reculturing yeast from a bottle?

[quantum24]

has anyone had success reculturing yeast from a bottle conditioned beer? ive looked around, but i cant find much info on this topic. thanks in advance

[Richard English]

This was quite commonly done when I started home-brewing since there wasn't the range of specialist yeasts available that we now enjoy. Indeed, when I started I used bakers' yeast and what a sediment that produced!

The problem then was that there were very few BCAs left - even in England - and we were restricted to Guinness (no longer a BCA), White Shield Worthington (happily still with us) or exotica like Thomas Hardy's or an import.

As the yeast might be quite old, little in quantity, and attenuated by the alcohol, a certain amount of care is needed to get it cracking. A starter bottle is really essential and it might take some days before a sufficiently vigorous fermentation is underway.

[S.F.B.]

I haven't tried it from a bottle. I do harvest from the sediment out of the primary fermenter if I am going to be brewing a series of beers within two weeks of each other. You can do this up to about 4-5 times before risking contamination. Makes for a very vigorous fermentation.

[sallad]

i've been interested in doing this too, and hopefully i'll get around to it soon. i found a good article on how to do it in the Clone Brews book.

the basics of it off the top of my head: boil (and then cool) about a cup of wort using wheat DME with an OG of about 1045. let all sediment from the desired bottle settle and empty about 75% of the beer into a glass (promptly empty glass to belly). very carefully sanatize the lip of the bottle, pour in wort and plug with a airlock. use the bottle as a 12oz carboy! when things take off, repitch to a more standard sized starter culture!

[wortchillergoal]

Yes it can be done. Here are some factors that have been pointed out to me. The brewers don't use the same yeast to bottle conditon as they do for fermention. Also some brewers have started coating their bottles with a substance so that you can have a great deal of trouble collecting enough yeast to make the process worth while. I do know homebrewers that do this with some beers and enjoy good results.

[michaewa]

I do harvest from the sediment out of the primary fermenter if I am going to be brewing a series of beers within two weeks of each other. You can do this up to about 4-5 times before risking contamination.

Out of curiosity, where does this contamination risk come from? Is there mutation of the yeast over time after a certain number of batches?

[mmmBeer...]

My understanding is that the yeast will mutate after a period of time, so you will get shifts in taste, and eventually poor tasting beer. The other major problem is with contamination. It is (apparently) very difficult to keep everything sanitized, and you run the risk of wild yeast getting into the mix.

I wash my yeast out of the primary and have yet to have a problem, but I have only reused the yeast about 3 times. Washing saves me having to worry about getting other junk from the primary into the next batch…I get a clean jug of just yeast, with only about an eighth of an each of headspace in the Mason jar.

The owner of my local reuses his yeast up to 12 times…he told me he gets his best beer at about 6 batches. I don’t know if I would want to risk a poor batch by going to this extreme. I figure if I get about 5 batches out of vial of yeast…then I am happy!

[Richard English]

I am not an expert on this but I do know that there are brewers in the UK who have been using the same strain of yeast for many years and many hundreds of brews.

There must be a way in which it is possible to maintain the quality of the yeast. After all, Fuller Smith and Turner don't pop down to their local brewers' supplies shop for a packet of dried yeast whenever they want to get another brew of 1845 on the go!

[sallad]

one of my most local breweries - flying fish - reuses their yeast for all their brews (except for their summer belgian-style wheat). that means that what was used for a porter may be used for a pale ale next.

from what i've heard, you need some experts to maintain the proper environment to prevent drift in the yeast strain. how do you think the guys at white labs and wyeast do it?

i don't think the guys at flying fish do a lot of microbiology work to keep their yeast constant, but they certainly have a much larger sample size than 5gal homebrewers. i would imagine they get less drift than we would.

also, its not hard to believe that a brewery of fuller's tradition has a specialists or 2 on hand just to maintain their yeast strain!

[wortchillergoal]

Originally posted by sallad
i don't think the guys at flying fish do a lot of microbiology work...

I hope brewmonkey sees and responds to this thread. I am told that brew school, if you will, is alot of microbiology. Yes, maintaining the yeast's enviroment is one part of it. This is one of the challenges that the brewmasters with good old AB face daily. Yeast will develop house flavors. So if you were to give some yeast you had been using to a friend, he would find that his beer would taste a little different from his. The brewers from AB have to make sure that the beer brewed in St. Louis taste the same as the Bud made here in Syr. and on the west coast. That is not an easy thing to do. The commercial breweries go to great lengths to keep their yeast happy.

[sallad]

flying fish is a very small local micro. they have a staff of about 6 people i think, with some of them doing more administration and sales work more than actual brewing. i agree that larger breweries spend lots of effort on this. i was merely relaying info that was given to me while touring flying fish's brewery- that they reuse their yeast for all their brews and don't do a whole lot of microbiology work to do so.

[wortchillergoal]

Originally posted by sallad
that they reuse their yeast for all their brews and don't do a whole lot of microbiology work to do so.

I will go along with that statement. They have do some mirco work but probably don't do a great deal. Forgive me also as I was trying to point out that there is more to large scale brewing than meets one's eye.