Coopers Pale Ale Kegs Dregs (and An Introduction)

[ekul]

Hi everyone,
At my local pub the last few schooners of the coopers green is what they call 'mud', i'm assuming it is the same stuff that you find on the bottom of the bottle. I was just reading about people reusing their yeast cakes (which makes the cost of yeast considerably cheaper, thanks guys!) which got me thinking about the mud at the pub. I would really like to know if i could use this instead of culturing yeast as coopers is my favourite session beer and i have yet to recreate the exact flavour.


As his is my first post i should do a little intro. So here it is
I first starting brewing for mum when i was 15. The fermenter used to sit in the second bathroom which would receive sun most of the day so it got really hot in there. Needless to say the beer would turn out quite funky, which was good because it meant that my folks never drank it so it was easy for me to sneak quite a few bottles. Anything alcoholic is very drinkable when you are 15!

A few years later i busted out the fermenter again, this time i bought a book, 'brewing beer' by John Palmer, which changed the way I brewed. I replaced the airlock with gladwrap, was insanely clean, threw a hydrometer in my brew (so i could check all the time) and then put an aquariam heater in my brew to control the temp at 26C. The brews turned out better but were still not quite good enough. I experimented with hops and malt but nothing made it excellent, it was still quite obviously 'homebrew'. (no offense intended to anyone here)

Interestingly, the best brew i ever did was when my aquarium heater died in winter. Temps were around 16-18 at night and around 22 during the day. I thought the batch would be ruined because of the low temps but it turned out great. Excited that i must have found the perfect recipe (i tried different recipes all the time in the hope for the 'holy grail', a great beer) I put down several more brews with the heater back in. I was thinking that if it turned out alright at the 'incorrect' temp then imagine how it would turn out when it was heated! Unfortunately the brews once again were sub par and i gave up.

A few years later (which brings us to now) i stumbled across this website when trying to help my little sis get into homebrewing, she's at uni drinking cask wine so even the worst homebrew will still be fine! Imagine my surprise when i read that all you guys are brewing at 18C!! This has piqued my interest again and i am going to give this another shot.

I have a fridge that has a thermostat that goes up to 18C and another bar fridge which i will use for my bulk priming. The reason for two fridges is a) i already had both of them anyway B) the fridge with the good thermostat won't allow me to have the tap fitted, its a really small 'car fridge'. So i will have to tranfer the beer to another container before bottling anyway, i figure i may as well bulk prime.

I've also bought some proper yeast after reading that

I'm really hoping that this all works as i actually really enjoy the process but the results have never been the best. I have tasted excellent homebrew though so i do know its possible. I'm also going to put some hops in as i'm a keen gardener as well, just got to find a place that sells rhizomes.

So to sum it all up, can i use the coopers keg dregs from the pub instead of yeast?; does my new setup sound alright (with the two fridges and bilk priming)? and most importantly...

Thanks everyone for a great site!!

 

[Gulf]

Hi, ekul - keep reading up here and you'll make some good beer!

Usually home brewers will get a little bit from the dregs of a bottle, grow it up in some malt extract solution, then pitch it into our wort when the culture is most active.
You could get a large amount of "mud" from the keg, stick it in a sanitised bottle and pitch it. It would also work, but expect a lag time as the yeast "wakes up" again in the fresh wort.
If you were going to go down this path, it might be a good idea to wake up the yeasties before pitching. Perhaps a procedure something like this:

Fill a sanitized 2L PET bottle (or similar) with the "mud" - be paranoid about sanitization! Spray the tap spout, bottle lid etc with Starsan etc. Put the bottle in the fridge upright overnight to settle the yeast out.
Boil 100g of dry malt extract in 1L of water. Allow to cool to about 20-25C, with a lid or gladwrap etc over the container to prevent nasties getting in while it does - again, be paranoid about sanitisation!
Pour off the beer from your bottle, leaving the yeast at the bottom. Pour in your cooled malt extract solution. Be paranoid about sanitisation (spray Starsan on everything!)
It will take perhaps 24 hours for the yeasties to "wake up". When you see the fine bubbles rising through the solution, and maybe the krausen ring around the bottle then it's ready to pitch into your wort.

Obviously, you'll need to time this process so it's ready when your wort is, so start it the day before you're brewing, or better, be ready to brew once your yeast starter is happy.
Did I mention - be paranoid about sanitisation!!??

 

[Adamt]

You could use the dregs from a keg, but you'd be banking on the sanitary state of a pub's beer lines, as well as the glass it's poured into, how you'd get that home in a sanitary manner, etc. Keeping things sanitary is the one of the most important names of the brewing game

All in all, I wouldn't!

Go with the above, it covers the process alright. There's an article in the Articles section with more methods, and info all around the forums.

 

[dans6401]

Welcome ekul,
Sorry don't really understand what you are asking. You say you were super clean, and then ask if you can use peoples dregs as a yeast? I guess this 'mud' is the same stuff that you read about here, except it's been kissed by every guy/girl in the place. Stick with the stuff that comes with the kit, or if you're really keen, buy a six pack of coopers and pour the last cm or 2 into a sanatised bottle/jar and go from there. Just don't drink from the stubbie, pour (almost) all of it into a glass.
By the way keep checking out this site. You'll be brewing better than you can buy in no time.

 

[Wolfy]

Hello and welcome.

I'm not sure why you need a fridge to bulk prime, the process usually does not take more than an hour or so, so there is no issue about the beer warming/cooling.

You can re-use the yeast from the 'mud' to ferment your own beer.
However, you'll need about 200billion yeast cells for a about 23L of normal strength wort: http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html
Unfortunately the viability of the yeast slurry/mud is dependent on its age, so even if it's been in the keg for a few weeks, only a small percentage of the yeast cells will still be alive.
(Check the calculator linked above, choose 're-pitch from slurry' and then play with the 'harvest date' setting and you'll see how quickly the yeast degrades).

Combine the sanitation issues the others have already mentioned with the large proportion of dead yeast cells in the 'mud' and you'll see that it's probably not a good idea to pitch it directly.
It would be a much better idea to carefully collect a small sample of the 'mud' and then reculture it just like it was the dregs from the bottom of a bottle (do a search for details on how to do this).
That way when you build up your starter (you'll need about 2L) you will be pitching only active, healthy and infection free yeast - and all you have 'paid' is a little bit of your time and effort to ensure the yeast is healthy and ready to pitch.

 

[Airgead]

ekul

Welcome.

Coopers yeast is pretty much my house strain. I use it for probably half my beers. It was originally cultured from a bottle of the coopers pale. These days I keep it on agar slants but back in the old days this is what i did -

• 100g malt extract in 1l water
• Pinch of yeast nutrient
• Boil for at least 5 mins.
• Sanitise a small jar and a large 1l jar.
• Pour 25ml of your malt solution into the small jar and the rest into the large.
• When the small jar has cooled to room temp, pour a bottle of coopers into a glass leaving the dregs behind in the bottle. Don't use a bottle you have drunk from you will get mouth germs in your starter and that is bad.
• Pour the dregs into the small jar. Put the large jar covered in the fridge.
• Cover with foil and leave for around 48 hours. hopefully by then you will see some activity - bubbling, foam etc in the jar.
• Let the large jar come up to room temp then pour the small jar into the large. Cover and leave at room temp for 3-4 days. You will end up with a nice active starter for your next batch. Once you have the first batch you can harvest the yeast cake and keep the culture going.

Ferments beautifully at between 16 and 20C. Any warmer and its a bit too fruity. I tend to ferment between 16 and 18.

Cheers
Dave

 

[big78sam]

You'll find plenty of threads if you do a search on reculturing coopers yeast. I'd do it from the bottle for the reasons mentioned above.

If you're after hops you can try ebay or hopco - http://www.hopco.com.au/index.html - You'll need to plant rhizomes at the end of winter so you've got a bit of time left. You won't find much until planting season. I'm not sure where you're located but the basic rule of thumb is the number of hours of daylight is the key, so the further south (assuming you're in oz) you are the better. Again do a search and you'll find heaps of useful info.