Here Goes Nothing - Washing Pacman

[tekknoschtev]

Well, by some miracle, I was able to spool up enough yeast from a bottle of Shakespeare Stout and Yellow Snow to ferment 10 gallons of cream ale. That was three and a half weeks ago. At terminal gravity, I kegged both of those this evening* and proceeded to wash the pacman yeast. I can't remember which specific thread I read it on, but swishing up the slurry and then laying the carboys on their side definitely made it easier to pour off the yeast and leave behind as much trub as possible.

6 mason jars worth of yeasty beer water are now settling out on my counter. I'm planning to brew an arrogant bastard clone with one of them this weekend, and might try to squeeze in another brew or two while we're I'm it. I've washed some US-05 before, just as an experiment, and that seemed to work well. Definitely not worth the hassle to spin up a starter (been there done that) but it was nice to know that I CAN wash yeast AND have it work

* Note to self. I don't know how I thought bottling was difficult. Between the million other things I had going on after work, plus the dog who for some reason was very set on being my shadow, even kegging two batches was kind of a pain. I cannot for the life of me imagine how much more of a pain in the butt it would have been to have 100 or so bottles around. I know its not difficult, but its definitely more work than kegging.

 

[MalFet]

Nicely done.

Can't say I understand though. If you find making starters such a hassle, why the heck are you culturing pacman up from dregs (especially for a non-rogue clone)?

 

[tekknoschtev]

Nicely done.

Can't say I understand though. If you find making starters such a hassle, why the heck are you culturing pacman up from dregs (especially for a non-rogue clone)?

I probably mis-spoke. The starter was fun, its just not worth the effort with the US-05, considering I have a few packets of it sitting in the fridge. The pacman was fun to culture from dregs And the fact that those dregs turned into enough yeast to ferment 10 gallons of beer was absolutely astounding to me - I understand the science behind it, just amazed that I was able to pull it off.

 

[MalFet]

I probably mis-spoke. The starter was fun, its just not worth the effort with the US-05, considering I have a few packets of it sitting in the fridge. The pacman was fun to culture from dregs And the fact that those dregs turned into enough yeast to ferment 10 gallons of beer was absolutely astounding to me - I understand the science behind it, just amazed that I was able to pull it off.

You fermented 10 gallons from dregs? That poor yeast. Hope it tastes alright. Certainly it works, though. Wild brewers make beer from a single airborn colony. Yeast does its job, and when we're luck it doesn't taste half bad.

 

[tekknoschtev]

I'm curious now - why is stepping up dregs for a 10 gallon batch a bad thing? I didn't just take the sediment from the bottle and dump it in, I stepped it up over several days to what I believed was an appropriate size based on the MrMalty calculator (and the numerous threads here about how to define "slurry" and yeast solid percentages) and my original gravity. The samples I took checking gravities and then tonight when kegging were definitely what I was expecting based on past versions of this recipe.

If there's something adverse I've probably done to stress the yeast which could cause problems with future batches, well I might as well use this as an excuse to pick up some more Rogue brews and try again doing something different.

 

[MalFet]

I'm curious now - why is stepping up dregs for a 10 gallon batch a bad thing? I didn't just take the sediment from the bottle and dump it in, I stepped it up over several days to what I believed was an appropriate size based on the MrMalty calculator (and the numerous threads here about how to define "slurry" and yeast solid percentages) and my original gravity. The samples I took checking gravities and then tonight when kegging were definitely what I was expecting based on past versions of this recipe.

If there's something adverse I've probably done to stress the yeast which could cause problems with future batches, well I might as well use this as an excuse to pick up some more Rogue brews and try again doing something different.

Ah, gotcha. A stepped started would do the job beautifully. Glad to hear it worked for you. I thought you were saying you just dumped a few bottles worth of dregs. I've seen people try that before; usually ends up pretty awful.