Harvesting yeast from commercial beer

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Gunshowgreg

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Just a few questions about the matter but if i wanted to harvest yeast from commercial beer, is it recommended to reuse that yeast for beer of similar characteristics or does it not matter?

Can any one name commercial beers that are bottle conditioned? I've seen some videos harvesting from Sierra Nevada, and Hoegaarden. Wondering if anyone can name a few others.


When making a yeast starter, am I actually reproducing yeast?

Thanks.
Greg
 
Excelsior "Big Island Blond" appears to be bottle conditioned. I emailed them, but never got a reply. I would guess that it's a very common ale yeast like Chico.
 
I just did a batch using dregs from Allagash White. Worked perfectly. I've also used Saison Dupont. Find bottles that are newer. The fresher the better. Also it's best to use a lesser-hoppy and lower ABV beer so there are more viable cells in the bottle (that haven't been pickled).

And yes. In a starter or bottle harvest, you will be reproducing (multiplying) the yeast cells.
 
The biggest issue with this is that the yeast in the bottle may not be the yeast that it was brewed with.
Many breweries use a different yeast to bottle condition in order to speed up the process.

For example those French beers at Target, Unibroue, use a different yeast in the bottle. But with a little research you will find out that Wyeast 3864 is their brewing strand.
My advice is to not bother with this and just find out if the yeast that they use is commercially available and purchase it.

If you still want to play with this, you will need to gather as much lees as possible and build a step starter. I would start with a .5L flask and work your way up to 2L.
Stirplate and O2 stone will help. Use good sanitation processes as you will be starting with very little yeast; you want to be sure that the yeast that you added propagates and not some other random strain.
Good luck.
 
One thing to keep in mind is that some brews are bottle conditioned with a different yeast than what was used for fermentation.

One example that comes to mind is Allegash Tripel. If you want to clone that you would harvest from a bottle of Allegash White.
 
And in some cases, the brewery says they use a different strain for bottling, but they actually do not.

While it's true that in many cases you can do a little research and find the off-the-shelf identical yeast someone uses, there are a few that you just can't go buy [yet. eventually someone will bank it]

Yeasts are followed by varied and sometimes contradictory fairy tales. It's tough [albeit kinda fun] sometimes to get the real story.
 
You can harvest yeast from most of Bell's ales, they even give instructions on their website. I have successfully harvested from Oberon.
 
Thank you all for the replies. This idea stamped from watching you tube videos on how to "wash and reuse yeast" and the videos for taking yeast from the bottles of commercial beers came up. Thanks interesting to know that the yeast for bottling may be different.
 
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