Sunday, May 2, 2010

Bottle harvesting Rogue Pacman yeast.

I made a trip to Total Wine & Spirits yesterday and picked up a six pack of New Belgium Ranger IPA, a six pack of Great Divide Wild Raspberry Ale, and a bomber of Rogue Somer Orange Honey Ale. I wanted to attempt harvesting yeast from the bottle, so I decided to try and propagate the Pacman yeast which is Rogue Brewery's signature strain, and is sold as a seasonal or VSS (Very Special Strain) strain by Weast Laboratories, Inc.



I poured a glass for myself and my wife (sorry about the picture quality):




While drinking this light refreshing wheat beer, I allowed the dregs to warm up to room temperature:


I used Munton's extra light DME at a 10:1 ratio of water to DME. 473.2 mL of water to 47 grams of DME or 16 fluid oz water/1.67 oz DME.


I boiled everything for approximately 10 minutes:


In the last 5 mintues I added about 1/2 a capsule of White Labs Servomyces, and some Yeast Energizer:



I chilled everything to approximately 65°F.


Before pitching my bottle dregs into my growler (I have yet to purchase an Erlenmeyer Flask) I made sure to flame the bottle opening to reduce the chances of contamination:


After pitching my bottle dregs into my Thunder Canyon Brewery growler, I placed it onto the stir plate where I will let it ferment for 24 hours before stepping it up.


...and this is my Pacman Yeast starter outline, it will take approximatley 3 days to achieve my desired volume of 2 Liters.


I will post results as soon as I have them...stay tuned.

Posted by T. at 11:25 PM

3 comments:

  1. The MayorJuly 17, 2010 at 7:38 AM

    any update? i bought this exact bottle with the intention of harvesting and stepping up. How did yours come out and did you make any beer with it?

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  2. BGBAugust 12, 2010 at 3:43 PM

    Sorry for not posting results in a timely manner. The starter grew well, I ended up with about 1 entire White Labs vial full of yeast. I plan on brewing a fruit beer yeast whenever I can. My kegerator is on the fritz, and I am concentrating on fixing it before brewing again.

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  3. AnonymousMarch 12, 2012 at 12:24 PM

    I just used this method for an IPA I brewed last night. I harvested Pacmen from Oregasmic and Orange Honey bombers. I didn't notice any activity in the first stage of harvesting (tried putting an airlock on for a few minutes to check for CO2, tried shaking to produce foam), so I let it sit for about a week. The yeast cake looked bigger and my tests started to show results, so I stepped it up two more times over the next two days. I then cold crashed for a couple nights and decanted the beer off it during my brew.

    I pitched my IPA onto the cake and it was foaming and churning quite vigorously by this morning! Thanks for the guide!

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