tagged:

Harvesting Yeast from Bottle

Posted by Fendog in Beer, Ingredients, Yeast Harvesting

Finally got around to my bottles of Chimay this evening.  Decided to boil up all my gear to sterilise, and boil up the wort in one of my mason jars within the pan too.  I made up a smaller starter, so’s not to drown the yeast – 400 ml, with 40 g DME.

I think next time I’ll just sterilise using regular steriliser, and make up the wort in a pan, due to the issues of cooling a yar full of sweet syrup quickly, and doing stupid things like dropping the lid!

Anyway, harvesting yeast from a bottle you need to be anal about cleanliness.  So things like burning the rim of the beer bottle with a lighter before pouring out the beer.  This would seem to me to be something I’ve failed at.  Let’s wait and see.

One day on… there appears to be something of a sediment building on the bottom.  By the way, aeration is particularly important with this.  One of the things yeast needs to grow is Oxygen.  So a good shake as often as possible helps.

Two days on… frothy head and sediment appears to be fermenting.  Very pleasing!  Don’t know if it’d do this if it was spoilt?!

Eleven days on… finally stepped up the starter another level.  It had fermented out a long time ago and I was finally pushed into gear because I’m planning on brewing this weekend.  Surprisingly the Mason Jar had that delicious chimay smell once it was emptied.  It took ages for me to wash it up because I just wanted to keep smelling it!