Gales 1977 Silver Jublilee (Yeast)

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Mr lovely Mrs had to go to Wilko yesterday for 'ladies stuff' and, bless her, she picked me up some wine finings and some light DME so I'm culturing up the Ind Coope bottles I got from @terrym tonight, after recently having great success with culturing up the yeast from Butty Bach ( does anyone know the history of that yeast? It seems really good). @dan125 are you going to drink the vintage ale in yours? I'm game to give it a go and I'll report back.
People do occasionally drink Kings Ale (brewed by Bass in 1902 in commemoration of a visit by Edward VII) and apparently live to tell the tale !
 
Mr lovely Mrs had to go to Wilko yesterday for 'ladies stuff' and, bless her, she picked me up some wine finings and some light DME so I'm culturing up the Ind Coope bottles I got from @terrym tonight, after recently having great success with culturing up the yeast from Butty Bach ( does anyone know the history of that yeast? It seems really good). @dan125 are you going to drink the vintage ale in yours? I'm game to give it a go and I'll report back.
Be rude not to try it acheers.
Just to check for infections as much as anything else.
I'm gonna go with the Burton beer - its amazing to think I was 2 years old when it was bottled :laugh8:
 
I've got my 1.020 starter wort made, so it's time...
Here's the before shot:
20200425_133128.jpg


And here's the after shot:
20200425_133949.jpg


Cheers :laugh8:acheers.
 
It's amazingly very good.
Kept a bit of carbonation. Light fruity plum aroma. Sweet rich malty flavour.
Slightly vinous from oxidation I guess, but I'll probably finish it - wish I knew how strong it is.
The sediment was well compacted and I left just this dribble in the bottom.
Will get the wort in as soon as it cools down and the bottle warms a bit
20200425_134703.jpg
 
So, before and after photos.
IMG_20200425_204838.jpg

Two cleaned and sanitised bottles, and on the right a sanitised jar with some 1020° wort. Opened the first bottle - no noise, and poured as flat as a witches tit.

IMG_20200425_205035.jpg


Taste? No off flavours, but Christmas cake, sherry and alcohol. Obviously, oxidised, but it was actually quite nice. Bottle number 2, this gave a slight pffft. Poured with a tiny amount of condition, but it was minimal.
IMG_20200425_205446.jpg

You can't see on the piccy but there was a ring of bubbles round the edge. Same pleasant taste, sherry, Christmas cake, booze. I drank this one. Lol. Dregs of both swilled in the bottle a lot ( both frothed up a bit) and the mouths of the bottles sanitised. Contents of both dumped into the starter jar. Now we just wait. Thanks again @terrym

IMG_20200425_210409.jpg
 
Forgot to post the pic with the 20ml of wort in for what feels like the worlds smallest starter :laugh8:
Fingers crossed there's a few live yeasties in there.
20200425_143959.jpg
 
I might be getting ahead of myself slightly, but have noticed I've got the ingredients to make something akin to the very simple Bass recipe from the Graham Wheeler book - which would seem fitting for the 40 year old Bass yeast.

95% pale
5% crystal
26 IBUs Challenger @ 60 mins

acheers.
 
Well, the cling film over the top of the jar has positive pressure this morning, suggesting something is happening. Could just be an infection of course, lol.
That's a positive start. Mine seems a bit more foamy than it should be without any activity, but it's hard to tell with such a small amount in a brown bottle.
🤞
 
I've been regularly swirling my little starter for 3 days and it's not easy to tell if there is any activity, but it's been foamy and cloudy:
20200428_162102.jpg

So I thought I'd step up adding 100ml of 1.020 wort and transferring to a new clean bottle:
20200428_193516.jpg

But dissappointing to see a lot of sediment still stuck like glue to the bottom of the original bottle afterwards:
20200428_194155.jpg

It'll hopefully be easier to see any definite signs of life in the bigger starter - fingers crossed
acheers.
 
After 5 days my 100ml starter looked like it was slowing down so I've added the whole lot to 500ml wort @ 1.028 for the next stage, while it is still a bit active.
Think I'll chill and decant off the spent wort before the next step.
20200503_141249.jpg
 
Although my starter is doing well, the yeast does look a bit dark and is very powdery and easily disturbed when I pick up the bottle.

So to try to find out a bit more about the yeast, and to try to check if a 2ndry bottling strain may have been used, I sent an email to Charlie Bamforth as I know he worked at Bass for many years. He was kind enough to refer me to a very helpful associate professor at Nottingham Uni who is the 'The fount of all relevant knowledge on Bass yeasts', who over a couple of emails has advised:-

'As these were essentially commemorative beers I would be surprised if they went to the expense and trouble of adding a secondary strain.'

'Yeast is pretty robust – recovery of yeast from weird and ancient places (amber, pottery from Egyptian tombs, ship wrecks etc) is a popular activity.
I didn’t join Bass until 1982 so I’ve no first hand knowledge of the beer you are recovering the yeast from. I would be surprised if it wasn’t Draught Bass yeast which comprised of two very closely related ale yeasts differing in their flocculence. The strains G1 and G2 were named after the flocculence test described by RB Gilliland from Guinness, Dublin. G2 was more flocculent than G1 and accordingly was often lost when Bass was brewed in conical fermenters. Marstons who brew Bass for ABInBev these days are fermenting it in ‘squares’ and it is pretty good. I understand they are still using G1/G2 so you could recover the yeast from Draught Bass (once the pubs are back open!)'


So looking at my starter this makes sense if I am culturing up the less flocculant G1 strain.

It's pleasing to know that I'm probably not culturing a 2ndry bottling strain, as the starter smells good, and it will be interesting to see how a Bass clone comes out..........
but...........old English yeast strain......low flocculence......I can't help wonder how it might perform in a NEIPA 🤔
 
Might be bad news.

After settling in the fridge for a couple of days I had this thin layer at the bottom so made up 1L @ 1.032.
20200514_090633.jpg

The yeast was so powdery that I only managed to decant off this much before some of the yeast would have been poured out.
20200514_090841.jpg

The spent wort had a mild vinegar aroma and tasted more like cider than beer.
I've added the new 1L wort as I had it made but don't think I want to use this in a batch 🤔
 
Did you take a gravity reading of the spent wort? It'd perhaps give a clue as to the yeast health and your sizing of that starter. Anecdotally I've had ale starters that taste sharp and the beer went on to be fine. My guess here is that without a stir plate to boost the growth you'd need to step up really slowly to avoid yeast stress.
 
Did you take a gravity reading of the spent wort? It'd perhaps give a clue as to the yeast health and your sizing of that starter. Anecdotally I've had ale starters that taste sharp and the beer went on to be fine. My guess here is that without a stir plate to boost the growth you'd need to step up really slowly to avoid yeast stress.
Didn't think to check the gravity.
Up to now I've been increasing the starter size x5 and slightly increasing the gravity each time.
Interesting about the stir plate as i thought it may stress the yeast more.
The new 1L starter seems very sluggish getting going though so maybe a stir plate is the way to go.
 
I've done this enough times to know how much yeast in the bottom of a two litre pop bottle will ferment 10L of your average 1.040 wort. So yes, I eyeball it
Hi @MyQul
Just reading through this old thread, as it's popped up as 'new activity'.
I haven't yet played with starters, but find it fascinating, as I hadn't realised you could culture / clone this stuff.
Given that I may look to 'have a go' at this, and seeing as I brew 10-ish litre batches, would you care to share how much yeast in the bottom of a 2 litre pop bottle is about enough please?
A pic with a ruler paints a thousand words :)
Thanks
 

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