Pacman Yeast

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So my propagation went pretty well I kept feeding for around a week and got a fairly good layer of yeast at the bottom of my 1 gal glass jar. The cool thing is that the yeast chugged away on around 1/2 gal of wort for like a week!! I'm making a 10gal batch of Edwort's pale this weekend and I think I'll try 5 gal with the Pacman and 5 gal with the Notty and see what the taste differences are. Revvy am I ok making starters with the vials I have collected? I'm worried about getting too many generations along and having bad mutations.
 
So my propagation went pretty well I kept feeding for around a week and got a fairly good layer of yeast at the bottom of my 1 gal glass jar. The cool thing is that the yeast chugged away on around 1/2 gal of wort for like a week!! I'm making a 10gal batch of Edwort's pale this weekend and I think I'll try 5 gal with the Pacman and 5 gal with the Notty and see what the taste differences are. Revvy am I ok making starters with the vials I have collected? I'm worried about getting too many generations along and having bad mutations.

That's a good question....I pmed my Harvesting Guru Prof Frink a link to this post, so he can answer for us both....

I can't wait to hear how the side by side comparison tastes.
 
So my propagation went pretty well I kept feeding for around a week and got a fairly good layer of yeast at the bottom of my 1 gal glass jar. The cool thing is that the yeast chugged away on around 1/2 gal of wort for like a week!! I'm making a 10gal batch of Edwort's pale this weekend and I think I'll try 5 gal with the Pacman and 5 gal with the Notty and see what the taste differences are. Revvy am I ok making starters with the vials I have collected? I'm worried about getting too many generations along and having bad mutations.

It looks like you made a starter of about 1/2 gallon of wort, right? You will be fine pitching that, you have nothing to worry about too many generations. The amount you need to use yeast before getting any mutations is typically beyond what most homebrewers need to worry about. I posted some numbers in another thread recently:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=695037&postcount=11

You will get mutations everytime you propagate yeast, but the VAST majority of these will have no effect at all. I've talked to a lot of brewers, and there is a wide range of number of times they'll pitch onto the same yeast (from 6 to >25 times). The truth of it is, you never know if you'll get mutations that will be detrimental or not. But, the odds of having them before 6 generations at the minimum is very low. And by generations, that's number of full fermentations, not step ups from starters.

What I typically do in that situation is pitch about 90% of the yeast, add some more wort, then freeze down the yeast. If you're not freezing but making slants instead, then you can just use what's left at the end of the starter to innoculate.
 
I love pacman. I cultured some from a bottle of Half-E-Weizen of all things and just kept upping the wort until it eventually filled up the bomber. Churned through that in 1.5 days. Finally pitched it into an APA when I had a thick layer of yeast in the bottle and after 12 hours it was a full, bubbly white krausen. Just racked it to a secondary and it really helped pack down the trub. It's great yeast so far IMO!
 
I have not had any luck. I took a gravity reading this morning, and there has not been any fermentation on the starter. I have pitched the yeast from the bottle of 2 different Rogue bombers.

I did learn something though. I must have boiled too much water off. The reading was 1.080. I added some filtered water today to give them a chance to start with a snack. The layer on the bottom of my 1/2 gallon jar is from the malt extract.

Could starsan or PBW kill the yeast? This jar was boiled for yeast harvesting and it does not look right now. The boiling water was softened, so I think it left some residue that I cannot get to come off. I cleaned it with PBW and starsan. If this does not work, I will have to just order some. I hate it, I planned on getting the yeast from some other bottle conditioned beers
 
I have not had any luck. I took a gravity reading this morning, and there has not been any fermentation on the starter. I have pitched the yeast from the bottle of 2 different Rogue bombers.

I did learn something though. I must have boiled too much water off. The reading was 1.080. I added some filtered water today to give them a chance to start with a snack. The layer on the bottom of my 1/2 gallon jar is from the malt extract.

Could starsan or PBW kill the yeast? This jar was boiled for yeast harvesting and it does not look right now. The boiling water was softened, so I think it left some residue that I cannot get to come off. I cleaned it with PBW and starsan. If this does not work, I will have to just order some. I hate it, I planned on getting the yeast from some other bottle conditioned beers

Starsan actually helps yeast. It works as yeast food...

I have never, ever, heard of malt extract falling out of suspension in any wort, ever....If you boiled it with water it mixed in.

Take a picture of it will you? If it looks even slightly like this (Not mine)
yeast.jpg


These look like they were harvested from a fermenter since it shows 3 layers instead of 2, the bottom layer is trub.... but you should get the idea.


Here's a better pic in a growler...

Starter_Settling_10hour_thumb.jpg


Even if the line is only as thick as a fingernail...you got yeast.

I still believe you got viable yeast, despite what your hydro is telling you...I still think you should give it another feeding of wort.

I've been four for four so far in my yeast harvesting from Rogue beers, and I'm not doing anything different than you I believe. Like I said, 3 of my four had no real "action," they just ended up looking like the pic in the growler, and they worked fine...Only one of by batches had a krauzen and very visible fermentaion..
 
Starsan actually helps yeast. It works as yeast food...

I have never, ever, heard of malt extract falling out of suspension in any wort, ever....If you boiled it with water it mixed in.

Take a picture of it will you? If it looks even slightly like this (Not mine)
yeast.jpg


Even if the line is only as thick as a fingernail...you got yeast.


I still believe you got viable yeast, despite what your hydro is telling you...I still think you should give it another feeding of wort.


I added more wort yesterday. There is a layer. I will try and get a picture at lunch today and post. I used pilsen DME and it seemed like it settled in the pot some. When I swirl it, it will get bubbles for a few hours. I think I have yeast in there, I just do not know if it is viable if it has not moved the OG down at all. I will keep swirling it to see if it helps. I may give it another day or two and then try and wash it and re-pitch a starter. I wanted to use it this weekend on an IPA kit my brother bought me. I may have to wait a week.
 
I believe that the light cream colored one would be the yeast. There is none of that at all. It looks more like the very bottom layer. I think it had this layer prior to pitching the yeast. I took 1/2 cup of DME and boiled with 2 cups of water for about 20 minutues. I believed that I lost close to 3/4 of a cup of water in the boil. I cooled and added to the fermenter. I then added the yeast on top and swirled around. This was on saturday night. I added more yeast Monday night and added more wort yesterday afternoon. Wort is very sweet. No alcohol presense detected at all.

I used one bomber of Brutal Bitter (saturday) and One bomber of the American Amber Ale (monday).
 
well, maybe I am good. I guess this thing ferments like a lager more so than an ale. There was no krausen at all. I have bubbles for an hour or two after a swirl or shake. I added more waort yesterday and the OG is still so high. Will the yeast ever start fermentation on the starter?
 
I can vouch for Pacman being able to make some wicked krausen, I was at Rogue Brewery in Newport a few weeks back and they had massive blowoffs going into 50 gal garbage cans. The krausen was oozing out of the can all over the floor, it was pretty incredible, smelled wonderful as well.
 
Well, I wish this one would do that. It has not provided even a bubble on the surface. It causes too much stress. Oh well, I have beer to drink and keg still. If I have to wait another week to be sure I have good yeast, then I will prior to making my next IPA.
 
Any tips? I am almost to the point where I think I should dump out the wort and pitch totally new wort on top of the yeast. My worry, is that I have not seen any action yet and I will pitch it and will ruin a batch of beer or at the very least delay fermentation.

Does dead yeast look different?
 
I would try putting some new wort on it. Keep an eye on it, I've found that this yeast can ferment out very quickly and you might not even notice that it finished.
 
Any tips? I am almost to the point where I think I should dump out the wort and pitch totally new wort on top of the yeast. My worry, is that I have not seen any action yet and I will pitch it and will ruin a batch of beer or at the very least delay fermentation.

Does dead yeast look different?

How many times do I have to say it?

YOU HAVE YEAST!!!!

It fermented out...That stuff at the bottom is yeast. just becasue you didn't see it happened it fermented and floculated, just like 3 out of my 4 harvests.

Only one did I actually see anything happen, the one with the high krauzen...the rest just did that...and looked EXACTLY like that. :D

Quick feeling defeated and do like frink said, feed it some more!
 
Think about it this way....there is NOT enough yeast in a bottle, even a bomber of beer to have been able to produce THAT much creamy sediment in the bottom of a growler if it had simply died...to make that much gunk it had to been having one heck of a party.
 
I will. It is just a wierd yeast. I will now just buy bottle conditioned beer, if I need a certain style. Has anyone tried with a German Wheat?
 
For the record Hoosier that stuff is yeast I didn't have krausen with my starter either, believe me it's yeast it will do the job.
 
Here's a list of bottle conditioned beers, and whether or not they use the same strain in fermentation and bottling...but it hasn't been updated in awhile.

http://www.nada.kth.se/~alun/Beer/Bottle-Yeasts/

It's not a great list...but it's the only one I've been able to find.

Thanks. There are a few on there that are not bottle conditioned now like Fat Tire. I may start a spreadsheet with what I learn as I purchase some beer. I plan to get a mixed six pack with some different bottle conditioned beers.
 
We have krausen today. I think the first batch i pitched was dead. It may have been shocked a little. Today, the thing is fermenting and boy does it smell like beer. I plan to wait to brew another week and step it up a couple of times before I pitch it.

:tank:
 
Made a starter from one of the slants I made a couple of weeks back and got a good krausen within 12 hours, it's still happily chugging away. I can't wait to pitch it in the batch, I'm thinking it will really take off.
 
Made a starter from one of the slants I made a couple of weeks back and got a good krausen within 12 hours, it's still happily chugging away. I can't wait to pitch it in the batch, I'm thinking it will really take off.


What does it smell like? Mine has a unique smell. Not sure how to describe it. citrusy?
 
What does it smell like? Mine has a unique smell. Not sure how to describe it. citrusy?

You know I had sort of citrusy smell when I was propagating but I assumed that was due to old beer, don't really have that smell now in my starter but I will say that Pacman does have a distinct smell I've noticed it in Rogues beers and now in the Pacman starter, it is unique to what I have experienced with most ale yeasts. I really like the character of this yeast if I have success with in in this batch I just may use it as a house yeast, rather buy a bottle of Rogue every once in a while and drink it instead of paying $6 for a vial of yeast.
 
I did a DG knock off and washed my yeast...can't wait to try it on something else. Does have a diff smell...mine might be from a high ferm temp...like 75^. Hope that didn't hurt the yeast? Mine went crazy for about 2-3 days then really tappered off. Havent tried it yet...it's been 2 weeks in secondary...had a very strong alcahol taste when I racked it tho...just figured cause of the high amounts fermentables. Guess I'll find out this weekend when I rack to keg.
 
What about taking some from a rogue bottle. I panicked some, but now I understand it. I would get 2-3 bombers and add the yeast in the bottom to a starter or step up in the bottle it came in. Several on-line retailers have it now also.

I plan to wash the yeast after it ferments my IPA. I wonder if this would work on my Christmas Old Ale.
 
Yeah I totally recommend just getting some Rogue beer and making slants yourself. I had a bomber of Shakespeare Stout the other day and it had a good amount of yeast in the bottom. Just don't drink like the last couple of ounces, shake it up and pitch it into a quart of DME wort. Step up the wort every couple of days and you should end up with a good supply within a week or so, I didn't even use a stir plate, although if you have one I would recommend it (my next project). Biggest thing is to make sure your super sanitary as small amounts of yeast can have a hard time overcoming other contaminates but don't sweat it if I can do it anyone can.

UPDATE: The Bee Cave Haus Ale that I pitched Pacman Yeast in yesterday is happily chugging away today.
 
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