Recovering yeast

Share your experiences of using brewing yeast.
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bloodoaf

Recovering yeast

Post by bloodoaf » Sat Jun 16, 2007 5:39 pm

I have had varying success with recovering yeats from bottles of commertial beer. The main downside seems to be that it is sometimes a bit slow to get going. The best results have been from Brakspear Organic Beer to brew Adnams southwold bitter and Ringwood Brewery Porter for a stout. I have heard that fullers 1845 yeast works well. Has anyone else had some good results with recovered yeasts?

Cheers! :)

steve_flack

Post by steve_flack » Sat Jun 16, 2007 10:15 pm

I'm always a bit wary of using bottled yeasts - at least directly for a number of reasons.

1) it might not be a primary yeast strain
2) it might be knackered unless the bottle is very fresh
3) it might also make a really good bacteria starter as well.

Personally I wouldn't risk 5 gallons of wort and six hours of my time on a yeast strain I wasn't sure of. Now....if you plated the yeast on agar and selected the primary strain from that away from all the lactobacillus, acetobacter et al then maybe I'd be interested.

FWIW You can BUY the 1845 strain from homebrew shops. It's Wyeast 1968 or Whitelabs WLP-002.

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