Yeast Cultivation

Can anyone recommend any good books/threads?

Thanks.

Originally posted by pellegjr
Can anyone recommend any good books/threads?

Thanks.

Originally posted by rudolf

Originally posted by pellegjr
Can anyone recommend any good books/threads?

Thanks.

Its a very broad topic, but the new book Yeast: A Practical Guide to Fermentation by Chris White & Jamil Z. is quite exhaustive.

What are you looking to do? Harvest from dregs in a bottle? Wash yeast from one fermentation for re-use in another? Learn about how to make & keep yeast happy during fermentation?

-rudy

This is a great site, with the approach from a professional scientist:

http://www.alsand.com/beer/

It has helped me a lot when I did some intense and thorough inoculation and propagation of Rochefort yeast a couple of years ago.

As complex and detailed at it can become, it really is worth the extra work. I tend to utilize a lot of these methods even when brewing at home.

Cheers,

Danko

Originally posted by rudolf

Originally posted by pellegjr
Can anyone recommend any good books/threads?

Thanks.

Its a very broad topic, but the new book Yeast: A Practical Guide to Fermentation by Chris White & Jamil Z. is quite exhaustive.

What are you looking to do? Harvest from dregs in a bottle? Wash yeast from one fermentation for re-use in another? Learn about how to make & keep yeast happy during fermentation?

-rudy

Originally posted by pellegjr
All of the above; just generally wanting to take more control over that aspect of the process. Would like to eventually cultivate my own strains.

Originally posted by absolutesites

Originally posted by pellegjr
All of the above; just generally wanting to take more control over that aspect of the process. Would like to eventually cultivate my own strains.

Although I see no problem with reading more and gaining more knowledge about these processes, there’s no reason to unnecessarily overcomplicate things unless you REALLY want to do that.

Harvest from dregs in a bottle?

Make starter. Pour in dreggs. The end.

Just make sure that you know which strain(s) with which you are dealing so that you don’t get something for which you didn’t intend as your finished product.

Wash yeast from one fermentation for re-use in another?

Unless you’re trying to maintain a "pure culture", there is no reason to do this. Just save the yeast cake in a bottle in your fridge. Make sure to label it, of course, if you are going to do this with multiple strains. All that you have to do is make a starter beforehand and pitch the refrigerated yeast into it. Just make sure that the beer from which you saved the sample has COMPLETELY fermented. I’ve been doing this for years with no problem and have saved yeast cakes for more than a year and (as long as I made a starter beforehand) the beers always turned out well.

Learn about how to make & keep yeast happy during fermentation?

Make a big starter. Keep them within their optimum temperature ranges. The end.

Originally posted by absolutesites
Make a big starter. Keep them within their optimum temperature ranges. The end.

Originally posted by NobleSquirrel
I don’t think it is necessarily as simple as that. I’m guessing that the OP is looking to build a broader knowledge base and again, Yeast is a fantastic book

Originally posted by absolutesites

Originally posted by NobleSquirrel
I don’t think it is necessarily as simple as that. I’m guessing that the OP is looking to build a broader knowledge base and again, Yeast is a fantastic book

Agreed, but for brevity’s and functionality’s sake, that’s all that the OP needs to know.

That being said, I would encourage him to read as much as he can on the subject and experiment on his own so he can formulate his own opinions.

Originally posted by pellegjr

Originally posted by absolutesites

Originally posted by NobleSquirrel
I don’t think it is necessarily as simple as that. I’m guessing that the OP is looking to build a broader knowledge base and again, Yeast is a fantastic book

Agreed, but for brevity’s and functionality’s sake, that’s all that the OP needs to know.

That being said, I would encourage him to read as much as he can on the subject and experiment on his own so he can formulate his own opinions.

Planning on a hybrid approach at this point: going to take absolute sites’ advice on process for this weekend’s batch as it seems the simplest and most general approach. Then going to read Yeast (already ordered) and decide if I want to go any further down the rabbit hole from there. Everybody happy?