BlackRegent
Regular.
I've been getting round to brewing this year's Xmas ale and thought the Fullers yeast would be a good match. I have WLP002 in stock, but as that seems to get a bad rep, I thought I'd try and harvest the yeast from a couple of bottles of 1845 on a stir plate.
I probably didn't follow best practice as I used a 500ml starter and didn't refrigerate the bottles to precipitate as much yeast as possible. There was a slow start with little to no activity for the first 2-3 days. Then suddenly it took off, with the starter going milky and the yeast floccing within around 24 hours. There was little to no krausen that I could discern, but that of itself isn't exceptional for a starter on a stir plate.
I tasted the starter and it has a very distinct Belgian taste - slightly sour with banana and phenols. Nothing at all what one would expect from the Fullers yeast.
My concern is that what I've really cultured is a wild yeast. I've pretty much convinced myself that I'm not going to risk an entire batch on the basis that this yeast will ferment as per the Fullers yeast, but I thought I would see if anyone with experience of culturing the Fullers yeast (or yeast from bottle conditioned beers generally) has had a similar outcome in terms of taste and smell, but the yeast performed fine anyway?
I may keep the yeast for an expendable test batch at a later date to see what happens.
I probably didn't follow best practice as I used a 500ml starter and didn't refrigerate the bottles to precipitate as much yeast as possible. There was a slow start with little to no activity for the first 2-3 days. Then suddenly it took off, with the starter going milky and the yeast floccing within around 24 hours. There was little to no krausen that I could discern, but that of itself isn't exceptional for a starter on a stir plate.
I tasted the starter and it has a very distinct Belgian taste - slightly sour with banana and phenols. Nothing at all what one would expect from the Fullers yeast.
My concern is that what I've really cultured is a wild yeast. I've pretty much convinced myself that I'm not going to risk an entire batch on the basis that this yeast will ferment as per the Fullers yeast, but I thought I would see if anyone with experience of culturing the Fullers yeast (or yeast from bottle conditioned beers generally) has had a similar outcome in terms of taste and smell, but the yeast performed fine anyway?
I may keep the yeast for an expendable test batch at a later date to see what happens.