Yeast Harvesting

[ckd022]

So I'm attempting to harvest yeast for a brew session I'm planning for a clone of Bell's Two-Hearted Ale. This difficult task required me to drink some of Bell's ales in order to gain access to the yeast. As it turns out, this is far more fun so far than just buying yeast. I used the remnants of 4 bottles of Bell's Amber Ale (John Palmer called for 2-3 bottles in "How to Brew", but I'm a bit of an over-achiever when it comes to beer). Bell's uses the same yeast for all their ales, so I went with their Amber Ale with a slightly lower ABV. I used a 1L starter, figuring that I'm going to have to do at least 2 generations to have sufficient yeast.

Wish me luck...
Kevin

[FrozenInTime]

Good luck! I've not tried harvesting yeast from commercial booze yet but I hear it can be done. Only thing I would check is make sure they are not one of those companies that filters out their propriety yeast and use a common yeast to carb.

[ckd022]

Good point, based on my internet research, Bell's supposedly does not filter out their yeast, and also use the same yeast in all of there ales. I guess that remains to be seen in the "taste" of the harvested yeast.

[LouieMacGoo]

When I was looking into building an Oberon Clone someone from my homebrew club sent me this email response they got when they had contacted Bells regarding creating a clone. Near the bottom he talks briefly about harvesting the yeast from bottles. I thought it you might find it of interest.

Thank you for taking the time to contact us. I'm glad to hear that you are enjoying the Oberon Ale. There are certain things about our recipes that we keep close to the vest, but I can offer some guidance. The malt bill is relatively straightforward: stick with 2-row base malt and a decent portion of wheat, something in the 40-50% range. Wheat can stick a lauter, so use as much of that range as you can within the limitations of your lauter tun; adding rice hulls can help improve the flow. If you are going the malt extract route, there are manufacturers that offer various wheat/barley malt extract blends that will work just fine. A touch of caramel malt will be all the color you need usually. Aim for a target original gravity of around 1.056 and moderate fermentability. The ABV should be just below 6%.

Oberon uses several hops, but the signature varietals are Hersbrucker & Saaz. Target roughly 30 IBUs. Don’t be lured into using coriander or orange peel: Oberon is spice-free.

You can culture yeast out of one of our bottles if you're comfortable with that; it's certainly the preferred option for a solid flavor match. Otherwise, the local homebrew supply shops around here have found that most people looking to clone one of our recipes lean towards ale strains with a straightforward ester profile & good attenuation.

I hope this answers your questions. Good luck with the brewing!

Sincerely,

Gary S. Nicholas
Bell's Brewery, Inc.
8938 Krum Avenue
Galesburg, MI 49053

[HerbMeowing]

Harvesting dreqs can be an inexpensive way to culture yeast for your next batch as long as all goes well.

It's also easy to introduce contamination into the dreg collection which then becomes not an inexpensive way to culture yeast for your next brew day b/c the batch goes four-paws up. Bell's Two-headed(1) ale uses WLP001 (equivalents: Wyeast 1056; US 05).

I'd rather pays my money than takes my chances.

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(1) Bell's is pretty persnickety about pimping the name of their flagship ale.

- edits for speeling arrows

[bpgreen]

Bell's claims that they use a proprietary house strain, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's something close to the chico strain.

As Herb points out, bottle harvesting can destroy a batch if you don't do everything exactly right. Or even if you do, but you're unlucky.

Sounds like you've already done this, so I'm probably too late, but when you bottle harvest, you want to do as much as you can to sterilize. Sanitizing isn't enough. And if possible, I'd start with a smaller vessel and a smaller starter, then step up. And even then, you can expect that it may take several days before you see any activity, because you're starting with a really small amount of yeast.

Good luck and keep us posted.