Yeast harvesting from commercial beers?

[Toredan]

Reading a book I picked up for a couple quid the other week (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1852491175/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20) and it says about being able to harvest specialty yeasts from commercial beers. Essentially make a yeast starter but dump the last 10% of a beer bottle into it. Aerate daily, add sugar when needed. This book was published in 1995 so I guess what I'm asking is has anyone got any experience doing this? I know this was 20 years ago but with modern commercial brewing is this still possible or is the beer pasteurized now?

 

[MyQul]

Reading a book I picked up for a couple quid the other week (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1852491175/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20) and it says about being able to harvest specialty yeasts from commercial beers. Essentially make a yeast starter but dump the last 10% of a beer bottle into it. Aerate daily, add sugar when needed. This book was published in 1995 so I guess what I'm asking is has anyone got any experience doing this? I know this was 20 years ago but with modern commercial brewing is this still possible or is the beer pasteurized now?

I've done it a couple of times. I've even written a wee guide on how to do it

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=53567

 

[clibit]

It's possible with some beers - bottle conditioned beers. Some people do it very successfully, but they use DME or spare wort from a brew rather than sugar. It's best to prepare the yeast for eating malt sugars, not pure sugars. If you google 'harvesting yeast from bottles' you will find loads of info. Here's one guide:

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter6-7.html

 

[Toredan]

Awesome, thanks guys. Guess I should use the search function more often, sorry.

 

[nbpicklesno2]

Much of the yeast I use comes from bottle conditioned beer. Look for a bottle that has written on it, "CAMRA says this is real ale". This means that it has not been pasteurized nor fine filtered and you can get yeast from it.

Good ones that are easy to get hold of are Fullers 1845, Worthington White Shield and some St Austell beers. It has been said that the yeast in White Shield is not the brewing yeast but I'm not sure I believe that.

Myqul's guide is spot on.

 

[MyQul]

There's a big list on another forum of bottle conditioned beers. If you don't know which beer your going to culture up from I'll find it for you and copy and paste it here if you want?

 

[clibit]

It's here, I bookmarked it...

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=55818&hilit=+supermarket#p586754

 

[MyQul]

That's the one

 

[nbpicklesno2]

Must have missed that list in the past. Good find chaps.

 

[clibit]

It's not a full list obviously. Quite a few craft beers are not fully filtered and contain some yeast. I read an article a few days ago in which James Kemp, ex Thornbridge and Buxton brewer, said that he took yeast from Joseph Holts brewery to those breweries, because it was fantastic - so i will try to get round to culturing some up from bottles.

http://www.port66.co.uk/yeast-brewing-myths-ideal-house-strain/

 

[trueblue]

Much of the yeast I use comes from bottle conditioned beer. Look for a bottle that has written on it, "CAMRA says this is real ale". This means that it has not been pasteurized nor fine filtered and you can get yeast from it.

Good ones that are easy to get hold of are Fullers 1845, Worthington White Shield and some St Austell beers. It has been said that the yeast in White Shield is not the brewing yeast but I'm not sure I believe that.

Myqul's guide is spot on.

I used to use white shield yeast for around 15 years until they stopped brewing if for a few years in the 1990's. When it re-surfaced a few years later I tried cultivating again and the result was ****. After a bit of research it appears they don't prim with the primary strain now but use a bottling strain. It makes beer but not great beer.

 

[nbpicklesno2]

I'll add that to my databank. Thank you.