Yeast mutation

[marbach1987]

What's the longest anyone's reused there yeast? Can you train a yeast strain over time to be more alcohol tolerant, by perhaps slowly adding more sugar to each batch until the yeast mutates to be able to handle more abv? What kind of time frame before mutations would be evident?

Thank you

 

[VikeMan]

I noticed this has gone unanswered. Yeast strains can certainly evolve over time, adapting to environmental changes, including higher ABV environments. You might find a replay of this crowdcast informative. It's about an ale yeast, and it's not specifically about ABV tolerance, but the principles are the same.

https://www.crowdcast.io/e/mutant-beer-yeast-evolution/register

 

[bernardsmith]

I would think that if you focus on growing your yeast, and as you do , you tweak the environment, then the yeast that will be able to routinely bud and reproduce in the environment you are creating will have the propensity to survive and thrive in it. Those that are too stressed or are unable to bud will not produce daughter cells and so over time you will have cultivated a colony more suited to your needs. Of course, you may find that too few or no yeast cells are able to overcome the toxicity of the environment you prefer ...

 

[mac_1103]

Most mutations are either irrelevant or actually make the yeast less fit. It's all about selection. Most selection is unintentional. Selecting for the traits you want without accumulating mutations you don't want isn't as easy as it might seem. A yeast better suited to the environment in which I make beer my beer is not the same thing as a yeast that will make my beer better.