Tampering with the Yeast

[gauthierk]

I've been brewing for about 7 months now and have made some seriously good brew... A month ago, I was messing around with some of my vials of yeast that I have harvested and washed and froze using a method that has broven to be quite adequate. I have a freezer full of different yeast from English ale, to belgium to even mead yeast... I'm a microbiology major and have even broken down my beer brewing into school projects... I took some yeast from one vial and mixed it with some others and vice versa to attempt to get a different flavor or type of beer... The results are yet to be known but it smells awsome. Has anyone ever done this before and what should I look out for??? My overall goal is to get the flavors of an ale or stout but at higher gravities than they are normally able to go up too...


K

 

[wildbill]

I have wanted to do this for some time now. How are you freezing the yeast?

 

[MattD]

are you doing anything to promote/prove conjugation, or are you just putting in more than one strain so they can work together?

 

[boo boo]

I would tend to think (from a laymans view) that you would need to alter the actual cell to get the results you want. Doing it your way would have one strain or the other take control of your wort and ferment to the specs of that yeast.

 

[sonvolt]

Freezing Yeast - Yep, people have done it.

Mixing Strains - Yep, people do it quite frequently. White Labs even releases some specialty/seasonal mixes where they do the mixing in the lab.

I have never done this, but it sounds like you are having fun with it. I would like to hear some of your more interesting mixes.

 

[gauthierk]

A little late on the reply but yeah, I have been freezing my yeast for several months and have revived several cultures and they have functioned perfectly... You can do a search in the forum for "Yeast Storage" and get some good direction...


As for the question about having the change the properties of the yeast, I have found another method that I'm experimenting with... What I do is wash the yeast down to pure cake... I boil up some water with nutrient in it just to make sure they are healthy... I use pipetts measuring exact portions of yeast combining them in specific portions... Take for example.... Last week, I had a mixture of English ale and belgium with champainge yeast... The mix consisted of the following..


4ml Belgium
5ml English Ale
1ml Champaigne

From a microbiology standpoint this is how it goes...

before the active fermentation, yeast go threw a log phase... It's when they divide and divide before fermentation. The principle is that if you keep the yeast staggered, they will yield their flavors in the percentage you mix the slurry in. In the case of what I mixed up, I was making a barley wine. The 1ml of champaigne would literally be unable to compete with the english and belgium for the initial fermentation. Once they reach their limit the champaigne yeast will no longer have to compete and will bring the etoh higher to the target final gravity... I actually have my professor at school assisting me with this project, (him being a home brewer also)... Probably within a month or so, I'm going to start making test samples of different combinations and will be looking for some volunteers to try them out... Send me an IM and we can try and work out some good runs...

Go Home Brewing!!!!!!!


K

 

[gauthierk]

Ok... So I sampled a little bit of my "hybrid" yeast made barley wine. It is developing VERY VERY well... I'm looking for a sort of test grouping from other home brewers... I'm not sure how kosher this is and what not but if someone is interested in using my yeast meshes, PM me and I can send you some... I'm not looking for money, and will even ship it to you for free just for the input on what I am doing... What I'll do is send you a list and percentage of what yeast is what so if your brewing a beer that might be able to take advantage of it... I'll say right off of the bat, that my yeast compilations contain some champaigne and mead yeasts that are designed to bring a high gravity beer up to a higher level of %by volume.... If this isn't kosher, let me know but I'm kinda excited about my adventure into homebrewing... My Micro professor told me I'm a mad chemist with a vision...

 

[david_42]

About the only problem I see is some yeasts will clamp onto other yeasts & flocculate too soon. it has to do (according to a yeast developer at Wyeast) with positive & negative surface charges on the cell walls.

I routinely mix ale yeasts with champagne or white wine yeasts for barleywines.

If you really want to develop a high gravity ale yest, rather than good fermenting combinations, you would start with an specific ale yeast and use it in successively higher ABV starters.

 

[dantodd]

Where are you located? It might be fairky expensive to ship frozen yeast cross-country.

 

[gauthierk]

I actually have access to packing material that will keep a vial frozen for aprox four days... Or at a temp that is chilled... With it being the heart of winter, I'm sure the mail trucks and carriers can help with that... I have done some endurance testing and have found that the yeast actually was good to go even sitting on my counter for a week... I use a combination of nutrients and other solutions to make sure they stay happy for a long time...


As for the charged surface question. The only time a charge builds up to a noticable level is if for some reason the yeast come under fire from like infection or a phage of some sort. I've monitored the clumping aspect in a mason jar that I did a control on and noticed that they did clump a bit more but after the level of alcohol rose to point where the weaker yeasts would fall out of suspension and go into statis, the clump even out... What I've done is learned what yeast tolerate and what they don't in beer.. i.e. ETOH level. I try to make it where they stagger their abilities. It's all experimental and fun as hell for me to play with... My professor is actually letting me turn in one of my hybrid cultures as a final project for my Microbiology final....

 

[sonvolt]

Ok... So I sampled a little bit of my "hybrid" yeast made barley wine. It is developing VERY VERY well... I'm looking for a sort of test grouping from other home brewers... I'm not sure how kosher this is and what not but if someone is interested in using my yeast meshes, PM me and I can send you some... I'm not looking for money, and will even ship it to you for free just for the input on what I am doing... What I'll do is send you a list and percentage of what yeast is what so if your brewing a beer that might be able to take advantage of it... I'll say right off of the bat, that my yeast compilations contain some champaigne and mead yeasts that are designed to bring a high gravity beer up to a higher level of %by volume.... If this isn't kosher, let me know but I'm kinda excited about my adventure into homebrewing... My Micro professor told me I'm a mad chemist with a vision...

I'll get in on this experiment . . . and offer feedback. I'll PM you momentarily.

 

[gauthierk]

Cool deal..... I got a couple PM's and some awsome ideas... My overall goal is to later on in my hobby is to start making some custom strains and marketing them to the yeast companies like Wyeast and so fourth... Or just keep it for my fellow home brewers... I also would like input on what kind of strains you would like me to mesh together.... This project has sooooooooo many potentials that I'm excited to be able to start it...