My yeast journey so far...

[jeg3]

This is quite a lengthy post, so I apologise in advance.

After using dry yeast and the odd liquid yeast here and there, I decided a couple of months ago to see if I could grow yeast from a bottle bought from the supermarket.

I like Wye Valley ales so bought a bottle of Butty Bach and set to following MyQul's method.

I ended up with about 200ml of yeast, and made a HPA clone to pitch it into. That got drunk over Christmas and is my best beer yet. It easily matches any beer I've tasted in a pub. It was conditioned in a king keg for 2 weeks with 40g of sugar before being drunk. It was also one of the quickest conditioning beers I have brewed.

Whilst that beer was in primary, I discovered the Wye Valley yeast is a top cropper, so with the helpful advice from the guys on this forum cropped from the fermentor, added a bit of fresh wort and let it ferment before storing in the fridge.

Last week I embarked on the next brew, and pitched the cropped yeast from the HPA clone, after rousing it with a starter. It had a slow start but after 4 days that brew had developed a nice krausen with a good of yeast.

Today I started another brew and cropped from one beer and pitched directly into another, and it started fermenting more or less straight away.

This gave me a real sense of achievement, because effectively it was free (although starters and step ups have a notional cost), and the quality of the HPA clone was truly exceptional, for a hobbyist...

Anyway, I had to tell someone about this and, of course, nobody at home is even remotely interested...!

 

[clibit]

It's good to hear stories of yeast and brewing success. And sounds like a good yeast.

 

[Leon103]

Great post. I need to start cultivating my own yeast. Got a few bottles in my stocks that are bottle conditioned, just need to get some dry malt extract

 

[brisboy]

That's fantastic. I understand your need to tell your story. When I occasionally run into someone in real life who's actually interested in the process I'm usually so excited I don't know where to start. Glad you've found a yeast you love. 😊

 

[CreweBrewer]

Great news that. I'm also experiencing some success with yeast culturing. I haven't tried to grow some from a bottle yet, but I have split a packet of WLP001 and WLP002 into 12 separate vials of each. Like you say, it's a great sense of achievement.

 

[cheapbrew]

nice work, great when a plan comes together and even better if it saves money too :thumb:

 

[jeg3]

I have a pack of Wyeast 1968 in the fridge which I also want to try, although it is completely different to the Wye Valley yeast.

It's got me thinking about what made the HPA clone so good. I mashed at 67-68℃ which will give it more sweetness and body, the mash efficiency was also high, but the yeast is high attenuating, so some of that will be cancelled out. But then fermentation temp was 20-21℃, so there were estery flavours aswell.

I've realised what an epic science beer is...!

 

[JapanBrew]

I hear ya!! My girlfriend is the same. I started harvesting yeast a few days ago and when it works out, you want to tell someone. My girlfriend just stared at me. Haha