Yeast strains from commercial beers?

mirsultankhan · Oct 31, 2015

Has anyone successfully cultivated any yeast strains from commercial beers? If so which ones? As I understand it even though a beer may be bottle conditioned it does not necessarily mean that one can cultivate yeast because it may go through a process which sadly kills the yeast. It would be really great to have a list of commercial beers that are readily available that one could enjoy and try to cultivate a little yeast from.

clibit · Oct 31, 2015

There's a list on jimsbeerkit. I'll dig it out.

MyQul · Oct 31, 2015

Whilst clibit is digging that list out have a look at my bottle culturing thread

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=53567.

I've bottle cultured the Fullers strain and the Brakspear strain

clibit · Oct 31, 2015

Here you go:

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=55818

mirsultankhan · Oct 31, 2015

Thanks guys the only one I could think of was St Austell Big Job

nbpicklesno2 · Nov 1, 2015

Out of the ten or so I've cultured from bottles, Fullers and Young's are my favourites. Some are totally rubbish and probably not brewing yeast but used for conditioning.

mirsultankhan · Nov 1, 2015

nbpicklesno2 said:
Out of the ten or so I've cultured from bottles, Fullers and Young's are my favourites. Some are totally rubbish and probably not brewing yeast but used for conditioning.

yes i read that this was the case, its like a kind of false advertising, bottle conditioned when in fact its window dressing. Ill go with Fullers and Youngs then. Thanks

terrym · Nov 1, 2015

Anyone tried a Worthington White Shield culture recently? I used to use this years ago (along with Guinness yeast from bottles before they cleaned things up) and was thinking of having another go.
It's either that or the Fullers 1845.
Any thoughts anyone??

MyQul · Nov 1, 2015

mirsultankhan said:
Thanks guys the only one I could think of was St Austell Big Job

I heard the St Austell Brewery tried to market this in Scotland as 'Big Jobby' but for some reason it didn't sell well

:lol:

clibit · Nov 1, 2015

http://www.camra.org.uk/raib-breweries

It's not window dressing, it's using a bottling yeast to condition the beer naturally instead of using CO2. Some primary yeasts are not ideal for bottle conditioning.

Annyhoo, camra has a list of breweries that produce bottle conditioned beers, which you can download at the above link. A lot of them only bottle condition certain beers, but the camra logo will make it clear on the label.

mirsultankhan · Nov 1, 2015

clibit said:
http://www.camra.org.uk/raib-breweries

It's not window dressing, it's using a bottling yeast to condition the beer naturally instead of using CO2. Some primary yeasts are not ideal for bottle conditioning.

Annyhoo, camra has a list of breweries that produce bottle conditioned beers, which you can download at the above link. A lot of them only bottle condition certain beers, but the camra logo will make it clear on the label.

The second method involves removing all of the yeast used for primary fermentation, usually by centrifuging the beer, and then re-seeding it with a different strain of yeast that is both bottom-fermenting and which will also cling to the bottom of the bottle. This is the approach favoured by the bigger players in the game, notably Fullers, Coors (with White Shield), and a number of others. Whilst this results in a far more consistent product, to my mind it is "window dressing" that borders on cheating. Sure you get a beer that doesn't foam all over the place, and nor do you get a glass of cloudy beer, but I do wonder just how much secondary fermentation actually takes place in the bottle given the minuscule amount of yeast present?

http://baileysbeerblog.blogspot.de/2010/03/bottle-conditioned-beers.html

Thank you clibit will check it out, Camra you say. I was going to take a small torch and check for signs of yeast sediment in the bottles from the supermarket shelf, seriously.

mirsultankhan · Nov 1, 2015

MyQul said:
I heard the St Austell Brewery tried to market this in Scotland as 'Big Jobby' but for some reason it didn't sell well :lol:

LOL I wonder if we can even get it in Scotland, I doubt it. I used to date a girl from Plymouth, way down, took me nine hours to drive down there and Cornwall is even further. Still i did visit Buckfast abbey, but it was closed, had to make do with licking the gift shop window :P

clibit · Nov 1, 2015

mirsultankhan said:
The second method involves removing all of the yeast used for primary fermentation, usually by centrifuging the beer, and then re-seeding it with a different strain of yeast that is both bottom-fermenting and which will also cling to the bottom of the bottle. This is the approach favoured by the bigger players in the game, notably Fullers, Coors (with White Shield), and a number of others. Whilst this results in a far more consistent product, to my mind it is "window dressing" that borders on cheating. Sure you get a beer that doesn't foam all over the place, and nor do you get a glass of cloudy beer, but I do wonder just how much secondary fermentation actually takes place in the bottle given the minuscule amount of yeast present?

http://baileysbeerblog.blogspot.de/2010/03/bottle-conditioned-beers.html

Thank you clibit will check it out, Camra you say. I was going to take a small torch and check for signs of yeast sediment in the bottles from the supermarket shelf, seriously.

It's window dressing to his mind.

mirsultankhan · Nov 1, 2015

clibit said:
It's window dressing to his mind.

Sure its a matter of opinion although if it is the case that a secondary bottom fermenting strain is being introduced then one wonders how different from the original it really is and whether its worth cultivating.

clibit · Nov 1, 2015

mirsultankhan said:
Sure its a matter of opinion although if it is the case that a secondary bottom fermenting strain is being introduced then one wonders how different from the original it really is and whether its worth cultivating.

Yeah of course, I wouldn't bother culturing it, but I wouldn't call it window dressing, it's done for a valid reason I think.

nbpicklesno2 · Nov 1, 2015

Worthington's White Shield is one where they use a larger yeast to condition the bottles so not worth collecting. Probably for the reason clibit suggests i.e. the original yeast doesn't condition the beer particularly well.

They used to use the original yeast but no longer.

mirsultankhan · Nov 1, 2015

nbpicklesno2 said:
Worthington's White Shield is one where they use a larger yeast to condition the bottles so not worth collecting. Probably for the reason clibit suggests i.e. the original yeast doesn't condition the beer particularly well.

They used to use the original yeast but no longer.

that would make sense as I suspect its a bottom fermenting yeast

mirsultankhan · Nov 1, 2015

clibit said:
Yeah of course, I wouldn't bother culturing it, but I wouldn't call it window dressing, it's done for a valid reason I think.

Hmm i don't know enough about it myself to be honest. As far as I can tell St Austells filter their beer and then bottle it, how they do this I don't know, perhaps they use a filter which filters out larger particles but allows some yeast strains to get through. That is of course just speculative but on their website they point out that they use no finings.

Covrich · Nov 1, 2015

mirsultankhan said:
Hmm i don't know enough about it myself to be honest. As far as I can tell St Austells filter their beer and then bottle it, how they do this I don't know, perhaps they use a filter which filters out larger particles but allows some yeast strains to get through. That is of course just speculative but on their website they point out that they use no finings.

I def remember seeing some flaky trub in a Proper Job bottle once.. I have never ever seen Big Job or proper black (dark IPA)

nbpicklesno2 · Nov 1, 2015

St Austell is on my 'dont bother using again' list. I think it's the fact that I want to top crop.

Yeast strains from commercial beers?

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