harvesting yeast from bottles

[speedway]

Last month I brewed a hefeweizen and bottle carbonated it. I also washed the yeast for use later. Some of these beers got bottled in clear corona bottles and I noticed a lot of yeast on the bottom of each bottle, more than normal. Can I safely collect yeast right out of these bottles? Could I simply pour the beer leaving the yeast in the bottle, swirl it and dump it into a sanitized container? Eventually collecting enough to make a starter. It would seem to be easier than washing yeast I think.

 

[billl]

Yes, you can culture yeast from a bottle. The problem is that you start from a very low cell count. That means multiple, stepped up starters to get to a pitching level. There are lots of threads on how to do that from commercial products. Of course, you WANT that yeast in your hefe for the flavor.

If you don't want to mess with all that, just make a slightly bigger starter next time you brew and save a bit of it to grow up for future batches.

 

[Ramitt]

You can certainly do it, but it is lot of work to do it right compared to buying a vial or packet. It only seems worth it to me to get yeast and bugs not available from the yeast banks. But heck this is homebrewing, go for it if you think it will be fun, tbat is what this is all about.

 

[ol-hazza]

I am currently doing this with yeast I got from a bottle of la Trappe Blond, but am wondering if it is a waste of time as I have since read that they filter their beer and then add new yeast for bottle conditioning. I figure they do this to protect their yeast strain. Does anyone know more about this?

 

[kh54s10]

I wouldn't bother doing that with yeast that you can buy for homebrewing. There are other ways go (freezing yeast is as time consuming in stepping starters but you don't have to collect from bottles first) or you can wash the yeast from the cake, or just pitch some of the cake slurry.

It is a good way to get yeast that you can not buy commercially. If you collect from a commercial, unfiltered beer you can get a yeast only used by that brewer. I did that with yeast from bottles of Long Trail Ale. The beer I brewed was the closest I have made to a Long Trail Pale ale that I have been trying to clone for a couple of years. (They don't make the Pale Ale anymore).

 

[Ramitt]

Hate to hear they aren't making the pale ale any more enjoyed a lot of it when in Vt a few hears ago.