Reusing yeast from commercial bottles and previous fermentations

[homebrewjapan]

A number of my homebrewing friends are harvesting yeast from commercial bottles or reusing yeast from previous fermentations. I wanted to know how it was done so I've researched it and then written up this guide - hope it is useful to people!

Reusing yeast from commercial bottles and previous fermentations « Homebrew Japan

 

[spage]

Awesome guide, thanks!!

I've always wanted to try this, however I have been hesitant because many breweries will brew with one yeast, and then bottle condition with an alternative yeast. This keeps people from replicating their brews. A little googling provided the following list of breweries that do/do not bottle with their primary strain. Enjoy!!!

PS - If you can help this guy out by adding information he is missing, please do so!

Yeasts from Bottle Conditioned Beers

 

[homebrewjapan]

Awesome guide, thanks!!

I've always wanted to try this, however I have been hesitant because many breweries will brew with one yeast, and then bottle condition with an alternative yeast. This keeps people from replicating their brews. A little googling provided the following list of breweries that do/do not bottle with their primary strain. Enjoy!!!

PS - If you can help this guy out by adding information he is missing, please do so!

Yeasts from Bottle Conditioned Beers

Thanks for that - very helpful.

I did three last night: First yeast harvest « Homebrew Japan

The Baird beers are pretty much Japan only. I know they are bottled with their primary strain. The German - I don't even know if the yeast in the bottle is fresh enough to harvest from! I just did it as an experiment because I was doing the other two. It's a very good point that it might not be the primary strain.

 

[Saccharomyces]

Beers aren't always bottle conditioned with a different strain simply to protect the yeast... often the primary strain is not flocculant, so the beer is filtered and then krausened with a high flocc strain or even a bottom fermenting (lager) yeast so it will provide a clear pour.

Next time I brew up a strong Belgian ale I will employ this method to condition in the bottle as the high gravity trappist strains are very low flocculation -- no matter how carefully I pour I get a bunch of yeast in the glass.

 

[homebrewjapan]

I hear that Leffe Brown is good for culturing from.