St Austel 'Proper Job' Cornish IPA - help please

[Bertie Doe]

Thanks Orlando. Are you saying that commercial brewers are using blends (say 3 strains) and the homebrewer may not be able to collect all 3 when harvesting?

[Robwalkeragain]

Thanks Orlando. Are you saying that commercial brewers are using blends (say 3 strains) and the homebrewer may not be able to collect all 3 when harvesting?

Breweries remove the initial yeast (flavoursome one) via filtering, centrifuging or simply cold crashing and then pitch a new yeast for bottling, usually has the benefits like Orlando says of a sticky bottom as well as controlling the yeast count (bottle conditioned beers can appear basically bright), fermenting correctly in the bottle and protecting the original strain of yeast from would be brewers, haha. I think I've read before that St Austell use a bottling strain.

[Bertie Doe]

Yes thanks Rob, you can't blame brewers from keeping their cards close to the chest. It must take years of testing to get a super yeast strain.

I had an interesting experience this month when I started drinking a batch of Hop Back Summer Lightning. I'd accidentally double-primed a row of 6 bottles - whooosh. I missed the next 6, which turned out as flat as a pancake. The remaining bottles (so far) have a normal 2" head and the taste of these I would describe as only "so, so". The "pancakes" on the other hand, are some of the best beers I've ever tasted.

Looking back at my notes, I see that the HBSL was 5 weeks in the Primary. Another beer I was running alongside, Ringwood OT, took only 3 weeks and was using the same yeast from the same starter bottle. Both at 5% abv. Perhaps when we bottle prime, we cause the beer to wake up and be re-born. The 6 unprimed bottles on the other hand, had been sleeping/maturing for a couple of weeks longer? I have another batch of ROT, just finishing in the Primary. Come bottling time in a week or so, I will only prime half the batch and then report back on taste. Maybe the super taste is a quirky characteristic of flat Hop Back SL.

[orlando]

Thanks Orlando. Are you saying that commercial brewers are using blends (say 3 strains) and the homebrewer may not be able to collect all 3 when harvesting?

Rob's answer.

I recently got excited about a bottle of bottle conditioned Adnams beer. Aha, I thought I could buy that and get their wondeful dual strain yeast without having to buy a 5 litre cask. I decided to check with the brewery and was told, no, we don't use the primary strain for bottle conditioned beers because it is too "fluffy". On your question, it is true that if you do capture a multi strain yeast over time the composition will drift. Adnams et al have their labs monitor the proportions and the brewery is supplied with a new batch whenever the drift becomes too much. So although there is a good chance you will capture the right proportions over time it will drift. It's why the Europeans became obsessed with single strain yeasts and why some UK Beer is probably the finest in the World.

[Bertie Doe]

Ah, that jogs the memory from the '70s, when I brewed wine. Someone thought they'd struck the motherload when they grew on some Grey Owl (expensive) liquid (or agar) Riesling yeast. A year or so later, when the wine had matured, they had to admit that the yeast had lost it's potency after 2 or 3 batches.

I've often looked at G. Wheeler's three Adnan recipes. How necessary is sugar and acid malt in the profile?

[orlando]

Invert is possible, be surprised they would use acid malt, more an American/German thing.

[Northern Brewer]

My original intention was to brew one of the Theakston's Old Perculiar or (Paul Theakston) Riggwelter. This can be put on hold. However, in Roger Protz' book, in the section 'Old Ale' he mentions that Old Peculiar uses ".... the mixed strain house yeast, gives a pronounced softness of palate etc., etc." I know TOP is available in some supermarkets but has anyone tried extracting/culturing their yeasts? TIA.

Another source would be to find your nearest Star (Heineken) pub as they almost always have a Theakston on cask so you should be able to scrounge some dregs. Or I'd assume Brewlab have it. Black Sheep got their yeast along with their first squares from Hardy & Hanson, and if you ask Brewlab for help with cloning Black Sheep you get a tube labelled HH.... Elgoods use yeast from Black Sheep so that might be another option.

[Bertie Doe]

Thanks NB, that's some good sourcing material. I've already bought the 3 hop strains and a packet each of Mangrove Jack's M42 and M44 "suitable for IPA's etc". I'll use these on my first 2 brews of PJ. I'll save back say, 6 bottles of each and then do a PJ harvest from some Morrison's bottles.

When I brew Theakston and/or Black Sheep in Feb/March, I'll look out for a Star pub and also Elgoods or Brewlab.

[Northern Brewer]

Heineken tend not to advertise Star pubs as such, but whatpub.com usually lists the ultimate owner. Or you can usually tell from just one look at the bar - Heineken/Fosters/Moretti on keg, Theakston and Caledonian on cask.

Brewlab's online store is down at the moment but you can probably order stuff via email - see https://www.brewlab.co.uk/services/home-brew-yeast

[Top Cat]

I posted an enquiry asking similar advice in the yeast section (proper job bottle conditioned yeast). The response was that it was certain to be primary. This was about ten months ago and one poster had received an email from the head brewer confirming this. I used the dregs of two bottles for a starter only eight days ago for a batch of Tribute that is fermenting perfectly fine, the use by date on the bottles was July 2019 so I would guess that it was bottled in July this year. I’ve always had excellent results with it, three times since the original post, unless St Austell have had a change in their brewing method recently, I certainly wouldn’t dismiss the idea of using the yeast.

[Bertie Doe]

Hi TC, I've never tried harvesting before. I've got a litre sized conical jar and a couple of bottles of Proper Job left over. Where do I go from here? I'm assuming it's a bit like sourdough starter, you start with a pinch of dough and feed it over the next few days. Is a harvested starter similar, you take some dregs and feed it? TIA.

[Top Cat]

Hi BD.
Having experimented a little, I find boiling about 20/25g light dried malt extract in about 250ml of water for about 10 mins to pasteurise it, force cool to about 25c. I then pour into a sterile glass pint milk bottle as the opening takes a demijohn bung, a damn good shake, then add the dregs (last 10mm at bottom). Make sure you have given the bottles a good swish round to release all the yeast that’s attached to the bottom, also ensure that the dregs are roughly the same temperature as the wort. Give the mixture another shake and place stopper with airlock on. Leave for a couple of days at around 20/22c give the bottle a swirl occasionally (very little will happen for the first day but you will see things progress a little later). After two days you should see a nice head of yeast form, add extra 300g/350ml of cooled wort as previous giving both yeast and wort another good shake before hand. I usually transfer the yeast and second batch of wort to an Erlenmeyer flask and cover with foil, leave for another 2days. On pitching into main brew another good shake, as some yeast will have bottomed out and pour contents into your brew. On a 23lr brew of approx 1045 OG fermentation is normally evident after about 18hr, krausen after 24hr. You may wish to grow the yeast further to reduce fermentation lag time (1 ltr) as would be recommended by brewers with more experience than I, but I’ve never had problems with the above method. One final word, make sure everything is clean and sterile!
Sorry for being a little long winded, but I hope I’ve helped.

[guypettigrew]

Hey Top Cat

Try using some paragraph breaks.

Your post is really interesting, but incredibly dense and difficult to read.

Guy

[Meatymc]

Similar to Top Cat's process except I go straight for a 1.2L starter - muliplied up numbers stated.

Has always worked in the past except I did notice there seemed to be far less bottle matter when I did the last scavenge (about 8/9 weeks ago) and the resulting fermentation was much less active. I did wonder whether they'd changed their process to cut down on us farming their yeast.

[Bertie Doe]

Yes Meaty, I also noticed a lack of sediment in the PJs I recently purchased. Maybe they overfiltered the last batch after a few customer complaints. I just need to free up a Primary full of Ringwood Old Thumper. It's been in there since 1st of Nov but there's still activity in the trap. Probably caused by the low temps in the bathroom of between 14 and 16 C. The bathroom is part of a 1960s kitchen extension and does not have a loft or associated insulation. I need to get it sorted.

When I bought the required hops in brew suppliers, he said the Chinook would be the dominant flavour. I assume it's because it's AA is 12.6%, whereas Cascade and Willamette are around 7% ??

Thanks TC, I will def try that method of harvesting - after I've used up the 2 Mangrove Jacks'