Harvesting yeast from bottle conditioned beer

[nautwerks]

Hey Everyone,
I recently made a 1L starter off of a bottle of Rogue Shakespeare Stout.
It looks like I have developed a nice layer of yeast cell on the bottom.

I am getting ready to use this for a Rogue Dead Guy Ale kit.
My experience with yeast is limited to Wyeast smack pack packs thrown into a starter and this is my first time harvesting yeast from a bottle. I am trying to figure out what I am going to need to do to create enough yeast to fuel this beer?

I was thinking about throwing this starter in the fridge to drop the yeast out of solution, making a new 3L starter w/DME and yeast nutrient along with a generous shot of O2, decant the alcohol off the top of the original starter and pitching the yeast slurry into the new 3L starter.

Think that will be sufficient?

JP

[Happy Smurf]

Sounds like yourt on the right track. 1000ml sounds like a bit much for cultivating out of a bottle, but if worked then awesome!

The general rule when bumping up startes is 5-10 times the voume of wort. From A bottle I would have done a 50ml then 500 ml then 3000-5000 ml.

As always, chack Mr. Malty for pitching rates.

[Bugeater]

Dang! Happy Smurf read my mind and typed it out before I had a chance. That's exactly how I do it.

Since you already have a 1 liter starter going, I would just decant what you have and step it up to 2 or 3 liters just once.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

[noremorse1]

Does rogue use the same yeast to bottle condition that they do to ferment?

[nautwerks]

Thanks for the quick feedback!
I do have a question, what woud be the thinking behind making a smaller starter? I was wondering about that.

[nautwerks]

Does rogue use the same yeast to bottle condition that they do to ferment?

I think I heard in one of the podcasts from John Meier (sp?) that they used the same yeast for bottling as fermenting.

[DannyW]

Thanks for the quick feedback!
I do have a question, what woud be the thinking behind making a smaller starter? I was wondering about that.

It lets the yeast drop the pH quickly enough that the environment becomes less hospitable to other microorganisms. If the volume is proportional to the yeast, then it happens quick enough. If the volume is very large compared to the yeast load, then the drop happens too slowly and the other organisms get a strong foothold.

So I've been told anyway. I should probably just hush and stick to licking windows!

[nautwerks]

That makes sense! Thanks for the explanation!

Also, I am getting ready to make the 3L starter to pitch this starter into and I realized all I have left is Dark Malt Extract instead of the normal light DME I normally use. Is there any risk in using Dark DME?