Okay, what the f#%k!! Can I harvest yeast from chimay or not!! Some say yes and others say its a secondary strain. I made a mini wort today and fed it to 4 bottles worth if Chimay red. I decided to read up on it a little more after i finished and discovered a lot of mixed reviews. Is this going to work or not?! What beers do work?! Is it really worth the trouble?! I am really interested in the subject if harvesting yeast and I really want to try it, but I don't want to waste my time or money. Please help me.
This list is woefully out of date, but says you can culture Chimay: http://www.nada.kth.se/~alun/Beer/Bottle-Yeasts/ That came from Mad Fermentationist's list of beers to culture Brett from. Personally, with all the commercial strains available (including Chimay), I find it's not worth the trouble to culture Sacc strains from the bottle. Brett on the other hand...
+1 on not culturing Belgian Sacc strains: WL and WY have all sorts of Belgian strains. Find one you like and go with it. On the other hand, the experience you get in attempting to culture yeast dregs may be worth something down the road.
According to Mr. Malty, WLP500 is the Chimay strain. If you go that route you will save yourself some time and get guaranteed results. http://www.mrmalty.com/yeast.htm I have cultured yeast from dregs on several occasions and have found the results vary. Sometimes the yeast is spot on (like a culture from a fresh bottle of Funkwerks Tropic King) or way way off (Yeast from Duvel).
