House Yeast Strain

[JewBrew]

Hey HBT need some advice. Ive been brewing for a little over a year now and I am looking to cut costs where I can.

I understand that breweries have "house strains" that they recycle over and over again. As I have the capabilities for both ale and lagers, what general strains would allow me to brew both with good results.

 

[cvstrat]

Pacman is Rogue's house yeast I believe and it's available for purchase.

You could consider Safale US-05 for a cheap yet reliable yeast. Works great for most ales.

 

[Pappers_]

Lager and ale are different categories of yeast - generally, you don't want to use one strain for both.

I'd say find an ale yeast you like and a lager yeast you like. If you use the harvesting and washing method described in the sticky in the fermentation and yeast subforum, you can get up to 256 batches out of each tube of yeast you buy, which should be enough to keep you for a while

My 'house' yeast currently is WLP028 Edinburgh, for what its worth.

 

[JewBrew]

Up to how many generations can I reuse a strain.

 

[ArcaneXor]

Up to how many generations can I reuse a strain.

It depends on your capabilities. If you have a home yeast lab where you can hand-pick cells to propagate, you can go for 10+ generations. By simply washing and re-pitching, you may or may not start seeing reduced or abnormal performance around batch 5. I usually go for anything between one and five generations, depending on how the yeast is performing.

 

[Pappers_]

Up to how many generations can I reuse a strain.

Read the thread. You'll see that that method gives you four jars of yeast, each of which will yield four jars of yeast, etc.