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reclaiming yeast

Started by spacebandit, May 31, 2013, 06:03:19 PM

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spacebandit

Guys does anyone have any experience of reclaiming yeast from an old bottle of beer? By old I mean decades, or longer even. How would you even go about it? I was reading the side of a Clotworthy Dobbin the other day and it says it uses yeast from the old Belfast Brewery, so my guess is that they found a bottle somewhere and cultured yeast from whatever was in the bottle.
Is CD bottle conditioned btw?

johnrm

I'm not an expert but...
Yeast is a living thing.
It lives off sugars, grows reproduces, gets old and dies.
In the absence of food, and over an extended period the yeast will die.

That being said, there are methods of harvesting from the bottle.
Study up and be ready with some sterile wort for when you decide to drink!

How old is this bottle? ...and a bottle of what?

spacebandit

Been researching an old brewery not far from where I live. It's been gone over 100 years. I havn't found a bottle of their beer nor am I ever likely to without diving lough erne! I was always under the impression that yeast can lie dormant indefinately given the right conditions or pure chance but tubo makes more sense!!  That looks like a mighty resource that library you linked up. My mothers whole family worked in the Bass brewery for two generations, it's a housing estate now, so much brewing heritage lost eh?
Has anyone been to see the guinness archives in the hopstore? Must be some deadly stuff there even if only partially available to the public?? Recipes, brew journals, that kind of thing?

christhebrewer