Was speaking to the owner of our local craft bar and he was telling me that the best way to brew a clone is to grow the yeast on your own from the sediment, left over beer in the bottle of that beer. Anyone ever do this? How is it done? Looking for info. Thanks, Steve
First, be sure that the yeast in the bottle is the same yeast that was used to ferment the beer, i.e. ensure the beer was not bottled with a different strain of yeast. I suspect that an increasing amount of brewers are using bottling strains nowadays. Also make sure your bottle is as fresh as possible. This will increase the viability of the yeast. Once you've figured that out, store the beer upright and very cold for a few days. Then get all the equipment that you'll need. All you really need is a sanitized gallon jug and DME. Better equipment makes the process easier however. I use a stirplate and stir bar and a variety of sizes of Erlenmeyer flasks. Mix a quarter cup of DME with 16oz of water for roughly 1.020 starter wort. Boil for 10 minutes. Chill to 70*F. Sanitize the neck and cap of the beer bottle. Open. Santize again. Pour 90-95% of the beer into a glass to drink. Pour the remainder into cooled wort. Shake as often as possible and let it ride out until fermentation activity comes and goes. It could happen in a day or it could take a week. All depends on the yeast strain and yeast health. Cold crash the mixture for a few days. You will see that the yeast has settled to the bottom of the container. Carefully decant the liquid off the top. Then make another starter of 1.040 wort (1/2 cup of DME Anne 16oz of water). Boil. Chill. Pour onto yeast sediment. Shake often. Let it ferment. This should get you enough yeast cells to ferment 5G of low gravity wort. Roughly. It's hard to tell with general homebrewing equipment. There's also a lot of info about this online plus many videos on YouTube. I'd recommend checking them out.
What's the beer you want to clone? Many/most strains used by commercial brewers are also available form Wyeast, White Labs, and others. In those cases, culturing dregs wouldn't be necessary or even beneficial.
I think your bar owner is not a homebrewer and he misheard something. As VikeMan says, many commercial brewers get their yeast from the same places that homebrewers do. Regardless of the yeast part, for some beers, the yeast is the most important part, but not the only part (hops, malts,... matter as well). For other beers, American IPA for example, the hops and malts are the most important part and the yeast is basically an afterthought. On top of that, even with an exact recipe provided by the brewer, it is difficult to "clone" a beer.
I have propagated the dregs from Bell's beers, as their house strain is not offered by the suppliers. Some of the bigger brewers order commercial pitches of yeast from the suppliers. Founders uses Wyeast - 1056, repitches a few times and then gets a new order shipped in, for an example.
