Many years ago I had an experienced microbiologist (name? Hanson?) do a quick example of culturing yeast at a club brew session. That was cool, but yeast washing/handling/storage/reviving would be more applicable. I suppose the "yeast expert" mentioned below is probably too busy doing yeasty things, and isn't available to do much other than shoot down idea's. Oh well, at least Rick tried to be positive. (:-p Mike Moranz -----Original Message----- From: Cotter the Collector [mailto:krcotter@cox.net] Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 3:15 PM To: mnbrewers(a)yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [mnbrewers] FW: Yeast Of The Week Club Importance: High Is there an efficient way to culture-up certain styles of yeast? In the never-ending quest to take-out QUAFF at the national level, could the clubs start making yeasts to correspond to when you would optimally start making certain beers? For example, an estery German wheat yeast ready right before the regionals to get as many advanced to the second round as possible. After the nationals are over, work could start on the large beers such as Scottish Wee Heavy's, Imperial Russian Stouts, and Barleywines for next year. Optimally all yeast would be washed (acid washing?) for the best results. Sounds like work, so maybe a yeast of the month rather than week. Perhaps a certain yeast expert could even do a solid class on yeast washing? Kevin ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- From: Kristen England [mailto:engla008@umn.edu] Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 1:30 PM To: mnbrewers(a)yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [mnbrewers] FW: Yeast Of The Week Club This is all well and great but the strains Town Hall uses are not fancy. They are just basic White Labs strains. So a person that’s not versed in the art of yeast handling is going to ‘skim’ off the yeast and add it to a carboy for you. How is one going to sanitarily handle getting the yeast to, from and out of the keg without contamination? Being the person in the club with the most yeast experience by far this is not a good way to do things. It more sounds like a way to save $$$. Then to talk of the quality of the yeast. This yeast is under much more stain that the stuff that we would use. A few reasons but the simplest one is the batch size. Are you going to wash the yeast before you use it again… I don’t think so. In addition, this will open the door for over pitching the yeast, which is very hard to do either using a tube, smackpack or starter. Sorry to poo poo on the idea but when handling yeast leave it to the pro’ s. There are many more things to work on in brewing that getting yeast. If you want to save some money and throw quality to the wind, good luck. Cheers kris -----Original Message----- From: aboyce(a)mn.rr.com [mailto:alboyce@bigfoot.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 2:12 PM To: mnbrewers(a)yahoogroups.com Subject: [mnbrewers] FW: Yeast Of The Week Club Original Message: ----------------- From: Rick Oftel Rick.Oftel(a)toro.com Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 13:26:21 -0600 To: mba(a)thebarn.com, mnbrewers(a)yahoogroups.com Subject: Yeast Of The Week Club Attention MHBA Club Members: As our club continues to grow and change, we continue to look for ways to add value to our members. We recently (ok last night) had a discussion about yeast and the general consensus is that yeast ranching is time consuming, costs a few dollars, and growing an adequate quantity of healthy yeast is always a challenge especially for the brewers that brew big beers (you know who you are). We also discovered that commercial brewers share, swap, and toss more viable yeast than we could ever utilize. Now if you put these two criteria together (one man's junk is another man's treasure), you have the start of "THE MHBA YEAST OF THE WEEK CLUB." Details need to be worked out. A short side meeting is in order to determine the when's where, who's etc., but the process in general may work like this: Each week, we deliver a clean cornie to Town Hall. Around Wednesday, they skim yeast and fill our cornie and return it to the fridge. Later that afternoon or the next day, a selected MHBA member picks up the cornie and brings it to a pre-determined location where it can freely be shared. Active club members would be able to visit each week and take away as much viable yeast as they could possibly use. Many of their week-end brews would finish by Monday!!! The cultures will vary but there will be some standard ales, belgian, lager, and some very interesting yeasts. OK, some details need to be worked out but your suggestions, ideas, and responses are appreciated. Please send your responses to my home address (mnbrewing(a)earthlink.net) or post them to mba(a)thebarn.com Thanks in advance - home this sparks some interest. Rick Oftel MHBA Member at Large -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Yahoo! Groups Links a.. To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mnbrewers/ b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: mnbrewers-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.