How do you know which commercial brews are bottle conditioned?

[Jim311]

I like the idea of trying to recreate my favorite beers with the same yeast the commercial guys are using. But how do I know which ones I can harvest yeast from, and what's the best method to do so? I was thinking about trying to harvest the yeast from a Cigar City Ja Alai IPA for one of my next batches, but I need to learn more about growing these bugs first

 

[porterpounder]

There is a list on the Mad Fermentationist blog of many breweries that you can harvest yeast from. You can always contact the brewery and ask as well. Sometimes bottled beer is carbonated with a different strain than fermentation, so watch out for that. Many American breweries use readily available strains as well, so harvesting is not always necessary.

 

[beergolf]

The Mad Fermentationist list is good for brews with bugs and brett.

Here is another list that has more brews that have harvestable sach.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/commercial-beer-yeast-harvest-list-262713/

 

[fermentology]

Check the brewery's website to see if they mention bottle conditioning or not. Beyond that it can be tricky because even if they do they could use a different strain for bottle conditioning. Your best bet might be to email the brewery to see if you can get some information, some are good about sharing info, some are not. There is a great possibility that your favorite brewery uses a strain that is available to homebrewers and is not a proprietary house strain.

 

[Jim311]

The Mad Fermentationist list is good for brews with bugs and brett.

Here is another list that has more brews that have harvestable sach.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/commercial-beer-yeast-harvest-list-262713/

Good link, lots of info. Thanks.

 

[kh54s10]

I emailed a brewery. They were helpful with the recipe though the reply did not match their website of a few years ago. They would not give amounts. They also did not answer the question on if they use a different bottling yeast. I harvested anyway and the beer was closest to what I remember the of commercial beer. 4th version. (they are not currently brewing it.)

 

[kombat]

The magic phrase is "on lees." Check the label on the bottle. If it says the bottle contains "beer on lees," then that means it was bottle-conditioned.

Of course, not every bottle-conditioned beer will include such labeling. But such labeling does guarantee the beer was bottle-conditioned and contains yeast.

 

[trentm]

There is a list on the Mad Fermentationist blog of many breweries that you can harvest yeast from. You can always contact the brewery and ask as well. Sometimes bottled beer is carbonated with a different strain than fermentation, so watch out for that. Many American breweries use readily available strains as well, so harvesting is not always necessary.

That's good advice on the Mad Fermentationist's list and contacting the brewery for information. Many are open about their strains while some may give you incomplete information to try to protect their "proprietary information" and some may be totally deceptive or unwilling to say anything.

While it is probably true that some breweries use a "bottling strain" to gain certain attributes, it is probably untrue that brewers of Belgian type beer do. At least if they do they are using a strain for bottling that complements Belgian yeast flavors and could be a great strain for brewing. However, yeast is a big expense for brewers and their fermentation strains are available to them as top or bottom cropped yeast for free. Belgian style beers benefit flavor wise from re-fermentation in the bottle. If this were not true they would not go through the resource intensive method that makes marketing their beers that much more challenging and expensive. Many brewers of Belgian styles consider bottle conditioning as a fermentation and add up to 3 million cells per ml for the process.

Here is an example of deception or at least omission of the truth by one Belgian brewery. It is widely accepted that Westmalle provides yeast for Westvleteren and Achel breweries. Michael Jackson in his book, "Great Beer of Belgium" confirms this and also states that for the Achel brewery "the beer is re-yeasted at at bottling with a different yeast". Maybe I am paraphrasing Jackson, I don't have the book with me but this statement is close. Anyway, I have isolated yeast from bottles of Westvleteren and Achel and it is, without a doubt (in my mind), the same yeast as both yeasts make excellent beer with very similar flavor characteristics and both behave very similar to the White Labs version of Westmalle yeast.

Regarding isolating yeast from beers brewed with commercially available yeast: I believe these yeasts also have value to a brewer wanting to achieve a certain benefit found in a commercial beer. While the yeast may have originally came from a commercial supplier and be available to homebrewers, many times the brewer's isolate may have attributes that are not found in the commercial isolates. Yeast is highly adaptable and quickly evolve certain traits due to environmental conditions. Often breweries select yeast from a great fermentation performance and have that yeast stored for reuse. Technically this is still the same strain but may have additional traits not found in the original strain and the brewery may refer this strain as their "house yeast".

 

[Jim311]

I mean realistically you'd see the dregs on the bottom of the bottle/can right? The Jai Alai IPA I am interested in is unfiltered and seems to have dregs in the bottom. I suppose it would become fairly obvious if it was live yeast once I built a starter?

 

[dscott]

Jim311
I've been at this for less than a year so take this with a grain of salt, but I've harvested yeast from a couple commercial beers on as many attempts and it is pretty straight forward. When your starter smells like beer you've been successful .
I have Bear Republic's Racer 5 IPA yeast building up right now. I know yeast is cheap and this one is probably available but I enjoy it.

Cheers,
d

 

[Jim311]

Do you feel like it helped you better match the flavor of the commercial equivalent? That's what I'm most interested in.. duplicating something I think is delicious as closely as possible

 

[SnakeRidge]

It's another aspect of brewing, you at least rule out one variable when trying to clone a beer.

 

[dscott]

Jim,
I can't say personally. My first yeast harvest was merely an exercise and the second is bulking up for a shot at a Racer 5 clone in the near future. Good luck


Sinc,
d