# What Yeasts Strains Can Be Recultured.



## proudscum (13/2/11)

A part from coopers to get an Australian ale yeast,what other strains do people reculture from Australian micro/craft beers.
Goat hightail uses US05 i believe but will stand corrected!

I like the idea that you pay for the beer and you get a free bottle to refill and maybe a yeast to culture up and use in a brew of your own.
The reason i say Australian beers is because you can hopefully get fresher samples. 

cheers all i think i will have to rename my brewery the "Tight Ass/As brewery"


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## felten (13/2/11)

White rabbit, I've heard its wlp022 essex ale but not 100% sure myself.


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## Tony (13/2/11)

nothing wrong with reculturing yeast................ but.....

Yeast from a comercial bottle can be questionable at times. Alc stress if the bottle is old (re. from Dans) or a second strain used for bottling...... IMO, your better off spending just a few dollars and getting a fresh pack. 

And then you can be certain about what your fermenting with.

cheers


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## Charst (13/2/11)

Saison Dupont is fermented and bottle conditioned with the same yeast. Not Australian but if your clean enough and it fires up..


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## proudscum (13/2/11)

Tony said:


> nothing wrong with reculturing yeast................ but.....
> 
> Yeast from a comercial bottle can be questionable at times. Alc stress if the bottle is old (re. from Dans) or a second strain used for bottling...... IMO, your better off spending just a few dollars and getting a fresh pack.
> 
> ...




I suppose that is the question that i am asking if the yeast that is used in primary is the same thats used in bottle conditioning.Dont think that a yeast that has fermented a 4-5% beer should be to stressed,i am not when i am drinkin em...cheers for that Tony


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## Nick JD (13/2/11)

There's a website that has a list of nearly all of them - and most of it is incorrect. 

So don't look for it. 

That didn't really help, did it?  

+1 on the "just buy it" front. $5 for a bottle of beer with sketchy yeast in it, or $10 for enough yeast to make 100L of the same beer...


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## fergi (13/2/11)

well a lot of us reculture coopers pale ale yeast, but surely it must be a specific type of yeast or is it a hybrid yeast that coopers have developed. would be interested to know if it is a brand name yeast
fergi


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## Tony (13/2/11)

Nick JD said:


> $5 for a bottle of beer with sketchy yeast in it, or $10 for enough yeast to make 100L of the same beer...



well said Nick :excl: 

the yeast from a bottle of 5% beer wont be too stressed generally, but has the pallet been left in the sun for a couple days? I know a lot of cartons at my local "big bottle shop" sit in the sun when i walk past the drop off point.
And if its an import, how was its ride here? And bottled beer that is getting on in life, well, the yeast wont be great sitting on alcahol. It may fire when you start it but may not be its old self.

As far as i know.... and im no expert, a yeast strain can comprise of a fair few different strains that live in harmony. if under certain conditions some of these yeast cells all die off, the yeast becomes a different animal. Its generally called mutation.

This is why when you reuse a yeast over and over and over, it seems to change slightly every brew. It may get better, it may get worse. This can change attenuation, floculation, flavour, all that stuff.

I have done my fair share of reculturing comercial yeasts, and had consistant hit and miss results. Coopers yeast is probably the easiest and best for what ever reason..... probably a super strong strain id say!

but when it comes down to it...... if your after a style of beer, there will be a fresh or dry yeast out there that will do the job. After trying all this stuff and constantly being disapointed and having trouble with fermentation, i never reculture any more, at all.

I get a smack pack, let it swell and split it into 2 or 3 vials, the rest goes into a starter. That way i get 3 or 4 brews from a pack. Thats 200 liters for $10.

Thats 2c a pint and my 2c 

cheers


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## haysie (13/2/11)

Well said by Nick and Tony,
Bottle yeast are not always the fermentation yeast. Never had a great beer from recultured yeasts barring Coopers, it might be fresher and more adaptable too culturing. Recultured Dupont a year ago, would not attentuate like a real belgian yeast, the beer was malty and sweet. Then there is the issues raised above storage,transport etc.
I have splits from 3 months to a year ago I probably wont use because I didnt like the beer/style I was brewing, thats brewing. If I buy a 1469 or a 1272 I am getting at least 6 beers from 1 $15 pack because thats the yeast I want.
Brewing to style can be expensive if you dont like the end product, as in my case, the yeast just rots away in vials whilst I make beer I like drinking..


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## big78sam (13/2/11)

If you really want value for money, make a batch, enter into the next case swap and you'll have 30 or so different beers to reculture yeast from. There's bound to be a good selection of yeasts used. Won't cost you nearly as much as buying commercially


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## proudscum (13/2/11)

sounds like i am getting the picture about reculture from bottles here.But.there is always the but .i understand all the bits and pieces of mutant yeast after 5 gens ,natural selection etc etc and i will produce slants from fresh samples as i buy them.maybe i do an experiment and split 20 lt into 4 5lt demijohn with 4 reculturers and see what pops up.

thanks nick,Tony,Haysie etc

nice one big78sam i like your thinking +1


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## HoppingMad (13/2/11)

As others have suggested fresh is best which is why Coopers will always be the reculturing winner due to having gone less miles. 

I know a few people that reculture Chimay from the bottle in Aust successfully, and on this forum you'll find plenty of threads about this one beer in particular - so I would say in terms of international bottle yeasts that this would be one of the safest ones since people seem to have a good strike rate. Just realise that a Wyeast 1214 will get you in the same zone without a lot of the trouble, that's all - and the result could wind up better. 

Schneider Weisse gets a lot of airtime on UK & US forums for yeast culturing - but I would err on the side of caution unless you're on good terms with your bottle shop and they can get the freshest bottles put aside for you when they come in.

Hopper.


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## MHB (14/2/11)

Coopers yeast is now a single strain "House Yeast" that is to say it's their own unique yeast.

A decade or so ago Coopers had a big scare with their old mixed culture starting to do some strange things. Since then they have invested heavily in a dam good yeast propagation and reculturing laboratory and have selected out the most desirable strain and propagate it.

One of the reasons that I believe recultured Coopers yeast is so popular is that, you can't make Coopers beer without Coopers yeast; it is unique and integral to the flavour of the beer. And let's face it Coopers make dam good beer well worth copying.

MHB


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## Nick JD (14/2/11)

MHB said:


> And let's face it Coopers make dam good beer well worth copying.
> 
> MHB



It's just cloudy VB with a splash of pear juice.


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## Pennywise (14/2/11)

felten said:


> White rabbit, I've heard its wlp022 essex ale but not 100% sure myself.



Was pouring my WRDA into a glass over the weekend and discovered no yeast in the bottle at all, none in the whole 6 pack (I didn't drink the whole 6'er, but was there to inspect the pouring and bottles afterwards[Not a fan of the beer to be honest]). I remember when I first tried this beer (6 months ago maybe) there was deffinate yeast sediment in the bottle. 
Felt kinda silly at the time cause I was telling someone how you can culture the yeast up, went to show said yeast, none.


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## felten (15/2/11)

hmm that's interesting, I had a dark ale clone in the works too damnit


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## ekul (16/2/11)

I bought some white rabbit dark ales from dan murphy's today and both bottles had yeast down the bottom. Hopefully it will culture up


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## insane_rosenberg (16/2/11)

I did a honey pale ale using a Redoak Organic Pale Ale culture. Great from the keg after a cold racking, but the 5x bottles I capped and naturally carbonated had a horrible tart flavour (as did the donor bottle) that only got worse with age.

I'm about to pitch a La Fin Du Monde culture that has the evil trifecta of high alcohol, long travel and age. But imagine if it works!
Otherwise I'll have to wait for the next Wyeast 3864 release :icon_drool2:


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## ekul (6/6/11)

Right back in feb i started culturing up some white rabbit yeast, which inolved drinking the beer and then pouring in 80ml of wort and sealing with foil and gladwrap. Anyway i forgot about it until last night, it still smelt and tasted fine so i poured in 100ml of wort, it fired up today. I thought this was pretty amazing. I'm thinking of using it on an amber ale.


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