Using beer to make a starter: is there any reason why this wouldn't work?

[Bosh]

Liquid yeast is insanely expensive here in Korea, so to save a little money would this have any chance of working to get some yeast for a Hoegaarten clone that SWMBO has commanded me to make:

1. Buy a bottle of Hoegaarten (has living yeast in it, right?).
2. Sit it out for a day or two to get warm, so the yeast wake up a bit.
3. Pour it into a two-liter bottle with some water and add some DME or sugar and wait for the yeast to get to work.

There's probably some reason why this wouldn't work, but I'm curious what it would be...

 

[McKBrew]

It will work. I've found limited information, but here it is. Good Luck and share your technique if it works.

http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/bottleculturing.php

And from How to Brew, almost exactly the same technique

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter6-7.html

 

[z987k]

yeah I think you can do that with any unfiltered as long as their not pasteurized. I would think thats the best way to make a clone if thats what your going for.... use the actual yeast they use.

 

[Speranza]

Hope it works for you. I've heard of some companies straining their yeast and introducing a different strain in the final product so you can't culture their yeast. Basically it might taste "different".

 

[BarryNL]

I'd start with a smaller starter than 2 litre and step up, the amount of yeast in a bottle is tiny. Begin with maybe a half litre starter, then up to a litre, then 2.

Unfortunately, a bit of Googling suggests that Hoegaarden is bottled with a different yeast strain than the fermenting yeast, so culturing it is unlikely to be useful.

I'd see what bottle conditioned wheat beers you can find and then Google to see what people think of the yeast.

Either that or look into freezing and splitting techniques so you can make a large number of batches from a single yeast purchase.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

If it's so expensive, why not buy a pressure cooker, some test tubes, and a bunsen burner and make your own slants? Seems you can DIY for pennies....


Somewhere here in HBT in the past month somebody posted a great link on how to grow slants. The cool thing is, you can buy one thing of yeast, save the tiniest amount for culturing, and pitch the rest into a beer. Then, you've got yeast for life.

 

[ColoradoXJ13]

Hoegaarden is bottle conditioned with the same yeast as it is fermented with. One of the local micros here uses that strain for their Wit. What you are doing should work fine, I would pour off most of the cold beer (yeast will settle better cold), then swirl the bottle to resuspend the yeast at the bottom, that way you can remove (i.e. drink) the beer, and get most of the yeast. From what I have read, most Wit beers are actually fermented with a mix of yeast strains, so you should be fine with what you get out of the bottle.

edit, my googling came up with


Hoegaarden Wit
Appears to be primary strain (probably Sacc. only). Good results. Powdery. Same as Wyeast 3944 Belgian White?

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

 

[Raffie]

I'm thinking buy the liquid yeast, make 4 starters and freeze 3 and use 1.
Grown your own starters from the main and see if that works for ya.

 

[BarryNL]

Hoegaarden Wit
Appears to be primary strain (probably Sacc. only). Good results. Powdery. Same as Wyeast 3944 Belgian White?

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

Hmm on another talkboard I got: "We areBTW talking about Hoegaarden here and as NickMoore said no lesser authority than Mr Michael Jackson points out that Hoegaarden use a different strain in the bottle than the fermentor. "

Who knows? Maybe try it and see...

 

[homebrewer_99]

I wish I would have known sooner...a coworker just left for Korea yesterday. I could have had him deliver...

 

[Muss]

You can get better value out of the liquid yeasts by buying 1 pack and making the starter. Then divide the starter up in to a few bottles and make starters out of those. You can keep the unused starters in the coldest part of the fridge for a few months, then when you need them you will have to start the yeast up again to wake them up. Here's a link on how to do it.

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/liquid_yeast.htm

A wyeast XL pack costs $25 here. But if I use it to make 6 batches of beer it only costs $4.16 per batch.
If you're really keen you can reuse the yeast cake after each batch to get even more value out of it.

Hoegaarden yeast is most likely wyeast 3463 (forbidden fruit) or 3944 (Belgian Wit)