Yeast Breeding

[rdanneskjold]

Hello Everyone, my first post here on the forum.

Question about yeast. My thinking is, since it's alive and it reproduces and grows, why should we buy yeast for every batch? Could you not just start a culture with a dropper-full and let it do its thing? maybe it takes a while to get to the volume required by the recipe, but that is a matter of patience and planning.

I am in the equipment gathering stage of brewing. I think I'm about 2 weeks out from my first attempt. I am an engineer by trade, so hopefully some of my ideas will be unique and interesting. I am a notoriously cheap bastard, so my emphasis will a) make good beer, b) make it as cheaply and as easy as possible.

RD

 

[JimRausch]

Most of us that have been around for awhile do reuse yeast from one fermentation to another. I usually go 3-4 fermentations, but I've read posts where some go much further. Look around and you'll find plenty of posts about reusing yeast.
By the way, Welcome!

 

[day_trippr]

Agreed, lots of hbt folks are ranching/farming/freezing yeast for banking. I currently have six strains in the fridge, doing over-built starters (I never repitch).
Plenty of reading available here...

Cheers!

 

[mashpaddled]

You'll find a lot of homebrewers maintain strains through various methods. There is usually a terminal point to a given culture because through the imperfection of brewing practices and sanitation the culture will drift away from its original character. It could be from low levels of infections or simply your harvest methods select yeast that have slightly different attributes than the original mix of yeast cells. An easy way to avoid that is to build your starters larger than you need and maintain a culture from the starters. The less equipment involved in touching the culture the fewer opportunities exist for infection. By harvesting from the starter rather than a full beer you also reduce the probability of selecting cells with characteristics you don't want.

 

[rdanneskjold]

That's kind of where I was going with this. My thought is to take a package of yeast, pour some into a starter dish with nutrients, and immediately heat-seal the rest of the package and put back in the freezer. It may not seem like much is saved here in terms of time and money, so I'll probably at least at first just go by the book. In the mean time I will be soaking up all the information I can.

Thanks!

 

[jimfire85]

so I'll probably at least at first just go by the book. In the mean time I will be soaking up all the information I can.

Thanks!

I know it's a typo, but here is the book you seek. Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation (Brewing Elements) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0937381969/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_1BbMCbEJAE0DF
Yeast ranching is much more common than you think.