DIY yeast

[Symmetry]

I'm wondering if there are many of you who have either cultivated their own "wild" yeast or have grown a strain that they've kept for a long time through brewing. Is there much benefit to this other than unique flavour and free yeast? Does it develop flavours through the beers it's brewed?

 

[Mark1964]

Never done a wild yeast but certainly used bottle conditioned beers to harvest yeast from. Fullers and thwaites are good for cultivating yeast from

 

[wilsoa1111]

tbh i had a go at keeping a london ale 3 going (keeping a few frozen safetys along the way) and once i put it in a 6% ale it staggered through another beer before giving up-dont use if over 5.5% lesson learnt... this when done well works-esp if a top cropping ale- but eventually a contaminant will get in/yeast mutate so stops flocculating- for basic dried yeasts i would stop at 3/4 succesive runs- obviously are ways around this (storing some from initial batches)- but if using a special liquid yeast strain and u successfully top crop u should get away with it barring any major errors...

i also looked at wild yeast-from organic raisins and the like but is a tad dodgy and easy to get contaminants- basically just ebay some cheap yeast up for whatever purpose-will be miles easier and probably better-why cheap out on 50p's worth of yeast when u have £10 quids of malt in there?

 

[Symmetry]

I'm not really interested in doing it for saving money, more because I'd like to know how to do it if the capability to buy some was not as easily available as it is now. :P

 

[jimp2003]

I'm not really interested in doing it for saving money, more because I'd like to know how to do it if the capability to buy some was not as easily available as it is now. :P

Are you planning for after the Zombie Apocalypse? :lol:

 

[VinceG]

We once made a batch of Guinness clone, then fermented 5 x gallon demijohns and added 5 different yeasts.

It made 5 DIFFERENT beers. Same batch, a real eye opener.

 

[wilsoa1111]

well sounds like a zombie apocalypse-or prohibition-far far worse :shock:

if does happen will be resorting to frozen yeast banks and recultureing from past bottles-more time and material expensive than dry yeast i reckon but much easier keeping a good strain going than trying to capture a new one-imho why beer yeasts evolved

 

[RokDok]

We once made a batch of Guinness clone, then fermented 5 x gallon demijohns and added 5 different yeasts.

It made 5 DIFFERENT beers. Same batch, a real eye opener.

I'll vouch for that.

Did a similar experiment with SMASH and multiple yeasts from Brewlab (they were brilliant and sent not just some slopes but also liquid starter vials of each yeast).

The difference in the flavour of the beers was astounding.

Interestingly the SMASH which I made using the wild yeast from some cider which I made from our own apple tree tasted more like cider than beer. Weird.

Back to the point :

If you want a yeast that is going to be unique and make a unique flavoured beer then use a combination of two or three yeasts.

RD

 

[Symmetry]

I'm not really interested in doing it for saving money, more because I'd like to know how to do it if the capability to buy some was not as easily available as it is now. :P

Are you planning for after the Zombie Apocalypse? :lol:

Pretty much :P yeah

also for personal experimentation