British Ale Yeast - culturing Fullers or buy a liquid yeast?

[jeg3]

I want to start keeping a stock of good yeast for my British pale ales and bitters, and the following comes to mind:

Culturing Fullers primary strain from a bottle of 1845, or buying a good liquid yeast.

I figure they probably cost the same after factoring in the cost of DME.

The main types of beer I would like it for are darker stronger beers (the style of ESB, Broadside, Old Hooky), but would also use for paler ales and mild.

What's the consensus?

 

[HisDudeness]

I think it's still cheaper to culture from bottles (if you discount the cost of the beer, you do get to drink it after all!). I have just successfully cultured the fullers strain, the main cost is additional time to step up the starters. I used 3 bottles worth of yeast though and this sped the process up quite a bit. I only used about 300g Dme in total

 

[MyQul]

Working it out (hopefully my maths is correct someone please correct me if it's not):

Using my bottle culturing method

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=53567

It takes 435g of DME. It cost £6 for 1kg at my LHBS So £2.61 for the DME plus £1.99 for a bottle of 1845 = £4.60 (plus you get the beer to drink too)

A vial of WLP002 is £6.36 (from the-home-brew-shop.co.uk) not including p&p and £9.48 with p&p

So (if I've managed to do my maths right) bottle culturing is cheaper

 

[clibit]

Working it out (hopefully my maths is correct someone please correct me if it's not):

Using my bottle culturing method

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=53567

It takes 435g of DME. It cost �£6 for 1kg at my LHBS So �£2.61 for the DME plus �£1.99 for a bottle of 1845 = �£4.60 (plus you get the beer to drink too)

A vial of WLP002 is �£6.36 (from the-home-brew-shop.co.uk) not including p&p and �£9.48 with p&p

So (if I've managed to do my maths right) bottle culturing is cheaper

Not sure you will always be successful with bottle culturing though. More of a risk. But you will get the brewery's yeast.

 

[jeg3]

Some of it is about experimentation and starting to become a bit more self sufficient, especially after reading MyQul's guide to bottle culturing and CreweBrewer's growing thread.

I've got a couple of sachets of emergency yeast if it goes pear shaped

 

[MyQul]

Not sure you will always be successful with bottle culturing though. More of a risk. But you will get the brewery's yeast.

True. Probably best to look for bottles with the longest BBE date.