Yeast Swap

[Mike Neilson]

I have a last Wyeast orders Cali lager yeast 2112 smack pack anyone got a yeast there that they dont want to use that would be intrested in a swap? This yeast turned up on my door step cold and went into the fridge no less that a minute of the courier droping it off to me at 8am, the yeast was shipped the day before. Its a great yeast as it can carry larger attributes up to I think 17 deg ferment. I just cant see a need for me to brew a larger any more.

[Reviled]

Someone with a stirplate and who is able to freeze yeast should set up a bank for home brewers like what BABBS in QLD have, they get one person to get a heap of different slants in stock, and if anyone wants some built up for them, send your $5 or $10 or whatever to that person and get some built up... The benifit of this would be that then we will all have access to a greater variety of strains at a good price.

Id send a few strains as a donation to get it going! Id do it myself but dont do slants and dont have a stirplate...

Just a thought...

[James P]

I did have a nice bank up late last year until the freezer died and took my stock with it.

Just rebuilding it at the moment.... one at a time.

Any microbiologists lurking in the corners??

[Reviled]

Did you just volunteer mate? ;o) I could have a few strains coming your way if you like? Anyone else out there? Its for a good cause lol

[HerrSchnapps]

Actually speaking of which James, the St. Paddies Steadfast (Oat) Stout with the 1084 is all ready for bottling this weekend. If you wanna drop a couple of slants/baby food jars off tomorrow and hopefully Mick or Will will fill 'em with 1084 goodness for you? How'd the 1968 go by the way?

And yes Reviled, this swap, you'll get some 1084 in a bottle to culture!

[James P]

1968 is still in the fridge awaiting propagation and banking... I've had sick kids to deal with so no time for playing scientisit!

I'll get some jars ready tonight then! Cheers!

[Haish]

This is a great idea and I'm keen to help out. I have access to all the gear to culture and freeze yeast properly: autoclave, shaking incubator, laminar flow hood, sterile plasticware etc.

My "library" currently contains four strains: Wyeast 1056, 1318, 3068 and 2000. Lets start building...

[Jonathan Musther]

Can anyone help me out with a little advice. I have a pretty well set up lab - I can grow on a stir plate with sterile air flow to provide plenty of O2 for the yeast - I'm confident in taking some slurry from an previous batch and growing up a fresh culture in this way. Then what's the best way to 'bank' the strains? Obviously we're talking freezing, but if I can help it I don't want to make up a malt agar and set slants, how viable is it to simply freeze some of the culture in a small sterile jar, will the yeast survive?

Any pointers on the best procedure for cultivating like this would be great - don't worry about telling me all the sanitation steps, but what about:

The ideal gravity solution to cultivate in
How to know when the culture is strong enough
How best to 'bank'
How to best revive a 'banked' strain

One other thing - I'm currently doing a degree in wine-making, and one thing that's interesting is that according to some research, growing yeast on a stir-plate is very bad because it damages a huge number of the cells, it's apparently too vigorous. In preparing wine yeast, you're not even supposed to stir the yeast by hand - although admittedly rehydrating yeast cell walls are unusually sensitive. I just find it interesting that there's this difference between the wine and beer yeast worlds.

Cheers!

[James P]

As with the people that drink beer, beer yeast is just more manly and can take the knocks.... :)

You need to look at "The Library" thread in the forum for information in relation to yeast banking as all your questions are answered there. There is also good research in to the best methods for long term storage.

Good luck, it becomes addictive.

[denimglen]

If you've got the lab gear then I would go for slants and plates.

If you haven't got the gear then freezing is probably better.

1.030 to 1.040 is usually agreed as the best media to grow wort.

The Maltose Falcons and Homebrewtalk links in the library are probably a good start for info.

[Mike Neilson]

FYI..................

Heres Something I have just done I have spun up 4L of WLP001 I pitched 2.8L of it into A beer I brewed last weekend than chucked another 2.8L of Wort into the conical flask and continuted to spin it till it was fully fermented, crashed cooled for 3 days tipped the wort from the yeast and added previously boiled and cooled water, about 100mls than I split this up into 4 Whitelabs tubes and 1 small baby food glass jar. heres the maths

$20 for Yeast $6.8 for DME
/ 6 Pitchs / 6 Pitches
A =$3.33 B = $1.13
A+B= $4.46 Per each pitch

Or to get it primed up I would just use another $2-$3 worth of dme to get the cell count spot on.so as you can see why wouldnt you use far supperior yeast? Well that wht I do anyway

[jt]

If you're good with your sanitation etc, you take it another generation for just the cost of the starter malt - or your own wort

[Mike Neilson]

My Sanitation is good what I plan to do is spin off 1 more genration of each vial which would make 12 beers total + 1 that I have allready brewed with it.