Yeast Harvest-New Belgium, Fat Tire

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badhabit

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I have been wanting to try and harvest some Fat Tire yeast for a while now. Santa brought a Stir plate so I am giving it a try. I have been washing for a while now but have never harvested from a commercial. I used the dregs from a 6-pack and added to a 500 ml starter and nutrient. I put on the stir plate for 36 hours with a slow stir and it appears that things are going well. After about 24 hours I started getting a nice krausen. Now after 36 hours that has grown well. The plan is to add another 500 ml starter/nutrient to the batch at 48 hours and go another 48 hours. I will then let the let the Erlenmeyer settle for 24 hours to see how much yeast I have. I will continue the same process decanting the wort off the yeast after the second 48 hour stir until I have built enough yeast to harvest, wash and save. How does my process sound? Have I already goofed it up, or should I be concerned about something that I have not thought about thus far?
 
How do you know that any yeast growing is from the brewer? Could you be growing yeast from someone that drank from the bottle? Or yeast that floated from the room into the bottle while drinking?
 
lud, we know that the dregs from a bottle are usually packed at the bottom of a bottle. There would not be sufficient yeast from the air, or as you suggest from a person, to grow in the manner that badhabit is describing. Also remember that alcohol inhibits bacteria and wild yeast growth and a commercial beer will contain alcohol. Brewers yeast thrives in wort, and the dregs from 6 bottles would contain enough yeast to overpower any wild yeast that came in contact with the starter. If you are careful in your sanitation and handling of starters, you won't pick up bad yeast or bacteria. Thats not to say it may not make its way into the starter, but its overwhelmed by the amount of good yeast that the bad stuff can't get a chance to grow into something that would infect your beer.
 
None of the Fat Tire I have ever had has been bottle conditioned so I'm not sure that you really are picking up the Fat Tire yeast you might be growing some sort of wild yeast or infection.
 
redm18 said:
None of the Fat Tire I have ever had has been bottle conditioned so I'm not sure that you really are picking up the Fat Tire yeast you might be growing some sort of wild yeast or infection.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing when I read the thread title. I've never seen Fat Tire bottle conditioned.
 
Yes, true story. I have successfully done it myself. This was last year IIRC. Check the cans when you buy them to verify they are still "can conditioned"-- it will say it directly on the can.

:mug:
 
Cyberbackpacker, My understanding is that the yeast can be harvested from the bottle and that an individual on this site reported doing so a few years back. I do not know if this will work for a fact which is why I am trying to do it. At this point it appears that it will work. There is clearly yeast growing in my Erlenmeyer now after 48 hours. I have even steped up with a second addition of starter. I took as many precautions as possible including flaming the bottle. I also know that the beer was as fresh as I can get it because of the seasonal cap. I believe that that is growing is what was remaining in the bottle. I know that the bottles are not bottle conditioned and are filtered and are not pasturized. I also know that there was visible sediment in at least one of the bottles that I harvested. I do not know that this was living yeast but again that is why I am trying. It will take a couple months for me to confirm that what I am currently growing is viable "Fat Tire" yeast in that I will not only have to harvest but then brew with the yeast. At that point only I will only know what I am able to taste but that works for me. If all that works I would be most happy to send you some of the yeast so that you too can try it and confirm or dispute what I have found. (I have noticed that you have been interested in this issue for a while now.) I have no idea what "conditioned in the can" means but did see the response that you got from the brewery a while back on finishing yeast. I will post additional information as I discover it.
 
I am pretty sure Fat Tire bottles are filtered to the point there's no yeast. You may want to email NB and see what they tell you. If there's no yeast going into the bottles what you have may be yeast but isn't the Fat Tire strain.
 
From what I can fine on the net, it seems that yes, the cans are 'can conditioned', while the bottles are not. There is some speculation that the bottles were bottle conditioned when New Belgium first started out, but after expansion they have moved on to a bottling line that no longer requires it. I have partaken many bottles of Fat Tire....and I can't recall EVER seeing sediment. I would venture to say....It's filtered, and there is no yeast.
 
hammy71 said:
from what i can fine on the net, it seems that yes, the cans are 'can conditioned', while the bottles are not. There is some speculation that the bottles were bottle conditioned when new belgium first started out, but after expansion they have moved on to a bottling line that no longer requires it. I have partaken many bottles of fat tire....and i can't recall ever seeing sediment. I would venture to say....it's filtered, and there is no yeast.
Click to expand...

+1
 
Sorry to be a naysayer but why bother harvesting it? I used a pack or two when wyeast released it and don't remember it being much different from Chico yeast.
 
After the discussion here I contacted New Belgium. They were good enough to respond to the question and indicate that there is no production yeast in the bottles of Fat Tire but that there is in the cans. They also indicated that the yeast is allowed to remain in the cans, "conditioned in the can" because it is diffcult to can without getting some O2 in the cans when they process. The remaining yeast in the cans eat the O2 and yeild a better final product. So all that now said I will go home and dump my propagated wild yeast and go buy a 6 pack of Fat Tire in the can so I can start all over again, this time knowing for a fact that I will be harvesting and propagating Fat Tire yeast.
 
I wouldn't dump it... I would do a small 1 or 2 gallon batch and who knows, you might have some awesome wild yeast... could be the new house yeast. :mug:
 
Basically what I went through and posted about last year-- I contacted them and I posted their response in another thread about their yeast. Continued luck! :mug:

badhabit said:
After the discussion here I contacted New Belgium. They were good enough to respond to the question and indicate that there is no production yeast in the bottles of Fat Tire but that there is in the cans. They also indicated that the yeast is allowed to remain in the cans, "conditioned in the can" because it is diffcult to can without getting some O2 in the cans when they process. The remaining yeast in the cans eat the O2 and yeild a better final product. So all that now said I will go home and dump my propagated wild yeast and go buy a 6 pack of Fat Tire in the can so I can start all over again, this time knowing for a fact that I will be harvesting and propagating Fat Tire yeast.
Click to expand...
 
Last night I went to dump the yeast that had been growing and couldn't do it! I decided to pull a gallon of wort off the next batch of pale that I make and see what the home grown batch of yeast will do to it. I will harvest from the canned Fat Tire and use that later.
 
I'm wondering the same thing. I saw badhabit's last post, and got excited to scroll down to see how it came out. Disappointment ensued.
 
It took a little longer than I thought but I brewed my Fat Tire clone over the weekend. I had preped a starter of the yeast harvested from the canned Fat Tire and a much smaller starter from the yeast taken from the Fat Tire bottle. I took a gal of the wort off and used the bottle type yeast with that and used the canned type for the remainder of the batch. Both batches started fermenting within 8 hours and the canned yeast batch went crazy, pushing up through the blow off tube last night. I will do a taste test the
9th of May and let all know the results.
 
Everything is bottled as of this weekend. The taste of both of the beers went as well. They were very similar in terms of taste. I know in a blind taste I would not be able to tell the difference. I will open bottles on June
2nd and see how the beer tastes with carbonation.
The most interesting part of the weekend was in relation to the yeast that I harvested from the brew made with the canned Fat Tire yeast. I had a very active fermentation and a ton of yeast after fermentation. I ended up washing the yeast that I harvested twice with about 3 qts of H2O both times. The reason that I washed twice was because I never got a nice clear seperation between the yeast and other trub. I ended up finally just using some of the top of each of the pints that I harvested. I kept 4 White Lab vials and will use one later on this summer for a starter just to be sure that the yeat that I harvested is viable.
 
I just wanted to put this thread to its final rest. I opened the conditioned beers from both of the yeast samples. I was unable to tell the difference and as a result will declair them the same. The beer itself is my take on Fat Tire and was as I remember from the last time I brewed and served it, last August.
The long and short of it is that I got viable yeast from the bottom of Fat Tire cans and would advise others that want that yeast to use the cans.
 

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