Harvesting Commercial Yeast (and failing...)

T

TomFrenchu

New Member
Hi everyone,

I'm new to this club and forum and I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction for harvesting commercial yeast.
I recently got my hands on some Heady Toppers and naturally was inclined to rig a stir plate and see if I could harvest the ol' Conan. I failed. It got infected somewhere along the way or had some nasty byproduct of culturing it that resulted in a smell like vinegar and/or rotten banana. I tried again and got the same results!
So more recently I've done some researching in articles/youtube videos of harvesting yeast and I think I have a better idea of how to go about it-though I'm still a bit confused and nervous. I'm not sure how clear this will be to someone who already knows what they're doing, but these are the notes I've collected so far:


-Boil 240ml water w/ 1oz/28g DME(or 2/3 cup DME and 3 cups water)(1.015-1.020)
-chill to 75 degrees or so
-Harvest with 3-4 bottles of beer
-aerate w/ stir plate
-Wait 36hrs for krausen to go away
-700ml h20/70g DME step up(1.035??)
(for secondary batch yeast: cold crash(healthy yeast rises) several fresh mason jars from primary to flask)
-Cold crash flask in fridge to settle for 24 hours
-decant/pitch 1500ml starter on cake(1.040??)
-stir plate for 5 days
-cold crash
-decant top half
-pitch last starter(1500ml? 1.045?) to jar 24 hours before brew

Any advice or questions to interpret my notes would be incredibly helpful. If it's too much for one post on a tuesday(st. patricks day), then I can surely try to seek out help at the next meeting!

Cheers,
Tom
 
I also took a few tips from the folks on reddit.com/r/Homebrewing, and they led me to believe my notes should look something more like this:

-Boil 150ml water and DME to get 1.015 OG wort
-Chill to 75 degrees or so
-Harvest with 2-3 cans of beer
-Aerate w/ stir plate for 36hrs or until krausen diminishes
-300ml h20/DME step up to 1.020 OG
-Stir plate for 36hrs or until krausen diminishes
-Cold crash flask in fridge to settle for 24 hours
-Decant/pitch 450ml starter on cake at 1.030 OG
-Stir plate for 24 hrs and then pitch to 5 gallons of wort?

And yes, I'm glossing over the basic sanitation steps of sterilizing everything with a lighter and/or sanitizer spray bottle!

Thanks Again,
Tom
 
silly question out of the way, you are pouring the beer into a glass before harvesting dregs and not drinking from the can :)

other guys have way more experience then i do, but to get the comments rollings. i would say even 1.015 might be a little high. something sub 10 to get things started. i think you want to double volume each time. so starting at 150ml roughly 4 times to get to 1500ml for a 5 gallon batch.
 
Ideally you want STERILE wort when you are starting withings such small volumes of yeast. This can be done with a pressure cooker, which is what I do. Initial gravity should be under 1.020 For first step. After that, 1.040 should be your target gravity. As @Ryan Cochrane said, you want to increase batch size by 10 for each generation. So, you start with about 10ml's of 1.020 gravity wort. Next step 100ml's of 1.040 wort, then 1000ml's of 1.040 wort (@this point I make a 2.5-3 gallon batch). I don't bother decanting the early steps, I feel you throw away too much yeast, and the frequent change in temperature isn't good for the yeast either.
 
I've had 100% success with 3 bottles so far, 1 Bells Winter White and 2 Erdinger wheats.
The bells was poured then capped, but sat in a fridge for many (8?) weeks, then traveled by car from VA to NJ, and sat a little longer. The Erdingers sat capped in my cooler for about 2 weeks.
I use 1.030ish starter wort made with DME in pressure canned qt jars. The bells was stepped twice and pitched in a 5 gal batch, experimental so not a perfect beer, but yeast was fine as far as I can tell. The Erdingers were stepped once with 1 qt starter and produced a full 30ml tight vial from each one. I'll step them up when I use them, and as always, saving a smidgen which I step up once before storing. The Edringer will be used for the next Hefe. I'm working on a specific recipe, and trying various wheat yeasts.
I use good sanitation, but don't go OCD on it. I only cold crash before pitching, or before storing.
There are lots of opinions on steps, but I'm pretty comfortable with my process. I only buy yeast when I need something I don't have, but then I don't brew more than maybe 10 times a year, on average.
 
Ryan: Yeah, I've been pouring the beer out and sanitizing before and after! I'll try to scale it down to 1.010 for the first starter and up it 3 more times to get ~1500ml.

Dan: Maybe I should start with a sterile funnel and pitch about 2 ml 1.010 into the can? I heard this from someone in the depths of the vast internet, and it would also allow my to increase by 10 4 times(2-20-200-2000) to get something reasonable for a 5 gallon. No decanting early on -got it.

John: I'll try to include a step up from 1.030 w/ 1 qt starter(which happens to be pretty close to 1000 ml!). And I'll hold off on cold crashing until I pitch or store.

Thanks so much guys, I'm getting closer to wrangling Conan the Barbarian everyday.
 
I wouldn’t pitch into a can. Ideally, you want to sanitize the can before you open it. Spray it down or submerge it in some Starsan or other sanitizer. Then pour off what you are going to drink, but save about 1-2 ounces from the can. As soon as is reasonably possible, pitch those dregs into a sterile/sanitized container with your 1.020 wort.

Sanitized is not the same as STERILE. Ideally you want sterile whenever possible. In order to do that at home you need either an autoclave or a pressure cooker/canner. Sterile is the absence of any living organisms. Sanitized refers to a significant reduction in the living organisms. Why this matters is because bacteria reproduce at a significantly faster rate than yeast do. If you are propagating your yeast in a sterile environment, only yeast are growing. If you are propagating in a sanitized environment, you may have wild yeast and bacteria in the culture. Since bacteria reproduce in significant faster rate than the yeast do, eventually you’ll have more bacteria in your culture than you do yeast.

On a side note, boiling does not sterilize, it only sanitizes.

Also I believe theyeastbay.com has this strain in large culture (whitelabs vial) format. It’s their Vermont Ale strain. I believe it is also in their Funktown Pale Ale blend with some Brettanomyces.

I have also been told that the Mangrove Jack M44 West Coast Ale yeast is the same strain, but I am not so sure about that though.
 
Gigayeast has it as well.

All good points Dan. I usually put a lighter to the mouth of the bottle (never harvested from a can before.) And I've had great results. 1.010-1.020 wort on the stir plate, 3-4 weeks of bumping it up.
 
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