Harvesting from homebrew?

[DirtyCaner]

Hi Folks,

No doubt everyone else gets a nice solid base of sediment in their bottles at home. If people harvest this from (commercial)bottled beers then could we not harvest if from our home brew?

Drink a beer, pour some water in bottle, shake with sediment then mix with starter wort? Then grow up for next batch...

Do people do this?

DirtyC

 

[pittsy]

its easier to wash the sediment/yeast from the fv , when bottling leave a good inch of wort on top of the sediment , the pour into a demi and leave 20/30 mins , then you will see a sediment line already forming in demi , this is waste(the **** in the bottom) the rest you pour off into bottles to keep( just like pouring from a bottle , carefully ) . Now you have plenty of washed yeast , repeat this process by adding some boiled cooled water and pouring off once more to improve the yeast if you wish .

 

[DirtyCaner]

Thanks Pittsy, I will.

Might well try it with bottles too. If I've notheing better to do tomorrow when Im wahing emptys!

Thanks,

DC

 

[Good Ed]

Hi Folks,

No doubt everyone else gets a nice solid base of sediment in their bottles at home. If people harvest this from (commercial)bottled beers then could we not harvest if from our home brew?

Drink a beer, pour some water in bottle, shake with sediment then mix with starter wort? Then grow up for next batch...

Do people do this?

DirtyC

Yep just the same as any other bottled conditioned beer, start with a couple of bottles with 300ml cooled boiled water with 50g DME and then step up with 1L with 100g DME

 

[Springer]

Just like they say up post. Harvesting from your own bottles is a well documented and efficient way of getting nearly free yeast, when you have not got a FV in use. :thumb:
I have read somewhere that there is a limit to number of generations, that you should go to, :? but if you go down this route it is easy to keep enought first or second generation stuff back, for yeast production............and then drinking.
(Don't know how many yeast starters you could theoretically get from one packet, but its a lot. :hmm: )
S

 

[The Goatreich]

start with a couple of bottles with 300ml cooled boiled water with 50g DME and then step up with 1L with 100g DME

Ah damn it, I think this is why my yeast starter for yesterday's brew was too small. I didn't step it up to the 1l stage. I must have read Graham Wheeler's instructions incorrectly.

 

[pittsy]

just thought i'd mention most brews do want around 1l starter ,except weizen bier where you would want a smaller starter (around 300ml) so you strain the yeast to help achieve the correct flavour , other styles may also want smaller starters but i don't know about em

 

[DirtyCaner]

So ideally a 23l batch wants a litre starter? Is this the volume of the sediment or the total volume of liquid?

I currently have 2x 500ml starters coming along nicely. To make up to 1l would it be best to just add some more wort to them?

Lets say I want to do 100l brew, should I then be using a 5l starter?

Also where is best place to keep starter culture? Somewhere warm or in the fridge?

Lots of questions, I know. Thanks for the advice.

DC

 

[pittsy]

while fermenting keep at room temp (if adding fresh dme or wort to some yeast to grow a starter) but if using from bottom of fv store in fridge until ready to use , and remove from fridge a few hours before using .
My honest advice is if its from dried yeast don't bother , go buy some lovely liquid yeast and add that to 500g of dme and 7 pints of boiled cooled water , ferment for around 5 days then mix well and split into 10 ish 330ml plastic bottles then store in fridge . When ready for brew use 1 bottle and 100g of dme and make a total of 1 litre starter . Ferment for around 2 days then either pitch direct into brew or decant top liquid off starter then pitch remaining wort/yeast into fv . Then when your down to your last 2 bottles make 10 more , you can safely do this at least 5 times , so somewhere like 40 to 50 starters from 1 yeast vial. And to save even more money people use spare wort (unfermented) from past brews that can be frozen until ready to use.

 

[Good Ed]

So ideally a 23l batch wants a litre starter? Is this the volume of the sediment or the total volume of liquid?

I currently have 2x 500ml starters coming along nicely. To make up to 1l would it be best to just add some more wort to them?

Lets say I want to do 100l brew, should I then be using a 5l starter?

Also where is best place to keep starter culture? Somewhere warm or in the fridge?

Lots of questions, I know. Thanks for the advice.

DC

Well it's not necessarily as simple as that, but to keep it simple use Mr Malty (Jamil Zainasheff) http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html and although I stated above to use a 1L starter, that is probably a bit low depending on the OG of your beer, and I don't have any experience of 100l brews, but yes you would need a big starter. Best for the starter to be at about 20C. With a starter all you are doing is growing the number of healthy yeast cells to suit the volume and OG of wort you are fermenting. It also depends on what you are starting with in the first place; for example a vial of White Labs yeast has ~100 billion cells whereas yeast from bottled conditioned beers would have a lot less cells. But if you use White Labs yeast you will get an idea of how much 100 billion cells looks like. If you want to read more I'd recommend the book by Jamil and Chris White, aptly named Yeast.

 

[Andyhull]

If you use a smaller starter will it not ferment at all or will it just take longer to get going?

 

[pittsy]

If you use a smaller starter will it not ferment at all or will it just take longer to get going?

using a starter that's too small can sometimes lead to off flavours as the yeast is strained but a normal dose of yeast with no starter will be enough 9 times out of 10 unless yeast is old or you have a high OG like 1060 plus , also don't do starters for dried yeast (can't remember why though ) just re hydrate

 

[The Goatreich]

using a starter that's too small can sometimes lead to off flavours as the yeast is strained

Oh dear, that doesn't bode well for my current brew. The starter was way too small, but it's bubbling away now. Will have to wait and see what it tastes like in a few weeks.