I think it would be cool if we somehow tried to organize notes and thoughts on using dregs form commercial beers. I have stopped buying yeast and now just reuse yeast or grow a starter from some dregs of a beer style I want to brew. I have used Hill Farmstead, Crooked Stave, Commons, Pretty Things, and Saison Dupont. Some hits some misses. Just curious if people have some feedback on this topic. Cheers
There is a book that has been on the market for 6-7 years (?) that talks about the secretive attempts at trying to steal and propagate yeast from dregs. (I don't recall the name of the book right now, but I'll try to find it and add to this thread if no one else comes up with the title.) The book points out that there are some proprietary strains of yeast that are highly protected by the breweries, thus they are filtered out before bottling. If those beers are then bottle conditioned the brewer adds another type of yeast just for that purpose. I believe most of these proprietary yeast are from Belgian breweries that are known for their high-quality beers, thus are attractive for yeast thievery and recipe cloning attempts. If you have had some hits and some misses in your dreg yeast-harvesting experience, then maybe your misses are from the beers that use proprietary yeasts, and you didn't harvest exactly what you thought you were getting.
http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...les-to-pull-sour-wild-funk-dregs-from.158886/ http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...-dregs-to-use-as-primary-yeast-strain.138629/ http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/using-bottle-dregs.89523/ http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/bottle-dregs-from-sours.77820/ http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...calculate-yeast-cells-when-using-dregs.70120/ http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/using-bottle-dregs.1263/#post-11946
