Is it worth it to harvest a stone beer?

[kev211]

So here I'm am currently sipping a stone enjoy by 2-14-16 UNFILTERED ipa (beer was meh, experience was awesome) out of my spieglau ipa glass and I hold it up to the light to admire the unfiltered goodness, and what do I see? A solid .5cm yeast cake at the bottom of my glass (pic to follow). Now Ive heard and read that stone uses wlp007. I've also heard and read (albeit it not as common) that stone does not use wlp007.

So here's my question, do you all, the magnificent users of HBT think I should take the time and effort to harvest this yeast? If it is wlp007 I don't care. I live 30 minutes from white labs and can go buy a gallon of the stuff tomorrow. But if anyone is under the impression that it is not 007/is worth the effort then I'm all ears. At this point, since I'm all but done with this glass I think this yeast will get dumped, but I'm not opposed to buying a few more bottles and letting the stuff settle. What do y'all think? Harvest? Or forget about it?

Here's the yeasties in question

View attachment 1452839415006.jpg

 

[day_trippr]

Why would one want to harvest yeast from a "meh" beer?

Cheers!

 

[kev211]

Because I don't think the yeast is responsible for the meh-iness of the beer. The reason I say it was meh the beer wasn't that special over all. But I'm pretty sure this is the yeast they use on all their beers (or at least the enjoy bys) and the December enjoy by was freakin amazing.

 

[v01gt]

Did you wind up harvesting this? Just picked up a 6-pack and was curious if anyone else had tried.

 

[kev211]

I got another bottle, poured it in my glass and let it sit... Came back about 30 mins later and had the tiniest of film of yeast on the bottom. Exceptionally disappointing to say the least, ha! . Maybe I just got a bottle with too much the first time? Who knows, I may have to try again... You know, for science

 

[Dirt_McGirt]

Do you really want WLP007? If so, is the work to harvest bottle yeast worth more than driving 30 minutes to the source? These are questions only you can answer.

 

[kev211]

Do you really want WLP007? If so, is the work to harvest bottle yeast worth more than driving 30 minutes to the source? These are questions only you can answer.

See that's the thing. I've never seen it confirmed that it's wlp007. Not that I don't think it's true, but who knows for sure? And no, I don't mind driving to get it, in fact I have 2 pure pitch packets of it in the fridge right now. Just wasn't sure if that's definitely what they use

 

[Calder]

I've heard it is similar, but not the same. I think I'd try harvesting just for the fun of trying it.

 

[hottpeper13]

I was just at a brewing conference with Chris White as a speaker and the question was asked about Stone yeast and he said they supply them with a proprietary yeast,and he didn't think anyone else had it,and said it would be a shame if an ex employee took some,but you never know.

 

[fsr_racer]

There is also the question of whether or not they use the same yeast for bottling that they ferment with. They probably do, but I know some places use a separate yeast for bottle conditioning.

 

[v01gt]

For anyone interested, i added the dregs from a 12oz bottle of unfiltered Enjoy By to 200mL of ~1.020 wort. Within a day there was some activity and it still has a small layer of bubbles on top, so it seems to be working.

There is also the question of whether or not they use the same yeast for bottling that they ferment with. They probably do, but I know some places use a separate yeast for bottle conditioning.

While you are definitely right about a lot of breweries doing this, the whole premise (label text/marketing) of this beer is that they "took a step out of their process" and left the beer unfiltered. If they used a different yeast for bottling, wouldn't that be adding another step? (brew/ferment -> filter/pasteurize -> add yeast at bottling). Maybe thats just Stone's marketing genius at work, but it seems a little silly to me to filter and add a different yeast at bottling just to create a hazy effect in the beer. Maybe if they were worried about their proprietary strain they could have just used WLP007 from the get-go?

 

[robertlhawley]

Just to add a bit more evidence that it's probably not wlp007, Mitch Steele in his book IPA provides some stone recipes, and for yeast he states "use stone house strain, though wlp007 is an acceptable alternative"

Which of course doesn't mean -that- beer uses the house strain...

 

[ultravista]

2-14-16 UNFILTERED IPA was meh? I love this stuff ...

 

[kev211]

2-14-16 UNFILTERED IPA was meh? I love this stuff ...

It was meh because it didnt have any real pizaz. It tasted almost identical as the last 3 enjoy bys (12-25-15 excluded), and even the enjoy by black IPA's taste exactly like the regular enjoy by's but with some black malt tossed in. It just seems to me, IMHO that Stone has started to use the same base recipe for all of their hoppy beers, making only slight late addition hop changes and maybe shifting one or two specialty malts.

With that said though, the more I drink the current unfiltered Enjoy By, the more it grows on me

 

[dawwwgs]

I harvested the yeast from 12 bottles of Enjoy by 2/14/16. Working on second starter at 1.030 and getting great results, nice thick layer of new yeast . Gonna let this run go for a couple days then do another one later in week for brewday on Saturday. It may not be everybody's cup of tea but fun to adventure out. Will keep posted.

 

[v01gt]

After I stepped up a starter yesterday, I did a little digging and found this presentation by Mitch Steele from Stone:

http://www.mbaa.com/districts/NewEngland/Events/Documents/2012_01_20BrewingExtremeBeers.pdf

He talks about repitching strategies, and while they "almost 100% repitch from Stone IPA," he also says "We still don’t repitch from anything higher than 17.5°P OG—we do see viability issues and other yeast stress indicators." Something to think about if you want to try and build up from Enjoy By.

 

[XPLSV]

I've harvested and used Stone yeast...very aggressive yeast...ferments down well. A lot of their anniversary releases are bottle conditioned and have quite a bit of yeast in them. Today, they are releasing even more unfiltered variants.

 

[Aristotelian]

For the record, I have harvested from Stone's Saison du Boeuf collaboration. Pretty sure it is just 3711 but what the heck, it made a good saison. I assume it is the same yeast they use for Stone Saison.

I am extremely cheap and brew small batches, so it is worth it for me to culture from dregs rather than drop $6 on a commercial yeast.

 

[kingmatt]

Not sure I'd want to harvest yeast from a 9+ percent alcohol beer that is hopped to holy hell, but that's just me 😋