developing yeast

[robsan77]

So, how would one develop ones own yeast strain? Where do you start? how do you improve it? Any ideas?

 

[Dunfie]

I was at the yeast talk at Skipton the other week and Mike Hitchens from Brewlabs talked about genetic drift where yeast will mutate or begin to mix with other yeast strains. It didn't sound like something that they actually engineer. It was more a case of "If it tastes better then keep it but if it isn't go back to the pure strain."

 

[TheMumbler]

I was at the yeast talk at Skipton the other week and Mike Hitchens from Brewlabs talked about genetic drift where yeast will mutate or begin to mix with other yeast strains. It didn't sound like something that they actually engineer. It was more a case of "If it tastes better then keep it but if it isn't go back to the pure strain."

that was the end of the stick I grabbed too :)

I guess you would be able to do selective breeding but it would be tough without the proper equipment. You would want to be able to save several generations I suppose. Higher alcohol tolerance would be easy enough to select for, I'm less clear on how you would push the yeast towards taste characteristics. Yeast doesn't, to the best of my knowledge, reproduce sexually so you would have to use mutation as the basis for change.

 

[unclepumble]

Yeast will mutate to its suroundings to a point, therefore it will adapt to temperature, hydroscopic pressure, wort, amount of sugar used whether you add zinc etc etc etc,
You could write big thick books on the subject.

Up

 

[robsan77]

So what if I take a well known yeast strain and microwave it at a low level to induce mutation. plate it out and pick the viable colonies. then grow a few on again and test on a batch of wort? Keep the ones that taste good and repeat. ?