Yeast harvest from a bottle

[matth]

Hi all, got a bit of a Brew in today, looking to pitch a yeast I have harvested from a couple of bottles of westmalle. It's been doing its thing in a milk bottle for a week now but doesn't look overly active, it's definately growing though - probably should've been somewhere warmer. Anyway I need help - do you think I would be ok just pitching this as it is in my beer tomorrow? My batch will be about 12-13 litres

I have only ever used dry yeast that I have just sprinkled straight in to the wort, so all this is new to me!

Cheers

 

[PD]

have you mixed the yeast with anything, Spraymalt or old wort ? It could have used up all the sugars thats why its a little inactive.

 

[matth]

Yes I mixed it with dme, as per a guide, but can't remember how much - should I make up a stronger solution and mix it in or move to a bigger bottle with more wort? Would that be ok for tomorrow?

Cheers

 

[matth]

I know it's a bit tricky to tell, but does it look like there is enough yeast in there to pitch on to 12 litres of 1.048 wort?

 

[matth]

Bump.

I am going to dump this in to my brew this morning, it doesn't look any bigger, but has been bubbling away - does anyone know if that is ok?

What's the worst that could happen? If I under pitch will it just take longer or go into some sort of shock and just not do anything?

The bottle is a standard pint milk bottle, so I probably have about 400ml in there.

Any help much appreciated

 

[matth]

I did just dump it in this morning, then after coming back a few hours later realising I hadn't taken a gravity reading, I took one - what was meant to be 1.048 turned out to be 1.060! So after thinking that my yeast experiment may not cope with it, and waiting 48 hours to see if it fails - all the time increasing chance of infection, I have sprinkled some s05 on there just to be safe - who knows what I'll end up with, as so far nothing has gone to plan.

On the plus side I have learned that I really need to stick to wort additions to build yeast up to a pitchable level.

I have a bottle of old Rosie and a load of apples so I might try harvesting yeast from that.

 

[LeithR]

Hi there Matt,
In my experience you have to "grow" the yeast by initially setting up the starter then after a couple of days getting rid of the liquid and adding some more low SG wart and leaving for another couple of days, you may need to repeat this step a 3rd time. HERE is a link to a well explained "How to"

 

[matth]

Cheers leith, yes I gathered that, I think I was just being lazy! I will try again, and I will get it right - eventually!