Pacman yeast bubbling in a hour

[hazedandconfused]

My girlfriend got me a deadguy ale kit for christmas and we finally brewed it up tonight. I went down to one of the local homebrew shops and picked up the last activator pack of pacman yeast. We smacked it and let it sit for almost four hours whilst we brewed our brew and waited for the wort to cool. Pitched the yeast and got hungry so we went to taco bell. We came back about an hour after pitching and i saw the water in the airlock being pushed to one side and then it bubbled. I sat there and watched it bubble at a speed of about once every five seconds. Now its bubbling happily away here five hours in and im freaking stoked. Ill never use yeast thats not from one of these activater packs. I wonder if it started so fast because i waited so long to pitch. The pack was so full of air that it was really hard to tear the pack open. Does anybody think that ill be able harvest the yeast sediment for future batches if i dont rack to secondary? I mean that of i only let it sit in primary before bottling. Ive read about people reusing yeast after racking to secondary but i would think that the yeast might be a little funky after about two weeks or so at the bottom of a bucket.

 

[BoundForBeer]

I thought they stopped selling the pacman yeast quite some time ago? You should be fine harvesting the yeast if you dont move to primary. I practice this sometime. Once waited 2 moths to keg and wash yeast. Next time I made a starter of the washed yeast it woke right up without a problem.

 

[VTBrewer]

There's still some pacman floating around. www.brewmasterswarehouse.com still has some I think.

I bottle harvested and stepped up some about 6 weeks ago. after three weeks in primary i washed them and have 4 of these:

 

[BoundForBeer]

What beer did you harvest it from? I have heard that some people have problems from certain beers getting them going. I think I heard that the Shakespeare gave best results.

 

[VTBrewer]

I used two 22oz shakespeare. You can use, I believe, any Rogue that says Pacman Yeast in the ingredients. And I'm pretty sure Dead Guy is filtered.

--Left about 3 oz in each bottle and cold crashed.
--Made a 4oz 2 cup starter, pitched, stir plate, cold crash
--Mdea a 8 oz, 4 cup starter, decanted, pittched, stir plate, brewed.

If I had been doing a bigger beer with it i would have gone for a 2L starter, but it worked great and I harvested a ton from it.

 

[hazedandconfused]

Not that anybody cares, but i thought that i would add that primary had finished in <2 days. Im not an experienced brewer and just a humble newb, but i would definitely recomend this yeast to other brewers. I cant wait for the final product to finish.

 

[ultravista]

I have about the same amount of Pacman as VTBrewer (see photo above) from several different bottles of Rogue.

Considering they were all Rogue and labled with Pacman, is there any issues saving yeast from multiple different bottles? Pacman is Pacman is Pacman, right?

 

[frankstoneline]

I have about the same amount of Pacman as VTBrewer (see photo above) from several different bottles of Rogue.

Considering they were all Rogue and labled with Pacman, is there any issues saving yeast from multiple different bottles? Pacman is Pacman is Pacman, right?

Brewing with a yeast will cause minimal changes (on a biochemical level from what i've gathered) however it seems that it takes a long time for these mutations to manifest into a yeast that behaves drastically different. Short answer, you should have no issues, especially if you step them up in a starter before pitching.

 

[VTBrewer]

Yeah, you're fine.

 

[JasonInBTR]

AHS still has Pacman left as well. Just ordered some the other day....I'll let you guys know what the datestamp is when I get it tomorrow.

Jason