Homebrew "house yeast"

I culture up a commercial saison yeast (Dupont Foret) and use it for a year before going back to the source. The main thing it acquires is the ability to ferment at lower temperatures, while retaining its character.

I have a 4 year old slurry of 3470 lager yeast in the back of my beer fridge that I dip into for starters now and then. Still going strong with no big changes (I'm not repitching here, just making starters from an old source).

Finally, I've kept an Orval dregs slurry going for 4 years. The brett just keeps getting stronger; not sure there's much ale yeast left but it makes nice funky beers.

If you want to check out the dark side of repitching ad infinitum, buy a bottle of any Magic Hat beer. You only need one

 

In a conscious effort to go off on a tangent (this is, after all, the internet), has anybody tried to 'improve' their yeasts through selective harvesting? Flocculation is probably the easiest trait to isolate, even in a relatively crude home setup, but has anybody had any success selecting other traits?

 

I have been thinking about using WLP002 for as long as I am comfortable, it is probably the only yeast I would consider keeping around for an extended period of time.

Although I am using Roselare this weekend, and may try to keep it around for a little white as well.

 

"Cry Havoc" was Charlie Papazian's house yeast for what, 20 years or more?

 

I always wonder if Denny himself kept BrewTek CL-50 going until Wyeast re-introduced it.

 

He claims he did. I see no reason not to believe that.

 

Yes and no - Denny has always had cultures of it around since he started using it, but I think Wyeast got their initial culture from someone else. I seem to recall from a comment on a forum somewhere that the brewmaster of a brewery I don't recall was the one responsible for the culture that Wyeast ended up using, but I can't even recall where I read that, let alone determine if it was true.

Edit: found this thread that has Denny himself talking about it, but doesn't specifically say where Wyeast got their culture. Whether or not Wyeast got the culture from him, he deserves a ton of credit for using and popularizing the yeast.

 

I actually never knew that he said that. Awesome, I do like that yeast.

 

OK good enough. It almost sounds like a guy in Denny's (N8) club kept the yeast going.

If you dig around on the internet, it was claimed somewhere that the yeast came from North Coast a long time ago. Denny had heard this too, but none of us know for sure.

 

I repitch a lot but only 3-4 generations, mostly because I do too many styles. The one I have kept after repitching at least 10 generations and make new starters off of the slurry is WY1968. It got better attenuation later on in the generations so I kept it, plus I use it a lot for bitters, smallish PA's, ambers and anything stout or porter. But it doesn't floc out nearly as well as it did when it was younger.

One I don't like to repitch more than once is WY1318. For some reason the mild sweetness that brings to the party gets out of control after 2 or 3 generations. The rest of the flavor profile is the same but that sweetness seems to get stronger. Perhaps it is a direct result of pitching into higher gravity wort but I'm not sure.

 

It is Nate (N8), and this is a very touchy subject over whether it was Nate or Denny that "found it". My understanding is that it is Nate's yeast that he isolated and propagted (he has a microbiology background) and it was his yeast, Denny was using it and gave it to Wyeast. I am in that brew club with Denny, Nate used to be in it until he took a brewmaster position at a place down in San Diego last year. I brought this topic up with N8 on a tour of Eugene City Brewery during Zwikelmania last year, it did not go over well.

 

By bottom cropping in the typical yeast washing technique you are selecting the most flocculant cells. Although that's usually a plus for beer clarity, there can be some flavor components associated with less flocculant cells that get lost with each generation of selecting from the trub. (Weizen strains are particularly affected here.) Top cropping can be a more effective way to obtain a mix of the genetic diversity in the original pitch.

 

I wonder if the higher attenuation/lower flocculation would occur (as much) with the process I am using. I only save 1 mason jar (pint) of each yeast from my starter when I pitch. So each time I pull out that mason jar, I make a starter a little bigger than I need and save for later from my starter.

This is a year I planned to focus on saving my yeast a bit more. A month in I have 1 mason jar of WLP007 and 1 of WLP028 (still needing a wash). I am thinking I will add an American strain and a Belgian strain. I am using Roselare this weekend, but I am not sure if I will be brewing many sours on my own as our club has 3 barrels full of them.

Edit: I am also kicking around the idea that I build up yeast through 2013, and aim to never buy any yeast in 2014.

 

Don't get me wrong, it still flocs out well but not as well as it had in the earlier generational stages. I haven't tried what you are suggesting. I merely make a starter from that saved yeast so it is going to behave similarly in each batch. I make pretty large starters with it, so I needed to get a bigger flask than I have now to do that. What size are you using?

 

Very interesting.

 

I make my starters in a 1 gallon growler. The WLP028 was for a 1.094 Wee Heavy, so I made a 3.5 liter starter and saved about a half liter before pitching. I know I underpitched, but I still believe I had plenty there. Normally I would have made a small beer first (I had a 70/- planned), but the wee heavy needed to be done by the 23rd.

 

I make a lot of pale ales and IPA's. I am culturing the dregs from a couple cans of Heady to keep the Conan strain on hand.

 

Didn't he say that was Budweizer's yeast?

 

I think I'm gonna make WLP090 (San Diego Super Yeast) my go-to for neutral/hoppy ales. Already seems to reach krausen & flocc a bit quicker after 2 generations. Anybody know if there is any truth to the advice to not-repitch after more than 4-5 generations, or can they go further with proper washing/starters? Would definitely invest in some slants if I had the money/space.