Was I successful with harvesting yeast?

[tooblue02]

Hi all,

First time trying to make a viable batch of yeast from some canned beer. How would I know if it was successful? I used 100g of DME and a cup of water, boiled and cooled to pitching temps, then took a sanitized mason jar and put it on the stir plate then added the remains of two Julius Treehouse beers (canned 3/17) and my starter. Picture is from the second day on the stir plate, it is now sitting in the fridge, and i plan to make a starter with this Thursday for a brew Friday. Did it work or am I wasting my time? Is there a way to tell?

Thanks

 

[brewkinger]

I have successfully harvested and washed yeast generations from multiple batches over the years, but I have never tried to build a starter up from yeast dregs, so this is just me thinking out loud.

I think you may have started with too much wort for such a small amount of actual yeast and I think it may be way too concentrated.
The general formula for making starter wort is 10g of DME for every 100mL of water, which is roughly a starter wort of around 1.040. (so 1 liter of water and 100g of DME)
Yours is more along the lines of 100g of DME in 236.5mL (which makes it roughly 4x as concentrated).

I think that plain and simple you have given a tiny little colony of yeast an insurmountable task of chewing through a wort that is over 1.160.

You may only have a wicked sugary liquid in that jar with a tiny little stressed colony of yeast.

 

[brownni5]

Looks like a krausen to me. Look at your yeast in the fridge - if you see a thin creamy white layer on top of a darker trub layer, then you have yeast and you're ready to step up.

Edit: I didn't pay attention to the starter that was made. I'm way off here - yeah, way too much sugar for that little bit of yeast. Ease disregard anything positive I might've said.

 

[Day-Day]

Your wort was way to concentrated, I'd be shocked if that little bit of yeast ate through that starter in 2 days. When I bottle culture I start with a weak wort of like 1.020, then build up to 1.040. It usually takes the yeast a few days to get moving on the initial step (1.020), then a few more days to get through the next step. The fastest I've bottle cultured was like 4-5 days, then pitched into a starter, but I had done it successfully many times before that, so I was familar with the process. The first few times it took over a week to get any reasonable amount of yeast grown from the bottle.

It's hard to tell from the pics, it does look like krausen, but I couldn't say how healthy that culture is.

As brewkinger mentioned, the yeast may become stressed trying to eat through that wort, I'd try and take a gravity reading and see if it's moved at all.

For reference I use 150 grams of DME for a 1.5L starter.

I usually pitch 2-3 dregs into 2-300ml of 1.020ish wort, with good success. So you're on the right track, just not sure about the concentration of wort.

 

[tooblue02]

Thanks for the help, so many articles on the web it was hard to tell the best way so I followed this one:
https://blog.eckraus.com/harvest-yeast-from-commercial-beer

There is about 3/4" of a creamy color on the bottom of the jar now.

For $hits and giggles, what could I do next to see if I could unstress the yeast and step up the starter? Would a larger more diluted starter help them out? Is there any danger of pitching this into a batch to see what happens? Thanks again, live learn and keep brewing!

 

[hottpeper13]

Since what you have is basically unknown, and you still want to experiment with it,you could make a 1 gal batch of pilsner at 1.040 as a step and if that tastes good then make a NEPA.

 

[kh54s10]

Thanks for the help, so many articles on the web it was hard to tell the best way so I followed this one:
https://blog.eckraus.com/harvest-yeast-from-commercial-beer

There is about 3/4" of a creamy color on the bottom of the jar now.

For $hits and giggles, what could I do next to see if I could unstress the yeast and step up the starter? Would a larger more diluted starter help them out? Is there any danger of pitching this into a batch to see what happens? Thanks again, live learn and keep brewing!

Most of that 3/4 inch layer would be trub. It is too small of an over concentrated starter to have produced that much yeast. If it was really a 1.100 starter the yeast would probably not reproduce well.

I would make a 1.040 or less starter, probably 500ml and run that for 18-24 hours, cool it in the fridge and see if you can determine a yeast layer then. You may even need another step after that.

The time I did bottle dregs I did 1.020 at 250ml then 1.035 at 500ml That gave me a layer of yeast that looked like what you get from a package of liquid yeast. Then I did a last step of 1.040 at 1.5 Liters for the beer I was brewing

 

[brewkinger]

Thanks for the help, so many articles on the web it was hard to tell the best way so I followed this one:
https://blog.eckraus.com/harvest-yeast-from-commercial-beer

After checking out this article as well, I will agree that the author did give that ratio of 1c of water to 100g of DME, but as we have all said, that is just too concentrated. You did nothing wrong other than follow ill advice. Other than that, his advice is pretty sound.

The key thing to remember with any yeast building experiment, is that you want to grow the colony in an evenly matched environment. i.e) if you have a small colony of yeast to begin with (like dregs of a beer), you want the first step to be small as well. You do not want to "stress" the yeast, which in and of itself encompasses several different variables. In your situation, you sent 1000 yeast into battle with 2.5 million sugar bits. They have their work cut out for them.
Small battle ==> make a weak wort (like 1.020) they work up to the task and replicate to 100,000 yeasts
Next battle make a 1.030 wort and they replicate up to 100 million
Next step is a 1.040 and now they are very capable of really doing the job and they replicate up to a several hundred billion and they are ready to pitch into a beer where they continue the fighting and they are fully ready to do battle.
(*CAVEAT: These numbers I used are not to be taken as EXACT but instead as an easy to follow guide*)