How long should it take to grow yeast from a bottle?

[Calder]

Opened a bottle of Chimay Red last Saturday, and it was great. Right then I decided I would try and make something similar, and penciled in my next beer to be a Chimay Red Clone (to brew next week).

Not having the right yeast available I decided to grow the yeast from the bottle and added 6 ozs of canned starter wort to the bottle and topped it with an airlock.

I figure the bottle was pretty fresh since the store had only just started to sell it (Kroger).

I didn't see much activity (but could have missed it), so after 5 days (yesterday) I cooled it down. This evening I decanted it and checked the gravity. ......... 1.030. I don't know the exact gravity of my starter wort, but it is usually between 1.030 and 1.040, so I'm not sure I got anything out of the yeast.

I've added back about 16 ozs of starter wort. Is there still any hope for this yeast, or do I need to change my brewing plans for next weekend? The back-up is a trippel with WLP550; something similar to Houblon Chouffe.

 

[hodge]

I'm really interested in your Houblon Chouffe plans, are you going with this? I am planning to brew the hopchewy recipe in the next few weeks with a mix of WLP 550 and WY 3522.

Can't really comment specifically to the procedure you're using for culturing, but it usually takes me about a week to step up a bottled beer to a pitch-able amount of yeast. Here is the procedure I follow, which I stole from someone in this forum and is now in my Beersmith notes.

..............................................................................................
Helps to have a stirplate, flask, and stirbar for this so you can keep the yeast in reproduction.

Pacman is easy to get. Make up a 1/2 cup starter with 1/2oz DME, and 1/8tsp of yeast nutrient (diammonium phosphate). Boil the sucker for about 20 minutes, then let cool.

Pour yourself 3 nice glasses of dead guy ale, leaving about an inch of beer at the bottom of each bottle. Sanitize the neck and rim of the bottles with rubbing alcohol or vodka, and then flame them. Swirl the bit of beer/yeast in the bottom, and pitch all 3 into the starter.

Let the starter go for a couple of days on the stirplate, then step it up with 1cup of nutrient rich wort (same ratios as above). Let it go for another couple days, then pitch another cup.

By the end, you should have enough pacman to fill 3 white labs vials about half-way. I know it works with Dead Guy, because I did it just a couple weeks ago just like this. And in UT, they don't take any precautions for yeast health, like keeping beer in the fridge at the liquor stores....but I digress.

That's the lazy way to do it, anyway. A better way would be to streak them with an inoculation loop on some malt extract/agar plates, and then select some health colonies to propagate, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's more than you'd want to do .

 

[scoundrel]

Opened a bottle of Chimay Red last Saturday, and it was great. Right then I decided I would try and make something similar, and penciled in my next beer to be a Chimay Red Clone (to brew next week).

Not having the right yeast available I decided to grow the yeast from the bottle and added 6 ozs of canned starter wort to the bottle and topped it with an airlock.

I figure the bottle was pretty fresh since the store had only just started to sell it (Kroger).

I didn't see much activity (but could have missed it), so after 5 days (yesterday) I cooled it down. This evening I decanted it and checked the gravity. ......... 1.030. I don't know the exact gravity of my starter wort, but it is usually between 1.030 and 1.040, so I'm not sure I got anything out of the yeast.

I've added back about 16 ozs of starter wort. Is there still any hope for this yeast, or do I need to change my brewing plans for next weekend? The back-up is a trippel with WLP550; something similar to Houblon Chouffe.

I think the problem is that you are trying to culture Chimay Red. If my memory serves, the yeast you are culturing is the yeast used for bottle conditioning and not the yeast used to ferment. This is common among many European bottle conditioned beers. This is not the case for many beers brewed in the States like Sierra Nevada, Smuttynose, or Bells. These beers use the same yeast to bottle condition as they use in fermentation. I've cultivated several beers from the States and it usually takes 2 beers and no more than 2-3 days to kick in. That being said I was using a stir plate.

 

[Hammy71]

The Chimay yeast is the same they ferment with and bottle with (Brew like a Monk, is where I read this I believe). First make sure you have the big bottle. The small ones aren't bottle conditioned. It took me almost 2 weeks of slowly increasing the starter wort to a volume I needed for pitching. Slow, small and steady is the way to go. If I recall, I put the dregs of two bottles in maybe 4oz of low gravity wort. Gotta remember....the yeast in the bottle has been pretty stressed and you'll have to baby it.

 

[Calder]

The Chimay yeast is the same they ferment with and bottle with (Brew like a Monk, is where I read this I believe). First make sure you have the big bottle. The small ones aren't bottle conditioned. It took me almost 2 weeks of slowly increasing the starter wort to a volume I needed for pitching. Slow, small and steady is the way to go. If I recall, I put the dregs of two bottles in maybe 4oz of low gravity wort. Gotta remember....the yeast in the bottle has been pretty stressed and you'll have to baby it.

Yes, it's a big bottle.

Still no activity. Just going to leave it and see what happens.

 

[phillyhomebrew]

canned starter wort

/confused puppy dog stare

 

[phoenixs4r]

Yes, it's a big bottle.

Still no activity. Just going to leave it and see what happens.

I harvested some if my own yeast out of a bottle for ****s and giggles.

I didn't use an airlock, put it on my stir plate and it took like 2 days before I saw anything, I had almost given up.

Shake that sucker a lot and put some foil on it would be my suggestions.

 

[scoundrel]

/confused puppy dog stare

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/canning-starter-wort-145763/

 

[phillyhomebrew]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/canning-starter-wort-145763/

Neat, thanks!