Yeast salvage from your own bottles

[Malter White]

There would have to be brewers doing this but I haven't read or seen videos of anyone doing it and when it dawned on me I decided you all should know, just in case it never crossed your mind either.
OK, so I've salvaged yeast from the trub in the FV a few times now and I've also reactivated the yeast from Coopers Pale Ale stubbies.
As I was doing the former, cleaning a number of jars, cooling boiled water, separating trub from yeast and so on, I thought to myself, "Muzz, why don't you just gather the yeast from your own brewed bottles after drinking? Like you would if you were salvaging yeast from Coopers stubbies."
I'm sure it's a simpler method. Most of the trub is already removed. You don't need to sanitise jars. Just put the lid back on and back in the fridge. Obviously you could add a little water to swish it out and condense a few bottles into one.
As I mentioned people are probably doing it already but I hadn't seen anything on it anywhere myself. This has been a home brewing epiphany moment for me. Cheers!

[Lab Cat]

It just might be crazy enough to work. But with harvesting easier and the price of yeast, the effort to do so reminds me of the joke about copper wire being invented by Scotsmen fighting over a penny.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

Yeah have done that once when I forgot to overmake a starter and after that forgot to keep the trub. I read somewhere PB2 used to do the same thing with his yeast. It was like 40th generation or something.

[Malter White]

4 hours ago, Lab Cat said:

It just might be crazy enough to work. But with harvesting easier and the price of yeast, the effort to do so reminds me of the joke about copper wire being invented by Scotsmen fighting over a penny.

Hey Lab.

I reckon making a yeast starter from the bottles would be easier than from the FV trub. That's why I'm going to do it.

I plan to do it with the brew that I made with CCA yeast. Then there's no need to buy a new slab. (Don't tell Coopers)

It's an oldie but a goodie the copper gag.

Edited August 3, 2020 by MUZZY

[Lab Cat]

33 minutes ago, MUZZY said:

I reckon making a yeast starter from the bottles would be easier than from the FV trub. That's why I'm going to do it.

 

Fairy Nuff. Let us know how it goes. Can't think why it wouldn't work. I guess the trick may be to work out how much is enough?

[Malter White]

1 hour ago, Lab Cat said:

Fairy Nuff. Let us know how it goes. Can't think why it wouldn't work. I guess the trick may be to work out how much is enough?

I'd purely be guesstimating but if Coopers suggest a 6 pack of stubbies I'd work on 6 of my own longnecks to ensure I have enough.

[Waynealford]

Unless you regularly cold crash or otherwise use clarifying techniques, 3-4 longnecks might be enough - I know all my bottles have a good 2-3mm minimum of yeast in the bottom of each.  As long as you weren't chugging directly from the bottle (backwash!!), I see no reason why it wouldn't work if everything was sterile to begin with.

[Malter White]

3 hours ago, Waynealford said:

Unless you regularly cold crash or otherwise use clarifying techniques, 3-4 longnecks might be enough - I know all my bottles have a good 2-3mm minimum of yeast in the bottom of each.  As long as you weren't chugging directly from the bottle (backwash!!), I see no reason why it wouldn't work if everything was sterile to begin with.

Very good point, Wayne. I do cold crash most brews but don't use finings. I'll still probably use 6 longies to err on the side of caution. I'd rather overpitch than under.

[EL84]

I recently had success harvesting yeast from my first BIAB batch.
I only started brewing in June (lock-down hobby), so I'm sure my technique was a bit suspect, but I'm cheap and I wanted to see how US-05 compared to the Coopers Cerveza ale/lager yeast.
Due to space constraints I only brew 5L batches at a time and was willing to take the risk of harvesting from my own bottles. I had one 750ml PET bottle left from my first ever brew, an all grain faux Pilsner using US-05, and decided I was going to harvest the yeast from that.
The procedure I used was from The Home Brew Network on youtube, I just scaled it down for my 5L batch.

The steps I took were:

1. Leave about 3-4cm's at the bottom of the bottle including sediment.
2. Boil water and measure out light dry malt - I used 130g of malt because that's all I had.
3. Mix boiling water and malt and set aside to cool in sanitised container - for my 5L batch I used roughly 150ml of water.
4. Once the mixture had cooled to around 21c I pitched it straight into the 750ml PET bottle with the leftover beer.
5. Cover the bottle opening with plastic wrap and seal with elastic band.
6. Shake bottle well and leave in a warm and dark place.

I agitated the bottle three times a day for five days, but mostly left it to it's own devices.
After day two there was a decent head and the plastic wrap would frequently puff up.

I pitched the harvested US-05 into a Coopers Cerveza extract with additional malt and Ella and Topaz hops. Yeast activity showed within 5 hours, which was similar to the Coopers yeast I used with the previous batch.
The brew was bottled after 14 days and I was pleased with the fruity passion fruit character at time of bottling.

I probably under pitched the yeast, but if I can do it I'm sure you'll have success!

 

 

[Malter White]

Good job, @EL84