Culturing Yeast

Safety Tip--When heating water in a microwave I put a wooden skewer in the jar, I don't remember the exact science but water heated in a microwave can get super hot without boiling, then when it is disturbed, it reacts violently causing nasty burns( I saw this on Food Network a while back)

If you harvest it right away you could probably just pitch it, but I would make a starter. you will get much better results, as in faster starter up from more healthy yeast, and a reduced fermentation time. I pitch a 4 liter starter in a 10 gallon batch and my fermentation is 90% complete within 4 days.

Once i collect my yeast from the primary fermenter and wash it, do i need to put any starter in it before i pitch it? Or does that depend on how old the yeast is.

It's not stupid, and has been done before. The issue, as Mike said earlier, depending on the brewery, different types of yeast are used to bottle condition beers often times. Culturing the yeast, might not yield the result you are looking for. I would try to contact the brewery and ask them what type of yeast they are using. Chances are you could buy the same yeast from Wyeast or White Labs, and get better results.

But if you are up for the challenge... the hefeweizen style could lend itself to culturing, but it will take some effort to build up enough yeast for proper pitching rates.

Have any of you tried culturing yeast from Widmer Heffeweizen? I had a couple last night and i thought they were pretty good and wouldnt mind trying that yeast in my cream ale. Is this stupid or does it sound like it is feasible?

I harvest yeast off of my fermenters. The easiest way to do it is get a big jar (fortunately, I bought a house with a bunch of 2 qt jars in it). The easiest way to sanitize the jar is to stick it in the microwave for 3 minutes with some water in it ( as much as you can hold without it running out of the jar.) Pull it out, of the microwave and cover it with a piece of tin foil, or with a jar lid that could be boiled in a small pot to sanitize as well. The idea of this being the steam will sanitize the jar.

Cool the jar to room temperature before harvesting yeast into it. The water inside the jar is sterilized, and sanitary. If needed, it can be added to your fermenter to help loosen the cake, and also help you wash the yeast once you have harvested it, which may or may not be necessary.

I used yeast as many as 5 times, usually starting with a pale ale, and ending with a porter. The rule of thumb would be to not harvest yeast off of a beer that has a starting gravity of 1.065 or higher, or a really hoppy beer. Both of these environments are hard on yeast, and not ideal. Don't use yeast from a beer you were unhappy with.

Once you have harvested the yeast, you can pitch it directly if you are using it right away, but more than likely you will need to make a yeast starter to get the yeast active again for pitching. Making a starter is very easy, and well worth the effort. Hope this helps some. Cheers!

Here's the link I mentioned earlier: BrewWiki: Washing Yeast

i reuse my yeast, it is easy, but and there are tons of sites, that explain it better than i would, keep it sanitary, unless you really like sour beers! then keep it sanitary so you get consistant beers. lots of folks just repitch the yeast cake, that is easy just make sure not to use a dark beer on top of a new light colored beer unless you don't mind the added color. and i personally would not re pitch off a really high alcohol beer (yeast is stressed and over worked) difference may be if you used a barley wine yeast then it won't be a big deal.

it is easy go for it.

buckhntr2 wrote:

I am wondering if any of you culture yeast from your primary fermenters or from bottles of beer, and if you do how do you do it?

I used to harvest the yeast from my primary fermenter when I was looking to save money on my brews. Without going into too great a detail, you can find a number of great tutorials online that describe how to wash your yeast. You can then store or use those cultures to propagate a new starter for your next brew. As you mentioned, if you have a favorite beer, you can also culture those dregs to replicate that flavor profile. The big key on that, though, is sanitation. It's very easy to get a secondary infection in your starter when using that approach. Finally, bear in mind that some breweries use a different yeast for their bottling in order to avoid unwanted use of their proprietary strains. Hopefully that answers your question, somewhat.

I am wondering if any of you culture yeast from your primary fermenters or from bottles of beer, and if you do how do you do it?