Yeast Washing from a Sour - Reuse in a Non-Sour

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zyx345

zyx345

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I just did a small batch sour using A Good Belly mango shot. Yeast was Belle Saison.

If I rinse the yeast can I reuse it in a non-sour such as a normal Saison or a wheat beer?
 
zyx345 said:
I just did a small batch sour using A Good Belly mango shot. Yeast was Belle Saison.

If I rinse the yeast can I reuse it in a non-sour such as a normal Saison or a wheat beer?
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If you kettle soured then definitely.
 
sborz22 said:
If you kettle soured then definitely.
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Right--if you boiled at some point between adding the good belly and pitching yeast then you are fine to reuse the yeast. If you did not boil in between those two acts then the yeast and bacteria are indivisible short of getting into more scientific procedures than yeast rinsing.
 
mashpaddled said:
Right--if you boiled at some point between adding the good belly and pitching yeast then you are fine to reuse the yeast. If you did not boil in between those two acts then the yeast and bacteria are indivisible short of getting into more scientific procedures than yeast rinsing.
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But since Goodbelly uses L. Plantarum, anything over about 10 IBU will pretty much stop it in its tracks.
 
isomerization said:
Might want to bring something to the table here, if you’re going to disagree with the above posters.
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Who did I disagree with? I re-affirmed what everyone else said after he acknowledged it wasn’t boiled after souring.

You feel better now? Move along
 
jjw5015 said:
Who did I disagree with? I re-affirmed what everyone else said after he acknowledged it wasn’t boiled after souring.

You feel better now? Move along
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FatDragon and RPh_Guy both stated that the L. planatarum would be inhibited by hops and that it was safe to use the yeast even without boiling.

No need to get so aggressive.
 
isomerization said:
FatDragon and RPh_Guy both stated that the L. planatarum would be inhibited by hops and that it was safe to use the yeast even without boiling.

No need to get so aggressive.
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Sorry didn’t know multiple opinions weren’t allowed. I’d never reuse a yeast cake containing bacteria that wasn’t killed off by boiling.

I’ll see myself out, Lord of HBT
 
isomerization said:
FatDragon and RPh_Guy both stated that the L. planatarum would be inhibited by hops and that it was safe to use the yeast even without boiling.
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Now this is interesting! As a new brewer, almost 3 years, I would think quite the opposite. Is it just this bacteria in particular? What’s the process? Does the hops kill off the bacteria during the first fermentation? I guess that might make sense... otherwise after keg/bottle the bacteria would continue to grow and ruin the beer?

My club has a 55 gallon oak barrel for our club sour. Take a gallon and replace it... fermented or wort. I don’t understand using lacto yet....

I haven’t made a sour yet but it’s in the plans.
 
OpenSights said:
Now this is interesting! As a new brewer, almost 3 years, I would think quite the opposite. Is it just this bacteria in particular? What’s the process? Does the hops kill off the bacteria during the first fermentation? I guess that might make sense... otherwise after keg/bottle the bacteria would continue to grow and ruin the beer?

My club has a 55 gallon oak barrel for our club sour. Take a gallon and replace it... fermented or wort. I don’t understand using lacto yet....

I haven’t made a sour yet but it’s in the plans.
Click to expand...

Don’t confuse using a single type of bacteria for quick souring with complex mixed fermentation’s.

This link has some nice explanation of the inhibitory properties of hops on LAB:

http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/337.html
 
In one unfortunate case, a homebrewer was attempting to make a sour beer, but the yeast he pitched was a slurry from a batch that was dry hopped (zero calculated IBU in the previous batch from which the slurry was harvested, only dry hops).
Even the tiny amount of hops in the slurry prevented L. plantarum from souring this beer even with no hops added otherwise.

This species is severely hop-sensitive.
 
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isomerization said:
Don’t confuse using a single type of bacteria for quick souring with complex mixed fermentation’s.

This link has some nice explanation of the inhibitory properties of hops on LAB:

http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/337.html
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link! I bought the Brewing Elements Series, (water, yeast, malt, hops) beginning to read yeast. I was planning on water next, but might have to read hops next instead...

I’m going to keep the link open and read it again and again over and over the next couple of days to let it sink in.
 
For anyone who doesn't want to delve into the science:
Bottom line is that hops inhibit gram positive bacteria, including all lactic acid bacteria (LAB).
Some species/strains are more hop-tolerant than others.
You can pitch L plantarum into any normally hopped beer and it will have no effect.

Cheers
 
Worth pointing out that there are a number of reports of other organisms in Good Belly beyond just plantarum. Seen a few folks on MTF saying it's not uncommon for Good Belly to be contaminated with yeast.

While plantarum can't stand hops, that's enough for me to say "boil it" in case there's anything else in there.

Would be different if using a lab culture of specifically plantarum than effectively taking a product and going off-label with it.

(Not discouraging using Good Belly, it's my preference for kettle sours as well, but I still boil it after souring).
 
Kettle souring is prone to contamination. Given the vast number of successful GoodBelly kettle sours without yeast contamination I'm inclined to point toward poor sanitation/process as the cause for the very few cases of contamination.

Contrast that with say White Labs bacterial products, such are routinely contaminated with yeast.

It's a little counterintuitive.
 
Valid point. I've never had any contamination issues with it personally either.

Still, all the more reason I'd refrain from harvesting yeast from a kettle sour for a clean beer unless it'd been boiled post souring.
 
Hey I'm with you. I go to the extreme and don't ever harvest yeast from a batch because I want to do everything possible to avoid contamination. Yeast is cheap.

However, there's no reason to think the bacteria added to this beer increase the risk of wild yeast contamination. Furthermore, you can much more easily see whether there's a yeast contamination when you pre-sour.
 
I would be very hesitant to repitch yeast from a sour fermentation into a clean fermentation. Sourness aside that yeast came from an incredibly hostile environment. Acidity and alcohol can do a number on yeast health. I’ve never heard of a professional brewer harvesting yeast from even a kettle soured beer. They always say the viability is terrible.
 
RPh_Guy said:
Yeast is cheap.
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When you harvest it's cheap.....

Otherwise yeast is f***ing expensive.

I don't harvest suspect yeast, that's all. Unboiled kettle sour is suspect for sure. Even boiled between lacto and sacch, I wonder if the low pH wouldn't impact performance. I have zero data or thought out reasoning, just speculation.

But I've definitely gone from clean TO kettle sour.

Play the harvest game right and you seldom have to buy yeast.
 
Fair points guys.
Maybe you're right.

Still, I'm not fully convinced viability is a problem. My sours never have trouble attenuating or bottle carbing. I can't imagine once it's in non-sour wort that the yeast would have poor performance.
Yeast seems pretty resilient. For example the drying process "can do a number on yeast health", but dry yeast is plenty popular.

Just one guy's opinion.

Qhrumphf said:
Play the harvest game right and you seldom have to buy yeast.
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It might be nice to harvest Sacc, I know it usually works for people. The other reason I don't is that I use a different yeast for almost every beer. I'm not churning out IPA after IPA like most homebrewers. ;)

We have different definitions of expensive; $5-10 per batch for yeast doesn't bother me. I spend on yeast instead of hops.
$14 for Brett on top of Sacc and Lacto is kind of annoying though. That's one reason I do bank Brett cultures.
 
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I guess to support the "don't repitch" crowd, I tried carbing some ginger beer with yeast harvested from a Gose and it didn't work - not even after a repitch - and that's a pretty easygoing environment for yeast since it's just simple sugar. At the same time, the style-agnostic sour wheat beer I pitched on 1/3 of the Gose yeast cake took off like gangbusters, so there's another data point in favor of the viability crowd. The cake and wort from both batches was unhopped all the way along the chain (until the bottling bucket for the Gose when it was already off the yeast cake) and I haven't actually tasted the new beer to see if it soured or not. I guess if it isn't sour, that's even more evidence that it's okay to use yeast from a lactic co-fermentation in a clean beer...
 
You used a blend with L. plantarum, right? It'll definitely be sour. :)

You added slurry from a gose with live bacteria to try to carbonate a ginger beer?? I'm sure there's more to that story and probably another reason why it didn't work.
 
RPh_Guy said:
You used a blend with L. plantarum, right? It'll definitely be sour. :)

You added slurry from a gose with live bacteria to try to carbonate a ginger beer?? I'm sure there's more to that story and probably another reason why it didn't work.
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Yeah, the blend included plantarum and I'm certainly expecting the beer to be sour.

When I bottled the Gose, I siphoned some of the slurry into a sanitized jar with some of the finished beer on top and put it in the fridge. Just a couple days later, I did my normal ginger beer recipe (cook the sugar syrup with a bit of lemon juice for acid, juice the ginger, add some lime and lemon juice, top off with water, and ferment in half liter soda bottles) and added a bit of slurry to each bottle. A day and a half later, nothing, so I added a bit more slurry. Still nothing. A pinch of bread yeast in each bottle carbed them up in about 18 hours, as has been usual this summer. Beats me why the slurry failed.
 
I made kimchi with garlic and ginger in the mix last week, so ginger (and garlic, another natural antimicrobial agent) certainly doesn't stop LAB from working or reproducing. Meanwhile, I've successfully carbonated ginger beer with bread yeast and two much older harvested yeast batches (6 months to a year old), and the batch that wouldn't carb with the Gose yeast got right to work with the bread yeast. My guess is that it might involve either too much trüb and not enough yeast in the slurry I pitched and/or temperature shock when I pitched (though the second pitch wasn't a huge temperature swing for the yeast) I guess we'll really never know for sure, though.
 
The base yeast was a saison yeast. I don't think a little LAB contamination in saison yeast is a bad thing. Who aims for a super clean saison anyway? If you are into farmhouse styles this could make a nice house culture. See what happens over 5-6 batches. You sound like you are already set up for one gallon brewing I think it would be fun to see what develops.
 
eric19312 said:
The base yeast was a saison yeast. I don't think a little LAB contamination in saison yeast is a bad thing. Who aims for a super clean saison anyway? If you are into farmhouse styles this could make a nice house culture. See what happens over 5-6 batches. You sound like you are already set up for one gallon brewing I think it would be fun to see what develops.
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Diastaticus motherload to boot. So you've got a point.
 

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