What strain or type of yeast this is?

[jonlouisville77]

I brewed a Bock from a Munton's kit, the kind with a packet of yeast under the lid.
The instructions on the kit weren't like the typical process for brewing a lager. It said to primary for 4 - 6 days, bottle it and put it somewhere warm for 2 days, then cool condition for 14 days. Was this actually ale yeast? I decanted and reused it once and have decanted that as well about a week ago. It still seems healthy and the beer it made tasted fine, although my tastes aren't as refined as those of some of you folks.

How can I tell what strain or type of yeast this is?

Is this stuff low quality and am I being foolish for reusing generic yeast?

Does the yeast lose potency or other properties after several uses (multiple generations)?

[beerking]

Odds are VERY slim that this is a lager yeast. It is probably a low viability (due to poor handling and long storage) dried ale yeast.
The first biggest thing a beginning homebrewer can do to improve his beer, is get rid of the corn sugar (except for priming).
The second is get rid of the packet of yeast taped to the cap of your extract. Buy 2 packets of good quality, name brand dried yeast (Safale is great), or even better, switch to liquid cultures.

[thekulman]

Munton's and Cooper kits usually have all right yeast with them, although it may be old. But generic beer kit's usually use crap yeast. I'd contact Munton's and ask what strain it was. Likely it was an Ale strain. There are few good dry lager strains. Usually for a lager you have to go the route of liquid yeasts.
Also, Lagers are fermented at 50-55 F primary and then 38-40 F secondary. Ale yeasts could not do this so likely it was an Ale yeast with the kit.

Brian
Homebrewers Retail

[jonlouisville77]

Thanks guys. That's kindof what I suspected. Also, I've read that you can culture the yeasts from some commercially available microbrews, if you want to clone or emmulate them. I realize that the beer would have to be unfiltered, unpasturized and relatively fresh in order to do this and I know that Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is a beer that this is possible with. Do you guys know of other beers with the properties necessary to culture yeast from them?

[beerking]

Just about any beer with yeast in the bottom of the bottle will work, although some use a different yeast in the bottle than in the fermenter. Usually, if they do this the yeast in the bottle is more basic, and they use a special yeast for fermentation.
IIRC, Orval uses Brett for bottle conditioning.

[jonlouisville77]

Thanks. That makes sense.
My local liquor store guy will be wondering what's up when he sees me holding all of the bottles up to the light to check for yeast at the bottom!

[corkybstewart]

Thanks guys. That's kindof what I suspected. Also, I've read that you can culture the yeasts from some commercially available microbrews, if you want to clone or emmulate them. I realize that the beer would have to be unfiltered, unpasturized and relatively fresh in order to do this and I know that Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is a beer that this is possible with. Do you guys know of other beers with the properties necessary to culture yeast from them?
I have website at home that lists a lot of beers that have yeast that can be cultured from the bottle, but it's several years old.
As for the SNPA yeast that's White Labs WLP 001 or wyeast 1056(I think). It's a very common yeast to buy so unless you just want the experience of yeast culturing I'd buy that one. I culture strange yeasts like from Jolly Pumpkin La Roja or Orval and just buy the commong ones.

[jonlouisville77]

Reading posts about wheat beers today made me pick up a pack of Blue Moon Belgian White. It's unfiltered and I suppose, bottle carbonated because I could see yeast at the bottom. Maybe I'll save the yeast from the bottles and use it to make a wheat beer of my own.

Is it true that oats can be added to cultured yeast as a food source? I've added a little cornsugar to yeast that didn't seem so vibrant before and it perked right up.

[jonlouisville77]

I'm going to try it. I just drank 5 Blue Moons and I saved the last swig (with the settled yeast) from each. I've got some water boiled with a few oats in it, and once it cools I'll add some corn sugar and my Blue Moon ale yeast to it. I'll call Blue Moon Brewing tomorrow and see if they'll tell me what strain it is, but they probably won't. They'll most likely say "proprietary information".

[corkybstewart]

Here's the link I mentioned earlier. Good luck.

http://www.nada.kth.se/~alun/Beer/Bottle-Yeasts/

[thekulman]

I'm going to try it. I just drank 5 Blue Moons and I saved the last swig (with the settled yeast) from each. I've got some water boiled with a few oats in it,

Hi, I hope that by "saved the last swig" you don't mean you drank from the bottle? There are bad microorganisms in your mouth, I would consider that bottle ruined.
If you want to cutlure yeast, decant to a glass then put foil over the bottle immediately.
The oats by themself are not fermentable I believe because the starch hasn't been converted to sugar.
Boil a cup of water with 1/2 cup of dried malt extract for about 15 minutes. After it cools to below 75 F, pour it carefully into the bottle and replace the tin foil, the yeast will start a fermentation and multiply. You may have to do this several times in ever increasingly sterilized jars until you have enough to pitch into your own beer.
... of you could pick up a sachet of WB-06 from Fermentis. It's a very good wheat beer strain (dried) as is Wyeast 3068 - Wienhenstephan Wiezen for a liquid strain.

Brian
Homebrewers Retail

[jonlouisville77]

No, I poured each beer into my glass as I drank them throughout the night. After each beer I poured, I put the twist top back on and set the bottle on the counter. While I was at it I boiled a pot of water, sterilized some corn sugar and a glass jar. The water had cooled by the time I was on my last beer. I poured it all into the jar and threw in a few oats as a slightly intoxicated afterthought. I didn't cook the oats but I thought, "What the hell? I just bought this beer to drink it, so if the yeast dies or gets infected, so what? I'll buy some yeast next time I brew."
There was a visible layer of white, healthy looking yeast on the bottom of the jar two days ago, but I've been at work and it's been in my fridge since then. My thinking on the oats was not necessarily to ferment it's sugars into alcohol and CO2, it was only to add some vitamins and minerals to the mixture. It was just about 20 or so oats in addition to a few spoonfuls of cornsugar.

[Mill Rat]

yeah, good idea to give the yeast at least a few FANs in addition to the pure sugar. Still, malt is the ideal food for brewers yeasts.

[jonlouisville77]

Do you mean FANs as in the amino acids? I actually considered throwing a chewable vitamin in there also, but I didn't. I suspected that as the vitamins are generally non-colloidal, I would have to crush and boil them in order to make them able to be metabolised by yeasts. Who knows how boiling would affect the vitamins in there, anyway? Besides, I've read that B-complex vitamins are generally made as by-products of fermentation and various electrolytes may or may not be desired by yeasts. In other words, I don't know enough about the life-cycle and requirements of yeasts in order to decide what to feed them. I just took a guess that the oatmeal would either be helpful or completely inert.

[jonlouisville77]

In another week or two I may add more boiled liquid and some more sugar oats and possibly some whole grain rice I have in the pantry, (in order to multiply the yeast to a more useful quantity). I may boil the oats and rice this time to convert some sugars over as well. We'll see how it works.

[Dangerous Beans]

I may boil the oats and rice this time to convert some sugars over as well.
That won't convert the starch, it will just dissolve it. To convert the starch you need to add enzymes. This is what happens during the malting and mashing process. Just use dry malt extract instead.
I would get some yeast nutrient as well, it will have FAN and the electrolytes needed by the yeast. If you can't get you could just use dry bakers yeast, if you boil it first.