Harvesting yeast from a wheat beer bottle?

[ECLIPSE]

Hi guys. I'm currently in the process of building a stir plate and was planning on doing a wheat beer as my next AG brew. I was planning on purchasing the whitelabs liquid yeast for this brew. I think its wlp300.
I was wonder If instead of this would it be possible to try and culture up some of the yeast from say a bottle of erdinger weissbeer? Has anyone ever tried this before with any success?

Cheers

 

[brewpirate]

I have made batches from the dregs of homebrews and I am sure this process will work for a commercial beer. During this process pay close attention to sterilization.

1) chill the beer for a couple of days and try to get as much yeast out of suspension as possible
2) Pour slowly trying till there is about an 1" left in the bottle.
3) Shake the hell out of it to get the yeast back into suspension
4) Make a 500ml of starter with dry malt extract at about 1.020 gravity
5) Add the beer and let it go on the stir plate till its done
6) Cold crash and pour off the beer
7) Make 1000ml of starter with dry malt extract at about 1.030 gravity
8) Cold crash and pour off the beer
9) Make 2000ml of starter with dry malt extract at about 1.040 gravity
10) Free yeast!

 

[Hopshed]

Hi, good advice above.One other point is to pour off and taste a small amount of the starter before you use it. If it tastes really foul ditch it. A little vinegary is ok, but you will be sure if it is contaminated.

Good luck.

 

[brewpirate]

Very true when it comes to yeast, when in doubt toss it out. I always taste my yeast starters to get an idea of what the final product will be. Great tip!