Has anyone harvested yeast from Duvel? What did it smell like?

[Simonh82]

Good luck. Hope the beer turns out well. At least it looks like you've got plenty of healthy yeast to get it going.

 

[chthon]

The catch might be this. I read the Flemish forum again for information of propagating yeast from Duvel bottles, and there might be a slight sour taste using the bottling yeast for the main fermentation. But this is only one remark from one person, so I would not pay attention to this yet. And Duvel does need its time to condition.

 

[foxbat]

I kegged my Duvel-ish blonde today. FG was 1.004 from 1.060 giving me a total of 7.4% ABV and an apparent attenuation of 93% I guess it must be the 15% dextrose in the recipe that gives the yeast a kick up the backside because it was chugging away solidly for a good 15 days. I thought it was never going to stop!

The sample jar tasted great; as good as a warm, flat, unconditioned ale can taste. Definite phenols and cloves there and squarely 'Belgian' in character. Flocculation was low - no solid yeast cake in the fermenter, just a yeasty mush at the bottom.

 

[chthon]

This is definitely nice to know. That will be my next yeast to try out. Still building my St.-Bernardus. I have an intermediate brew of 1 l, which I will bottle in a 0.75 l bottle. Next I will see if I can get a brew going of about 3,5 l, to bottle in 4 0.75 l, and then use the yeast of this to brew a bigger beer.

 

[foxbat]

I tapped my keg last night and although it's early days flippin' eck this is an amazing brew. Still a little hazy at 3 weeks which isn't surprising given the very low flocculating yeast (and of course Duvel itself is hazy) but the flavour, oh my! Cloves, phenols, spice, fruit all in perfect balance and not a hint of alcohol burn. It's simply incredible the character that this yeast delivers into what is a super-simple recipe. This is up there in my top two recipes and it's going in the completed and brewed forum tomorrow after I've done a side-by-side taste test with a bottle of actual Duvel and taken a proper photo or two.

 

[Simonh82]

Glad it worked well for you.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

This article may be of interest to Duvel fans - including the nugget that they force-carb to 2.25 vol then add fresh yeast and sugar to bottle condition up to 4.3 vol of CO2 - which I wouldn't recommend with "normal" bottles.
Duvel's In The Detail — Duvel Moortgat's Iconic Belgian Golden Strong Ale

There's a lot of centrifuging going on, so they would certainly have the opportunity to add a dedicated bottling yeast of some kind (although the article doesn't specify).