orval yeast harvesting- failed?

[Polboy]

Looks like it didnt work as planed, i got my self a bottle of orval, it was from august 2011 so not too fresh but not too old for belgians standards. Let it sit in the fridge for two days then pour in the glass and added 1.035og wort to clearly visable yeast sediment, swirl it and transfer to the flask, total was 150ml. After 24h on stir plate i dont see any activity and og is the same as at pitching, any ideas what went wrong?

 

[Hex23]

You're not waiting long enough. I've had bottle harvesting attempts succeed and fail, and one thing the successful ones seem to have in common ... they've taken at least 48 hours to start, one just over 72 hours.

 

[fpweeks]

I recently harvested from a bottle of Hennepin, took nearly 4 days for it to take off.....

 

[thetragichero]

took three or four days for any visual signs of fermentation with the yeast i just harvested from two 12oz bottles of unibroue
relax, don't worry... you know the rest

 

[joety]

Looks like it didnt work as planed, i got my self a bottle of orval, it was from august 2011 so not too fresh but not too old for belgians standards. Let it sit in the fridge for two days then pour in the glass and added 1.035og wort to clearly visable yeast sediment, swirl it and transfer to the flask, total was 150ml. After 24h on stir plate i dont see any activity and og is the same as at pitching, any ideas what went wrong?

Are you going for the Brett? Just pour the dregs into your fermenter after the primary yeast is done.

 

[Polboy]

Thanks guys for reassurance, i will give it two more days on the stir plate
Yes i want to grow some brett but i would like to do primary fermentation with it, im doing 10gal of saison of Friday (or saturday if have to wait for starter), want to ferment 5gal with 3711 and other 5 with orval brett

 

[Polboy]

Looks like something is growing, there was small change in color, transparency and small og drop at 48h and clear growth this morning (60h), it didnt smell bad and looked more like normal yeast starter so i put 150ml culture in to 1.3L of new wort, i will decide tonight if i want to pitch this to 5 gal

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

It took me about two weeks to get the brett out of orval to grow. Add some acidity to help it out. Plain white vinegar will do the trick.

 

[Polboy]

Beasties are at full speed now (but im still not 100% sure what is in this starter, is there an easy way to determine if its brett, sacch cerevisiae or mix?), by smell its nice/interesting and very different than yeast i used so far.
1st pic right after i pitched 150ml of small starter in to big flask 2nd is 12h later

 

[digitalhifi]

If its very interesting and different than yeast you've used so far, its probably brett. Does it smell like a saison? If so, its brett.