Harvesting/Building up Dregs

Discussion in 'Homebrewing' started by wasatchback, Jan 17, 2018.

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  1. wasatchback

    wasatchback Pooh-Bah (1,574) Jan 12, 2014 Tajikistan
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Say you want to harvest some dregs from a bottle you know contains a Brett strain you'd like to use but you also know that bottle is bottled with wine yeast. If you were to go through the process of stepping up the dregs and give everything a long time to settle out would you get less wine yeast if you just harvested some of the liquid on top as the Brett tends to more likely stay in suspension?

    Or if you were to use said dregs for secondary and after say 3-4 months use a certain percentage of that beer to inoculate another would you be likely to get more Brett and less wine yeast?
     
    #1 wasatchback, Jan 17, 2018
  2. EvenMoreJesus

    EvenMoreJesus Initiate (0) Jun 8, 2017 Pennsylvania

    Short answer: No

    Long-ish answer: It depends on which species/strain of Brett and which wine strain

    Regardless, you're not going to have much success with this method. Isolation requires streaking and plating using selective media. Them's the breaks.

    A lot of wine yeast is maltose-negative, so you might not have an issue with using the dregs in a beer with no, or very little, simple sugars, like in a secondary fermentation.

    That said, if you're looking for "Brett character" it really doesn't matter if there is a lot of sugar left for Brett to ferment. The character will come from phenolic precursors, like ferulic acid, and not sugars left behind. Even when used after var. diastaticus strains, Brett still produces phenols, when all that's left are sugars > 3 glucose units long. Never run into a wine yeast that was POF+, either, so although it won't help with decarboxylating hydroxycinnamic acids into vinyl phenols, it won't stop Brett from doing so.

    Long story short, don't worry about isolating the Brett from the wine yeast.
     
    #2 EvenMoreJesus, Jan 17, 2018
    billandsuz likes this.
  3. billandsuz

    billandsuz Pooh-Bah (2,097) Sep 1, 2004 New York
    Pooh-Bah


    Well, to be blunt, neither method you are describing is appropriate for the harvesting of yeast. Using the methods you describe will get you wine yeast with whatever other bugs are present. So, you are better off purchasing a package of the strain you want to use.

    Cheers.
     
    #3 billandsuz, Jan 17, 2018
  4. wasatchback

    wasatchback Pooh-Bah (1,574) Jan 12, 2014 Tajikistan
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    What if a package of strain is not available to purchase?

    And specifically how are they not appropriate for harvesting of yeast? I understand I can not isolate anything this way but just trying to get less of the wine yeast in the culture.

    I realize streaking and plating is ideal for isolation. I’m just not there yet not sure I ever will be.
     
    #4 wasatchback, Jan 17, 2018
  5. EvenMoreJesus

    EvenMoreJesus Initiate (0) Jun 8, 2017 Pennsylvania

    From what bottle are you looking to culture? Which species/strain are you looking for? I'd almost guarantee that it's available from somewhere.
     
    #5 EvenMoreJesus, Jan 17, 2018
  6. wasatchback

    wasatchback Pooh-Bah (1,574) Jan 12, 2014 Tajikistan
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    The Brett Drei stain isn’t available to homebrewers is it? Through BSI for Pros but not for Joe’s right?
     
    #6 wasatchback, Jan 17, 2018
  7. EvenMoreJesus

    EvenMoreJesus Initiate (0) Jun 8, 2017 Pennsylvania

    #7 EvenMoreJesus, Jan 17, 2018
  8. billandsuz

    billandsuz Pooh-Bah (2,097) Sep 1, 2004 New York
    Pooh-Bah

    Fair enough. Very few of us are interested in running a lab at our home brewery. Less so if working with Brett. THAT is a headache time 100. Even the Pro's are hesitant to have that hanging around the factory.

    If you want to select one strain of micro-organism from a culture that contains two or more strains you will need to isolate the desired strain and then work with that.

    Trying to tilt the balance by presenting favorable conditions to one strain is not really progress.

    In other words, if 100,000,000,000 cells is undesirable, 50,000,000,000 is not the solution.

    Cheers.
     
    #8 billandsuz, Jan 17, 2018
  9. EvenMoreJesus

    EvenMoreJesus Initiate (0) Jun 8, 2017 Pennsylvania

    Brett's nowhere near as problematic as diastaticus.
     
    #9 EvenMoreJesus, Jan 17, 2018
    wasatchback and Prep8611 like this.
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