool tonight, see how much falls to the bottom, decant and add some more tonight

 

[steelerguy]

Well something is definately happening. I have a little bigger white ring around the edge water line which is a little bigger than it was last time. I will crash cool tonight, see how much falls to the bottom, decant and add some more tonight

If you have room in the vessel you are using for your starter, I would not crash cool and decant, just add more wort. I only say this because it takes time to crash cool, decant, let it warm back up, and then add wort of the same temp. Say that takes you 12 hours, you could have had a doubling of the yeast in there in that time if you just add wort. Of course, if you don't have room, you have no choice.

 

[DankBrewHa]

I gathered yeast from the bottom of a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale last week. I put the yeast on top of 1 cup of water mixed with one ounce of DME. 2 days later, i put that on top of 3 cups of water mixed with 3 ounces of DME. I pitched it one day later into a 5 gallon batch. It took about 12 hours to start fermenting and it has been slow and steady ever since. Does this sound good? This is only my third batch and my first two batches have fermented very quickly (using liquid yeast with no starter). I hope this one is ok.

 

[humann_brewing]

Update on harvesting pacman

I added some more wort last night, put the tin foil back and rubber banded it on to not let much co2 out to see if there is a krausen build up. I also did not put it on the stir plate.

This morning I have a nice white 1" layer of krausen on the top. I gave it a good stir and will let it sit some more. I just hope this is pacman at work and not some random yeast.

What are the chances of a random airborne yeast getting in?