A Guide to cropping yeast from a bottle condition beer |
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If you like a particular bottle condition beer and want to try and emulate it, the best way to get as close as possible is to crop some of the yeast from one or two bottles of your intended brew. Bottle cropping a yeast is also a useful way of experimenting with a liquid yeast without too much expense and you get to enjoy the waste material as a bonus, (the beer in the bottle) |
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| The donors for our Yeast cropping experiment is 2 bottles of Fullers Bengal Lancer bottle conditioned IPA | Food for the yeast starter is 1/2 cup of Light Malt Extract | |
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| And & 1/4 level Tsp of Yeast nutrient | Step one is to mix your 1/2 cup of Light malt extract with 1 cup of water in a saucepan. Boil for 10-15 mins to kill any bugs | |
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| You need a decent clean vessel to propagate your yeast in, preferably pyrex, I am using an old cafetieree pot, and am sanitising it with purple beer line cleaner, you can use any sanitiser you like, you also want a decent sanitised thermometer | When you have sanitised your propagation vessel for 10-15mins, flush with plenty of water and add your boiled wort. | |
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Now the good bit, pour the beer out into a pint glass, and leave around 50-80ml in the bottom of the bottle. place a clean bit of foil over the bottle lid and swirl vigourously to remove the yeast from the bottom of the bottle. I did this twice, leave the bottles (knecks covered with foil) until the contents reach room temperature. Enjoy the waste material (two pints almost of Bengal Lancer IPA). In the meantime put your progation vessel in a bowl or sink full of water and stir with the thermometer until the temperature gets to about 24deg C. Once you have reached this temperature swirl the contents in the bottom of your two bottles, and pour into your cooled wort. |
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Once you have pitched the yeast from your bottle conditioned beers, make sure the wort is well oxygenated by beating it well with a sanitised implement, cover withe tin foil and place in a warm (room Temperature) room. |
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6 Hours in and there are signs that fermentation is starting our brewery liquid yeast is coming alive. This is a great way to get hard to purchase liquid yeast strains, and cheap too. |
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| 12 hours later and the bottle conditioned yeast has taken off. This is looking like a very succesful yeast starter. From this point I agitated the wort, with a good swirl twice a day to get some oxygen into the wort. I'm not bothered about oxydising the wort as it is only a medium for growing the yeast, not for drinking, Oxygen helps the yeast to reproduce so getting it into the wort is vital for maximum growth. |  |
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Day 4 and you can see a very nice layer of yeast forming on the bottom of the propagation vessel. I have been swirling daily to get some oxygen in and promote a good yeast growth. If you want to get really technical you can at this point save the yeast slurry on slants, but I just made 5 gals of my intended beer an IPA and piched the lot into it at 20 deg C |
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12 hours after pitching my Bottle conditioned beer starter and there is a very good fermentation going on, Fullers Yeast at no real extra cost as I was going to drink the beer anyway. This method will work with any bottle conditioned beer and is really easy to do. It will give you a much more interesting beer, than sprinkling some Nottingham or SO4 on the top. You could also use this method to improve a Kit Brew such as a Woodfordes Wherry! |
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