Seems simple enough, was going to give this a try for fun and perhaps to use with a SN Pale Ale recipe.
If you do it, how has it turned out? I’m guessing you have to do this a few times (building up, decanting, repeat) before you get enough cells to pitch.
First and foremost, since the culture is not in the greatest health and is a fairly low cell count, proper sanitation is an absolute necessity - even more so than usual.
For the initial step, I like to do it in the bottle instead of pouring the dregs off. Transfers are the times where you run the biggest risk of contamination, so I like to make sure the culture is woken up a bit before transferring out. Sanitize the bottle and bottle opener before opening. Then sanitize the neck/lip of the bottle before pouring the beer. I like to leave about 1/2 inch of beer in the bottle, plus the dregs. this way you get any yeast that is still in suspension and not just the flocced out dregs.
I then use a sanitized funnel to add about 1/2-1 inch of 1.030ish wort. Once diluted with the remaining beer, this gives you a nice low OG of about 1.020. This is less stressful to the yeast than the typical 1.040ish starter wort we typically use. Then I cover with foil (for non-sours) or add a small stopper and airlock (for sours). I usually give the first step about 7-10 days to give the yeast plenty of time to wake up and do their thing.
From there, the general rule for stepping up a starter is a tenfold increase each step. So step two is maybe 200 mL or so of 1.035 wort, and then that can go into a normal 2-liter starter. Use your nose to tell you whether there are any problems, and taste your larger starters to ensure that you didn’t pick up any contamination along the way.
For sanitation, I have had good luck simply using Star-San, but if you really wanted to take stronger precautions, then using something like 151 or Everclear, then flaming it off is the way to go.
Thanks…do you use this technique often?
If you are going to go through all that trouble, pick a strain you can not get readily available from a yeast manufacturer. Delerium Tremens comes to mind.
I’ve done this a few times and its certainly not difficult. But you will have more reliable and predictable results just buying a decent size pitch from the regular yeast manufactures. OTOH every homrebrewer should do this at least once, but seriously: do a harder to find strain than Chico!
I would think it’s worth it from a financial standpoint if it works as well as buying new yeast.
Well, IME it doesn’t. think about all the time and malt extract you will use to step up to a pitchable quantity. Now consider what happens when you brew your beer and the yeast wasn’t as healthy as you hopped or mutated due to the inhospitable conditions. Now, was it worth it then?
I’ve stepped up from bottles several times. It’s a fun experiment. It’s not going to save you any money and unless you really know what you are doing and have an expensive microscope I doubt you will find it makes beer as good as a $4 pack of US-05.
+1
+2 - I mainly do this to step up Orval or other sour dregs, or to grow up a pitch from a batch of homebrew that used a platinum strain that isn’t currently available.
Yeah forgot about cheap dry yeast.
Siebel BRY 96 (the strain that Sierra Nevada uses) is the absolute easiest yeast on the planet to culture from a bottle of bottle-conditioned beer. In fact, it was the first yeast strain that I cultured from a bottle of bottle conditioned beer. If you are going to culture in the bottle, you are going to need a sanitized funnel and a sanitized #2.5 solid stopper, which will be used to cap the bottle while shaking.
Procedure (assuming that the beer has been resting upright for long enough that the yeast has settled)
Remove the bottle cap
Wipe the mouth of the bottle with a 90% alcohol saturated cotton ball (you need to use a light touch because the goal here is to clear the surface of any dust that may have gotten under the crimped portion of the crown, not drench the bottle)
Flame the mouth by quickly passing the flame from a butane lighter over the mouth of the bottle (Charlie P. referred to this step as “burning the lips”)
Carefully decant the beer leaving the sediment and about 1/4" to 3/8" of beer.
Add 50 to 60ml of 1.020 wort to the bottle using a sanitized funnel (do not attempt to rush the culture by using more wort)
Cap the bottle using a sanitized #2.5 rubber stopper
Place your thumb or the palm of your other hand over the fat end stopper and shake until the liquid is nearly all foam (you should hold the stopper in place; otherwise, Murphy will more than likely show up, and you will have wort on your ceiling)
Remove the stopper and cover the mouth of the bottle with a piece of aluminum foil that has been wiped down with alcohol.
Allow the culture to incubate 24 to 48 hours before stepping (discard the culture if you do not see activity within 48 hours)
Step the culture to 250ml using 1.040 wort
Incubate the culture for another 12 to 18 hours
From this point forward, you can treat the culture as if you were making a starter with commercial yeast. If you are meticulous about sanitation, this process should produce a clean culture almost 100% of the time.
One last thing, yeast cultured from a bottle of SNPA behaves differently than Wy1056 and WLP001. Those cultures have drifted from the source. Cultured SNPA yeast is usually much more flocculent than either Wy1056 or WLP001.
I disagree with your assertion. If performed correctly, cultured SNPA yeast performs better than any of the commercial offerings. While culturing yeast from a bottle is a relatively simple task that can be performed without the aid of microscope, most home brewers rush the process.
Hey, in FL you can get Bell’s, and that house ale yeast is good for some clones of their beer and it is not commercially available. Culture from the Amber, Oberon, or one of the other beers at 6% or less.
You disagree with me. What else is new? :
I agree that the mention of expensive microscope was over the top, and I blame it on the whiskey, but if you are using older, undated bottles a microscope can come in handy. From fresh bottles, agree no microscope is necessary.
FLbrewer - definitely try it for yourself. It is a fun experiment. In the long run it was never worth it for me unless it was a yeast I could not obtain commercially, like Delerium Tremens.
Not a bad idea. Just thought to use the SN because that’s the beer that it was going in.
what’s the point of the stopper if I just use to shake? Couldn’t I use the foil?
You could use something else (even your thumb if you’re wearing a sanitized glove), but the stopper is certainly the best way to keep our boy Murphy from laying down the law all over your ceiling/walls/hardwoods/carpet/etc.
Edit - fix busted quote box
Missed that you were doing a Sierra Nevada clone. The Bell’s yeast is one I have done a few times, and is not commercially available.
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Well apparently SN yeast isn’t really commercially available. I had no idea about the genetic drift thing. I may culture some SN yeast now.
I’ve cultured yeast from dregs a few times. Once from Rogue because Morebeer’s PA warehouse doesn’t carry Pacman and the CA store wouldn’t ship to my LHBS in MO. Then when I started doing sours I made cultures from Boon Oude Kreik and Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere.
When I cultured the Pacman I just sanitized with Star San and poured into a sanitized mason jar. When I cultured the wild stuff from Boon and Jolly Pumpkin I flamed the lip, then transferred to a sanitized flask.
How did they turn out?
The sours fermented but that was three weeks ago so they have a long time to go. The Dead Guy clone tasted the same as it did with the Wyeast Pacman.