I have been using Wyeast yeasts for making most of my beers. I tend to use new yeast everytime I brew (I don't brew as often as I should). Has anyone got any experience with cultivating yeasts (perhaps from live beers they enjoy drinking, or propogating yeasts from batches they have made and have enjoyed). Is this a difficult thing to do? How do you measure viability/quantity and how can you store these? Presumably you grow them up in starters with wort, then splt them and grow them again etc using stirrer bars. Is this true?
In search of yeasts
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everything you're describing is possible.
the best source for yeast is the bottom of your primary fermentation bucket/carboy. 'yeast washing' or even just dumping a portion of the slurry into a sanitized mason jar are good methods for keeping yeast.
you can build up yeast from the dregs of a non-filtered, bottle-conditioned commercial beer or from the dregs of homebrew. one method is to add a few ounces of wort on top of the yeast dregs, let that ferment, then add this to a pint of fresh wort, then add that to one or two quarts of fresh wort. each step multiplies the yeast until you have enough to ferment a 5 gallon batch.
some people use stir plates to increase yeast counts. it isn't strictly necessary to do so.
most people store their yeast in the fridge. some people freeze it with glycerin.
when attempting to actively grow yeast, it is important to have your sanitation practices into overdrive. wild bacteria and wild yeasts don't know that you aren't trying to grow them, too.
HTH
the best source for yeast is the bottom of your primary fermentation bucket/carboy. 'yeast washing' or even just dumping a portion of the slurry into a sanitized mason jar are good methods for keeping yeast.
you can build up yeast from the dregs of a non-filtered, bottle-conditioned commercial beer or from the dregs of homebrew. one method is to add a few ounces of wort on top of the yeast dregs, let that ferment, then add this to a pint of fresh wort, then add that to one or two quarts of fresh wort. each step multiplies the yeast until you have enough to ferment a 5 gallon batch.
some people use stir plates to increase yeast counts. it isn't strictly necessary to do so.
most people store their yeast in the fridge. some people freeze it with glycerin.
when attempting to actively grow yeast, it is important to have your sanitation practices into overdrive. wild bacteria and wild yeasts don't know that you aren't trying to grow them, too.
HTH
seph
Well-Known Member
Don Osborn did a short vid on culturing yeast from packaged beer...I found it pretty informative. YMMV
[ame]http://youtu.be/qYFp5ghf0wU[/ame]
[ame]http://youtu.be/qYFp5ghf0wU[/ame]
Thanks very much for the tips, and the video link. I will give them both a try. Any idea how long these yeasts will last for in the fridge? Do i store the dregs from the primary until a few days before brewing then culture everything up as described, or do I culture it up atraight after brewing then store in the fridge? What if there are weeks (perhaps 6-8) between brewing batches?
Warthaug
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Growing & storing yeasts from a range of sources is very doable by the average home brewer. On my blog I go over a more technical form of yeast banking that is orientated at stably storing a large number of strains indefinitely. There are a dozen other ways to do it - many described here on HBT - that are easier.
I would point out at this point that a lot of commercial beer (even the craft stuff) has had the yeast removed prior to packaging. It is possible (and fairly simple) to recover yeast from a live-bottled beer*, but impossible to do so from a beer that is filtered or centrifuged before packaging.
* this is super-easy:
1) Make up 100ml (~1/2 cup) of 1.040 wort, using DME and water. Boil for 10-15min to sanitize, and cool (covered) to room temperature.
2) At the same time, sanitize a funnel and piece of foil. Boiling in water or a star-san soak both work well.
3) Open the beer, and using a lighter, quickly flame the lip of the bottle (this will kill any bugs that are on it)
4) Carefully pour out the beer, leaving behind the yeast-cake.
5) Insert the funnel into the bottle, and pour your cooled/sanitized wort into the bottle. "Cap" the bottle with a piece of sanitized foil. Swirl the bottle to mix the eyastcake into the fresh wort.
6) Wait for visible activity to occur - once its fermenting well remove the foil, flame the lip of the bottle, and dump the bottle contents into a fresh starter. You can now step this up as you would any other starter &/or add it to your bank.
Bryan
EDIT: a bit more shameless self-promotion. This link will take you to all my articles/videos on yeast banking & culturing.
I would point out at this point that a lot of commercial beer (even the craft stuff) has had the yeast removed prior to packaging. It is possible (and fairly simple) to recover yeast from a live-bottled beer*, but impossible to do so from a beer that is filtered or centrifuged before packaging.
* this is super-easy:
1) Make up 100ml (~1/2 cup) of 1.040 wort, using DME and water. Boil for 10-15min to sanitize, and cool (covered) to room temperature.
2) At the same time, sanitize a funnel and piece of foil. Boiling in water or a star-san soak both work well.
3) Open the beer, and using a lighter, quickly flame the lip of the bottle (this will kill any bugs that are on it)
4) Carefully pour out the beer, leaving behind the yeast-cake.
5) Insert the funnel into the bottle, and pour your cooled/sanitized wort into the bottle. "Cap" the bottle with a piece of sanitized foil. Swirl the bottle to mix the eyastcake into the fresh wort.
6) Wait for visible activity to occur - once its fermenting well remove the foil, flame the lip of the bottle, and dump the bottle contents into a fresh starter. You can now step this up as you would any other starter &/or add it to your bank.
Bryan
EDIT: a bit more shameless self-promotion. This link will take you to all my articles/videos on yeast banking & culturing.
I only use yeasts from commercial bottles anymore, no more paying 8$ a vial when I can buy a beer for 3$ and get beer and yeast out of it. Right now I have a Bavarian hefe strain from a German import, English strain from St. Peters and US05 from Sierra Nevada. It's very easy to culture or re-use yeast.
To culture the yeast I pour the beer into a glass leaving the dregs. Swirl the dregs and pour into a small sanitized mason jar until I am ready to grow it. I will then make a weak solution out of DME and water and add my yeast into my ~250mL jar with lid. I shake it a few times a day, make sure you leave space. After a few days I will cool down in the fridge for a few days, decant and warm up. Then I make a starter with my 1L stir plate assembly and switch on my stir bar. And that's it. Ready for a batch. If I feel I have enough yeast dregs I skip the smaller jar first and just use my stir plate twice. I like to do a weak solution for a few days first, cool, decant, then make the starter.
As far as how long they will last, I've used my washed yeasts 8 months after canning them. They will need a good starter to get going again if waiting this long. All of the washed yeast will need a starter. Don't assume you have enough slurry in a jar and just pitch that. Viability decreases with time so always play it safe. You don't want to pitch billions of lysed cells and leave not enough viable cells to ferment the wort.
To culture the yeast I pour the beer into a glass leaving the dregs. Swirl the dregs and pour into a small sanitized mason jar until I am ready to grow it. I will then make a weak solution out of DME and water and add my yeast into my ~250mL jar with lid. I shake it a few times a day, make sure you leave space. After a few days I will cool down in the fridge for a few days, decant and warm up. Then I make a starter with my 1L stir plate assembly and switch on my stir bar. And that's it. Ready for a batch. If I feel I have enough yeast dregs I skip the smaller jar first and just use my stir plate twice. I like to do a weak solution for a few days first, cool, decant, then make the starter.
As far as how long they will last, I've used my washed yeasts 8 months after canning them. They will need a good starter to get going again if waiting this long. All of the washed yeast will need a starter. Don't assume you have enough slurry in a jar and just pitch that. Viability decreases with time so always play it safe. You don't want to pitch billions of lysed cells and leave not enough viable cells to ferment the wort.
chawagi
Well-Known Member
I just did my first starter using yeast I washed from a prior batch. Been in the fridge for about 5 weeks.
I cut costs even further by buying a 6 pack of Malta-Goya (Hispanic foods aisle) for about $2 from the grocery store to use in place of the DME. I did 2 7oz bottles of Malta-Goya mixed with 21 oz of water for just over a quart of starter. Ran it on the stir plate for 24 hrs. Re-chilled for about 48 hrs to settle and pitched in my new batch on Monday. Krauzen and airlock activity were present in less than an hour
I cut costs even further by buying a 6 pack of Malta-Goya (Hispanic foods aisle) for about $2 from the grocery store to use in place of the DME. I did 2 7oz bottles of Malta-Goya mixed with 21 oz of water for just over a quart of starter. Ran it on the stir plate for 24 hrs. Re-chilled for about 48 hrs to settle and pitched in my new batch on Monday. Krauzen and airlock activity were present in less than an hour
Does everyone get their live beer from bottle-conditioned beers? We have a lot of live beer in the UK which are cask ales. Very difficult to get an empty cask. If I were to go up and order a pint of cask ale, would I be able to get anything from a glass that came off a tap, or would I need to find my way to the empty cask?
Logistically it wouldn't work. You would have a tiny bit of viable yeast in suspension, but you would need to chill the glass for a couple days to drop it out and decant the beer off the top. That's not to mention all the bacteria and microbes on the tap and in the glass. Harvesting yeast requires very sanitary conditions.
kevstev
Active Member
I just read this book, which goes into detail on how to culture yeast: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0937381969/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
The book goes into more detail on how to produce a healthy culture, but mojzis sums up the process nicely. My only nitpick is that you want sterilized, not sanitized equipment when doing this.
The book goes into more detail on how to produce a healthy culture, but mojzis sums up the process nicely. My only nitpick is that you want sterilized, not sanitized equipment when doing this.
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Warthaug
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kevstev,
In the home environment sterilization is all but impossible to achieve. Sterilization (defined as reducing viable organisms counts by at least 1 x 10[sup]7[/sup]) requires access to advanced instrumentation such as autoclaves or gamma-irradiators. The best we can do at home is sanitation - and it is more than sufficient for most home yeast-lab work.
1) Take a sterile, 50ml tube (available on ebay) with me to the pub
2) Order beer, carefully decant into the tube
3) Pellet yeast by centrifuging at 750 x G for 15 minutes (you won't see anything, but the yeast will be concentrated at the bottom)
4) Decant all but the last few ml's of beer. Swirl to re-suspend any yeast, and pitch into sterile 1.040 wort with penicillin and streptomycin
If there are any viable yeast suspended in the beer, this will grow them out, while the antibiotics will take care of the bacteria that will inevitably end up in the beer. But, as you can see, it requires both lab equipment and access to antibiotics.
Bryan
In the home environment sterilization is all but impossible to achieve. Sterilization (defined as reducing viable organisms counts by at least 1 x 10[sup]7[/sup]) requires access to advanced instrumentation such as autoclaves or gamma-irradiators. The best we can do at home is sanitation - and it is more than sufficient for most home yeast-lab work.
Its possible, but difficult, without access to laboratory equipment. I have recovered yeast from beers on tap by:
1) Take a sterile, 50ml tube (available on ebay) with me to the pub
2) Order beer, carefully decant into the tube
3) Pellet yeast by centrifuging at 750 x G for 15 minutes (you won't see anything, but the yeast will be concentrated at the bottom)
4) Decant all but the last few ml's of beer. Swirl to re-suspend any yeast, and pitch into sterile 1.040 wort with penicillin and streptomycin
If there are any viable yeast suspended in the beer, this will grow them out, while the antibiotics will take care of the bacteria that will inevitably end up in the beer. But, as you can see, it requires both lab equipment and access to antibiotics.
Bryan
Without an autoclave sterilization would be difficult. Boiling and baking are considered sanitizing, which might be better than star san but I haven't had an issue yet.
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I've used copper sulfate successfully. OP would need to do some research on concentrations though.
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