Beer Forum

After re-listening to the Allagash interview from last year, I've decided I want to used their house yeast to brew a few belgians. In the inteview Rob mentions that the White is their only beer that has their yeast used in both primary and bottle conditioning, all of their other beers are filtered and then a neutral yeast is pitched for conditioning. I've been brewing for a few years and listenin to all the BN shows and can not dig up any information on the specific steps for building up a yeast from a single bottle. I'm planning on brewing a Belgian white myself and will need approx 220B cells. But I really have no idea where I'm starting from. From everthing that I've ever heard on the shows all production brewer's pitch more then we typically do. You have to also figure that when they repitch for bottle conditioning they are adding very viable yeast so that the bottles carbonate in a timely fashion as opposed to having to wait and sit on inventory. I was thinking of stepping up three times. From the dregs into a 1030ish 1L wort (the yeast in the bottle are under some stress), to a 1040 1.5L to a 1040 2L and then pitching, I obviously will be aerating and adding proper to nutrients.
My questions are:
1. Is that enough steps?
2. Do I let let each step completely ferment out, or should I chill when the yeast are in the middle of there growth phase (12-18 hours), decant and then repitch into the next starter?
3. Anything that I've forgotten?

Any suggestions would be great.
Ted

Hey Ted,

I did pretty much the exact same thing... but w/ the Ommegang house strain. If I were you, my only recommendation would be too start your initial starter off of the dregs of more than one bottle... maybe two, or three if you can. Also, I would start w/ 400-650ml starter to get it going, before your first step... so you don't have such a large step for them on the first run at it. I also think you don't nec. need to decant if you start w/ a smaller volume, just top off your starter with 1000-1200ml's once you notice it starts to slow a bit. Then you can chill, decant, and pitch that starter if you like. After your first white, you'll be able to harvest plenty o' yeast, so you won't have to worry from that point on.

Here is a link to the thread that a ton of BN'ers helped me through my Ommegang culturing experience.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11726

Also, here is a link to a gallery I have on *whispers*facebook*whispers*... on the second page I have some pictures of the culturing process. It's a public link. Disregard any of the other asshatery going on.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2 ... 78e2e13503


To recap my recommendations w/ culturing from a bottle....
1. Use more than one bottle into your first step.
2. Make your first step relatively small (400-600mls of 1.030-1.040 wort)
3. Be sure to flame the lips of your flasks, and esp. the commercial bottles - work over an open flame if possible.... or build a clean room/house/wear a hazmat suit like the Pope.
4. I really don't think you need more than two steps - if you use more than one bottle initially. Top off to 1800-2000mls total for your second step.

5. obv. yeast nutrient.

Keep us posted, and goodluck man. I was paranoid at first, but I did my best to keep everything as clean/sanitary as possible... and I repitched that yeast multiple times, with extremely clean nice results.

I would think your first step would need to be much smaller (like 250 ml). I think that is waht Dan Gordon mentioned they do in growing up from a slant. It should be pretty similar. The 250>1L>2L should work.

I wouldn't chill and decant. You should keep it at peak as long as you can by feeding it every 12-18 hours.

Guys,
Thanks for the tips. I was really thinking it would be a little more labor intensive then what I thought I would need to do.
I'll be brewing for my first father's day in a few weeks, ever since my son came along 6 months ago it's been more difficult to brew. On the plus side my beers are coming out alot better when I brew sober (who knew??!)
Ted