had 2 bottles of westmalle dubbel - both were fresh as they were just brought in by the LCBO corp and went from not-in-stock to a full shelf section.
decided i could try the old yeast harvest and build it up rather than pay $20 in monopoly money for the nu-white labs packets.
make a 1 litre starter as i always have with 100g DME and yeast nutrient etc.
cracked both the dubbels (sanitized the outside first etc) and pour ~80% of each into a big glass, then swirled the bottom and added them to the starter glass jug.
i didn’t see any cloudiness which was kind of an alert, but thought “well, we’ll see. ive seen weak looking starters before”
1 week later (today) i saved an extra 8 litres of second runnings and boiled/hopped it from brewday today.
added that westmalle starter to the 8 litres of wort and i noticed an tangy aroma from the starter container.
thought about it a bit, and would rather just nuke this crap from the get-go than risk anything. i wouldnt bother risking a brew getting infected anyway, so even if it looked like an okay ferment i’d still chuck it.
anyone have any thoughts on if westmalle centrifuges, force carbs, ??? now? there really wasnt any dregs that i saw in the beer anyway. i noticed a st.bernardus “wit” that was DEAD clear with no dregs recently. it was weird.
i cleaned out the carboy with hot tap water a bunch, left iodophor solution in there for now, but plan to cook it in a water filled kettle up to ~160F. is this a good practice? no lines touched the potential infection thankfully.
I think the problem is you started too big. When I bottle culture, I start with 20 ml max. And there was yeast in a bottle of Westmalle triple I had recently. Before someone says it, they don’t use a bottling strain.
ETA: a bit more detail. I go from 20-30 ml of 1.020 to about 100 ml of 1.030 to a qt of 1.035ish
I follow similar steps when growing up bottle dregs. I make a small amount of regular-strength starter for the first step, but I leave about an ounce of beer in the original bottle with the dregs. I add an equal amount of the starter to the bottle with the beer in it, which leaves me with about 2 ounces of half-strength starter. The beer is diluted by 50%, but still contributes some alcohol, pH, and hop compounds to reduce the risk of contamination. Also, this means I have an active culture before I transfer out of the bottle, which can better handle any contaminants picked up during transfer versus dormant dregs. This is probably overkill in most cases, but I’ve lost a few bottle dreg cultures to contamination over the years, so I take an abundance of caution.
I’ll usually let step 1 go for a week, then step up to 150 mL of 1.030 wort, and finally up to a full liter starter.
Yes, what was always stated was that they use the original yeast for bottling. and yes, i understand about stepping up. oh well, i rarely if ever consider bottle harvesting these days, and after this - just another data point to not bother.
That makes sense, would have actually been easier for me to just use one bottle instead of a portion of two. oh well.
@happy wheels, I follow similar steps when growing up bottle dregs. I make a small amount of regular-strength starter for the first step, but I leave about an ounce of beer in the original bottle with the dregs. I add an equal amount of the starter to the bottle with the beer in it, which leaves me with about 2 ounces of half-strength starter. The beer is diluted by 50%, but still contributes some alcohol, pH, and hop compounds to reduce the risk of contamination. Also, this means I have an active culture before I transfer out of the bottle, which can better handle any contaminants picked up during transfer versus dormant dregs. This is probably overkill in most cases, but I’ve lost a few bottle dreg cultures to contamination over the years, so I take an abundance of caution.
Yes, I agree that using original yeast for bottling has yielded more than I expected.
Hi. Ive just joined the forum and couldn’t help noticing this thread. I live in France and we pick up Westmalle from the supermarket shelf. I’ve got a 33 cl of Dubbel and few 33s of the Trippel. They all have a very substantial yeast deposit in the bottle. I cultured one up some years ago and it grows easily and quickly. Westmalle use only a single yeast, which, I believe they share with Westvleteren.
I wonder if the beer is filtered for export as the bottles can be quite unstable after being kept for a year or two, and I’ve had more than one gusher- especially with the Westvleteren. Filtered or not, I’d bet my bottom euro that it’s not pasteurised so it might be possible to make a culture.
I have cultured from Westmalle several times, so it doesn’t appear that the either filter or pasteurized. I have also spoken with Westmalle people when I attended the Zythos fest, and they assured me what we get in the states is exactly the same as Belgium.
they need to make a north american XXL Gulp size westy maybe 1.75L with a megamouth opening. see pic below but imagine filled with some st.bernardus abt or westmalle dubbel
