I know it's a "lager" beer, but I am curious if making N. Brewer's John Adams extract kit with my harvested Danstar West Coast dry yeast will be okay. This will be my first batch using harvested yeast and my first batch with a starter. Just wondered if you guys think that yeast will be okay with that brew given it's an ale yeast with a "lager" beer.
John Adams with harvested Danstar West Coast dried yeast
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Ramitt
Well-Known Member
It will work fine, but you will need to ferment at ale temps and you will have an ale. Should still be tasty amber ale.
In all honesty I would not harvest dry yeast. While it has come a long way, it still has a much higher probability of contaminants than liquid yeast (at least as it comes out of the packaging). It is too inexpensive to risk propagating any contamination so just buy fresh and rehydrate.
If the batch I made with it fermented fine and created the desired gravity, color, smell and taste, why not? I could see if those were not satisfactory, but if it did a good job, that should prove it's not contaminated, right? I know it's cheap and I certainly plan on harvesting liquid too, but figured I'd start here. Hope I'm not making a mistake, but if this yeast did its job, I don't see why I shouldn't trust it for "round two."
You would be fine for a few generations if contaminants were present. I was just trying to point out that due to costs the risk/reward is probably not worth it. If you are doing it to refine technique then go for it.
ColoHox
Compulsive Hand Washer
Nonsense. With proper sanitation in your brewery, you can propagate any yeast culture. These days, it is well accepted that you are not getting a monoculture out of dry or liquid yeast samples. At least the dry yeast companies (fermentis) publish their QC results for microbial contaminants, instead of place like White Labs describing their cultures as "certified pure," which again is nonsense.
I have multiple generations of yeast from an original dry yeast culture, all are fermenting just fine.
No argument that you can propagate any yeast culture. My point is that if you are going to propagate then you have to monitor either by microscopy or plating, ideally both, and that dry yeast is so inexpensive that the effort is just not worth it.
Without monitoring you don't know when your yeast is going pear-shaped until the finished beer tells you.
Without monitoring you don't know when your yeast is going pear-shaped until the finished beer tells you.
ColoHox
Compulsive Hand Washer
You were talking about contamination. Mutation is a different story. Of course, you have to watch out for both.
To the OP, the yeast determines the ale- or lager-ness of the beer, not the recipe, like Ramitt said. If you have a yeast on hand, that you think is both clean and viable, pitch away.
