Yeast Color

[AleHead69]

Hi everyone, its been a while since I last posted.
I'm building my yeast supply back up after 8 months in the fridge. Its white in color...is that a good or a bad thing? I'm aerating a 1 gallon starter and it smells okay to me. Its putting off a nice nutty, slight banana odor. I would imagine its alive.

 

[LLBeanJ]

White is good. Peanut butter color is bad... those are dead cells. If it smells okay, that's a good sign, as well. I like to pour off some of the spent starter "beer" and give it a taste for the final verdict.

 

[AleHead69]

White is good. Peanut butter color is bad... those are dead cells. If it smells okay, that's a good sign, as well. I like to pour off some of the spent starter "beer" and give it a taste for the final verdict.

Okay cool, I feel better now. I stored it it plain water because I washed it so many times. I stopped tasting yeast, because the last time I i did it gave me a bit of gastric distress. Thank you for the reply.

 

[AleHead69]

I have 1 more question. Can Pediococcus or any other acetobacter survive 3 campden tabs per gallon?

 

[LLBeanJ]

Probably, yes. I read somewhere that a campden sanitizer requires something like 14 tablets per gallon.

 

[kh54s10]

But then again, I have used strains of yeast that to me, smelled horrible - the beer was great...

 

[AleHead69]

Probably, yes. I read somewhere that a campden sanitizer requires something like 14 tablets per gallon.

That sounds a bit over the top doesn't it? 14 tabs to a gallon...wow.
3 made my yeast culture stink like rotten eggs really bad. Well the culture is bubbling and churning just fine now, so at least I know I can do a gallon yeast starter with 3 tabs and not worry about obliterating the yeast. All I know is the campden destroyed the Pediococcus infection it had from sitting in the fridge for 8 months. I was petrified that all my hard work was destroyed when that white, ropey, iceberg looking crap reared its ugly head. I was not in the mood to make vinegar.

p.s. I just went to the link. The 14 tabs were for creating a Sanitizing solution, not to directly put in wine must. This was more for sanitizing equipment and what not.

 

[ong]

I wouldn't use a starter that you know has a bacterial infection, even if it seems like you took care of it. Odds are good there are still a significant number of pedio cells left alive, and starters are cheap!

 

[AleHead69]

@ong
This starter is more of a experiment than anything else. I've been working on creating my own strain. I ferment 1-2 gallon batches of sugar water to wake em up. Once fermentation is finished and most of the yeast has settled, I pour off the alcohol, wash the yeast with fresh water, add about a cup of nutrient, a pound of sugar and aerate it with a fish tank bubbler for a couple months and presto I've generated about a half gallon of yeast. I like to put it through cycles of respiration and fermentation. Now I'm working on hybridization using the bubbler, minimal nutrient, minimal sugar and sodium acetate trihydrate. My goal is to create new diploid cells through sporulation.
I'm not too worried about infection anymore. I figure as long as I keep a healthy amount of sulfur dioxide in all my starters, even in storage the yeast will simply out compete the other bugs until the bugs starve and die. Working with these critters is always a work in progress.

 

[CA_Mouse]

If your yeast had a Pediococcus strain in it, I would dump it and start with a fresh culture. I believe that once the Pediococcus has been established, Campden tablets most likely will not kill the bacteria.

 

[AleHead69]

If your yeast had a Pediococcus strain in it, I would dump it and start with a fresh culture. I believe that once the Pediococcus has been established, Campden tablets most likely will not kill the bacteria.

I'm going to try something to see if the pediococcus is dead or not. I'm going to take half an apple, pour a little yeast culture on it and put it in a jar. If the pediococcus is still alive and viable it should run rampant, considering its a bacteria and can double its numbers in half the time yeast can. I would estimate the pediococcus will show visible colonies by the end of the day or tomorrow morning at the latest. I think this would be a good test to do, to see how well sulfur dioxide actually works.
I've never been one for giving up. Nature threw me a curveball, no big deal. I have to look at it this way, Saccharomyces has been competing to survive for millions of years. If I give the Saccharomyces an edge on the competition it may loss some battles but will win the war.

 

[CA_Mouse]

I'm going to try something to see if the pediococcus is dead or not. I'm going to take half an apple, pour a little yeast culture on it and put it in a jar. If the pediococcus is still alive and viable it should run rampant, considering its a bacteria and can double its numbers in half the time yeast can. I would estimate the pediococcus will show visible colonies by the end of the day or tomorrow morning at the latest. I think this would be a good test to do, to see how well sulfur dioxide actually works.
I've never been one for giving up. Nature threw me a curveball, no big deal. I have to look at it this way, Saccharomyces has been competing to survive for millions of years. If I give the Saccharomyces an edge on the competition it may loss some battles but will win the war.

Well let us know how it goes. It would be interesting to see if that kills the Pediococcus or only inhibits it for a short time.

 

[LBussy]

@ong
This starter is more of a experiment than anything else. I've been working on creating my own strain. I ferment 1-2 gallon batches of sugar water to wake em up. Once fermentation is finished and most of the yeast has settled, I pour off the alcohol, wash the yeast with fresh water, add about a cup of nutrient, a pound of sugar and aerate it with a fish tank bubbler for a couple months and presto I've generated about a half gallon of yeast. I like to put it through cycles of respiration and fermentation. Now I'm working on hybridization using the bubbler, minimal nutrient, minimal sugar and sodium acetate trihydrate. My goal is to create new diploid cells through sporulation.

To what end? You'll have created yeast that are optimized to thrive in something other than beer. Or is it just for the sake of doing it?

At some point to say you have a "new strain" you'll need to plate it out and work up some tests from single-cell cultures. Otherwise you will very likely be using a multi-strain mixture (which will include bacteria).

 

[AleHead69]

To what end? You'll have created yeast that are optimized to thrive in something other than beer. Or is it just for the sake of doing it?

At some point to say you have a "new strain" you'll need to plate it out and work up some tests from single-cell cultures. Otherwise you will very likely be using a multi-strain mixture (which will include bacteria).

White Labs can isolate my strain for $240.00, I just send them the slurry. I've had this starter going for about a year now mostly under aerobic conditions. Under aerobic conditions, there will be a generation about every 2 hours as long as I keep the yeast supplied with nutrients and sugar. So far theres probably been hundreds of generations and a great many mutations. Most probably ending up deleterious but some being beneficial, I'm estimating about 1%-5% beneficial mutations and possible hybridization's. All I know is this stuff is aggressive. I recently gave the starter 1lbs. of Wheat DME and it was chewed up in less than 24 hours and that doesn't include the bottles of maple syrup and honey before that. It also tolerates cold well. During the 8 months in the fridge it was still replicating slowly, always remaining cloudy and leaving a fresh white layer of new yeast. I have a feeling in my gut that there is a cool isolate in there, I just got to save up the $240 to find out. Right now though, I'm just letting nature do what it does best.

 

[AleHead69]

Well let us know how it goes. It would be interesting to see if that kills the Pediococcus or only inhibits it for a short time.

So far so good, no signs of Pediococcus anywhere. 3 campden tabs was alot for a gallon and the Pediococcus was competing with roughly a quarter gallon of yeast. I'm going to add another 3 campden tabs on my next yeast wash.

 

[LBussy]

I have a feeling in my gut that there is a cool isolate in there, I just got to save up the $240 to find out.

There may be. There's more than likely thousands of strains in there; some good some bad. If you want to find the good ones the right thing to do is to isolate several different ones, brew test batches, and see if the flavor, aroma, attenuation, flocculation and other characteristics are what you want. You might be independently wealthy and you might be able to afford to have WL do that 15-20 times, who knows.

See, I don't want to pee on your parade, I love the enthusiasm, but the chances of you ending up with a viable, tenable beer yeast in this manner are microscopically thin. The chances of it happening by selecting one yeast cell out of one plate out of one sample beggars belief.

I've done this, I've isolated my own strains, I've brewed with them and some have done pretty good. None have changed the world but the most important thing is that I learned a LOT by doing it. I think that's the potential here for you. If you can learn clean transfer (and you can) you can learn to plate out your own yeast and then you are just a small starter away from a 1-gallon pilot batch.

 

[AleHead69]

There may be. There's more than likely thousands of strains in there; some good some bad. If you want to find the good ones the right thing to do is to isolate several different ones, brew test batches, and see if the flavor, aroma, attenuation, flocculation and other characteristics are what you want. You might be independently wealthy and you might be able to afford to have WL do that 15-20 times, who knows.

See, I don't want to pee on your parade, I love the enthusiasm, but the chances of you ending up with a viable, tenable beer yeast in this manner are microscopically thin. The chances of it happening by selecting one yeast cell out of one plate out of one sample beggars belief.

I've done this, I've isolated my own strains, I've brewed with them and some have done pretty good. None have changed the world but the most important thing is that I learned a LOT by doing it. I think that's the potential here for you. If you can learn clean transfer (and you can) you can learn to plate out your own yeast and then you are just a small starter away from a 1-gallon pilot batch.

You're not peeing on my parade, I know the odds are against me but I kind of enjoy that. One of the possible outcomes I've been hoping for is that 1 beneficial, dominant strain comes out of all of this. I'm hoping that if this mystery strain does arise it will out compete all the other strains and over time become the only strain in the culture. So far I've used this starter on beer and far exceeded my expectations producing a 5 gallon batch of beer in 7 days and a week to carbonate. I haven't made wine with it yet, that will really put it to the test. I'm a little worried about what the wine will taste like considering I always used wild yeast when making wine. Its actually how I learned to culture yeast. Overripe Banana's and unsulfured rasins will generate a stupid amount yeast,that produced wine that rivaled high end store bought. Wild yeast in my humble opinion tends to get vilified. In wine I personally prefer wild fermentation, in beer not so much. Well when it comes to the starter, I washed it today added fresh water, sugar, nutrients and the wheel keeps turning.
Say a prayer for me

 

[LBussy]

Say a prayer for me

Thoughts are lifting towards Bacchus for your good fortune.

 

[AleHead69]

I've been doing more research into infections and what I saw in my culture may not have been an infection at all. It may have been something called "Flor". I looked at alot of pictures and it looks very similar to Pediococcus infection. I guess flor is a yeast residue or something. Flor is encountered in the making of sherry. If it is in fact flor, that's something new the culture has never produced before.

p.s. this picture is an example, not my starter.

 

[CA_Mouse]

I've been doing more research into infections and what I saw in my culture may not have been an infection at all. It may have been something called "Flor". I looked at alot of pictures and it looks very similar to Pediococcus infection. I guess flor is a yeast residue or something. Flor is encountered in the making of sherry. If it is in fact flor, that's something new the culture has never produced before.

p.s. this picture is an example, not my starter.

If it is indeed Flor, then I think that you have a fairly strong strain in either case. Plating and growing single cells up will tell you if you have a true house culture or if it is a blend of several strong cells.

 

[AleHead69]

If it is indeed Flor, then I think that you have a fairly strong strain in either case. Plating and growing single cells up will tell you if you have a true house culture or if it is a blend of several strong cells.

I have observed alot of interesting behavior. Low, medium and high flocculation, good response to high osmotic stress & shock, ability to withstand high and low temps for extended periods and longevity. I've used environmental stress so that only the strong would survive. Everything from adding whiskey, to contact with undissolved sucrose, high sodium, high sulfur, hot and cold stress, starvation, high & low ph and probably a few experimental things I've forgot about. I'm starting to wonder if I want 1 strain or a mix of a few to create a interesting flavor profile. Perhaps the strongest strains are working synergisticly, rather that competitively after spending all this time in a confined space. 3 different flocculation phenotypes and none of the claiming dominance thus far. If I isolate 1 strain maybe it wont work as efficiently without the others. Just a theory.

 

[CA_Mouse]

I have observed alot of interesting behavior. Low, medium and high flocculation, good response to high osmotic stress & shock, ability to withstand high and low temps for extended periods and longevity. I've used environmental stress so that only the strong would survive. Everything from adding whiskey, to contact with undissolved sucrose, high sodium, high sulfur, hot and cold stress, starvation, high & low ph and probably a few experimental things I've forgot about. I'm starting to wonder if I want 1 strain or a mix of a few to create a interesting flavor profile. Perhaps the strongest strains are working synergisticly, rather that competitively after spending all this time in a confined space. 3 different flocculation phenotypes and none of the claiming dominance thus far. If I isolate 1 strain maybe it wont work as efficiently without the others. Just a theory.

This is exactly what I was thinking if it is a mix of several strains. It is possible to have two variants working at the same time, just look at White Lab's Best of Both Worlds. They mixed English Ale and Chico. While it made a nice flavor profile it wasn't consistent when repitching.