I’m about to try culturing yeast from the leftover stuff in the bottom of an Orval bottle and I’m a little confused on where to start.
I’ve read a bit and there seems to be two methods that everyone follows: 1) Create a yeast slant or agar plate using traditional methods and create a starter in the usual format or 2) Simply swirl the last ounce or so of the beer in the bottle capturing the cloudy part and pitch straight into the starter.
From what I’ve read, it may take 3-4 days to get the starter going using the straight pitch method but it seems to be less hassle.
I’d really appreciate hearing what has worked best for everyone else.
Cheers,
Johnny
I just pour in a couple ounces of sterile wort and cap it with foil and swirl a few times a day for about a week then step up to a 500 ml starter and ferment that to completion and then go on from there.
Be aware that Orval centrifuges out as much of their primary yeast as possible and then adds brett so it is questionable what exactly you are going to get. Probably mostly brett, though some house yeast probably will still be present.
Orval Brett will colonize your beer rapidly. You will have funk in no time.
+1
Start it out in the bottle it came in then stup up from there.
Is there a list of commercial beers worth culturing their yeast from a bottle?
This is old, but it’s the most comprehensive one I know of: http://www.nada.kth.se/~alun/Beer/Bottle-Yeasts/
YMMV, but I’ve I’d had great results with Delirium Tremens and Saison Dupont. I’ve also used Orval dregs directly in the secondary without making a starter and got very fast results. Both times that I’ve tried to culture from Rochefort, nothing grew.