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Author Topic: Hoping to slowly return to brewing and yeast culturing  (Read 3465 times)

Offline BrewBama

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Hoping to slowly return to brewing and yeast culturing
« Reply #15 on: July 29, 2020, 07:45:16 am »
.... Brewing is like the song “Hotel California” in that one can check out, but one can never really leave. ...

+1. I took a hiatus when assigned to Europe back in the ‘90(s). Picked it back up once settled.

... No one who was serious about brewing used dry yeast because the quality of dry yeast was so poor. ...

How do you feel about today’s dry yeast?

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« Last Edit: July 29, 2020, 08:20:03 am by BrewBama »

Offline jeffy

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Re: Hoping to slowly return to brewing and yeast culturing
« Reply #16 on: July 29, 2020, 11:59:24 am »
Glad to see you back, Mark.  You made a huge contribution to our book.

I appreciate being included in your book. It was humbling.
Don't let it be too humbling.  He'll put just about anybody in his book. ;)
Jeff Gladish, Tampa (989.3, 175.1 Apparent Rennarian)
Homebrewing since 1990
AHA member since 1991, now a lifetime member
BJCP judge since 1995

Offline denny

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Re: Hoping to slowly return to brewing and yeast culturing
« Reply #17 on: July 29, 2020, 12:31:11 pm »
Glad to see you back, Mark.  You made a huge contribution to our book.

I appreciate being included in your book. It was humbling.
Don't let it be too humbling.  He'll put just about anybody in his book. ;)

Yeah, but you paid us!  😁
Life begins at 60.....1.060, that is!

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Offline jeffy

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Re: Hoping to slowly return to brewing and yeast culturing
« Reply #18 on: July 29, 2020, 12:34:58 pm »
Glad to see you back, Mark.  You made a huge contribution to our book.

I appreciate being included in your book. It was humbling.
Don't let it be too humbling.  He'll put just about anybody in his book. ;)

Yeah, but you paid us!  😁
I don't even remember buying you a homebrew, much less paying you.
Jeff Gladish, Tampa (989.3, 175.1 Apparent Rennarian)
Homebrewing since 1990
AHA member since 1991, now a lifetime member
BJCP judge since 1995

Offline denny

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Re: Hoping to slowly return to brewing and yeast culturing
« Reply #19 on: July 29, 2020, 01:53:31 pm »
Glad to see you back, Mark.  You made a huge contribution to our book.

I appreciate being included in your book. It was humbling.
Don't let it be too humbling.  He'll put just about anybody in his book. ;)

Yeah, but you paid us!  😁
I don't even remember buying you a homebrew, much less paying you.


😁
Life begins at 60.....1.060, that is!

www.dennybrew.com

The best, sharpest, funniest, weirdest and most knowledgable minds in home brewing contribute on the AHA forum. - Alewyfe

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell

Offline mchrispen

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Re: Hoping to slowly return to brewing and yeast culturing
« Reply #20 on: July 30, 2020, 01:20:18 pm »
Glad you are back! We missed ya!
Matt Chrispen
Sometime Austin Zealot
Blogging from the garage @ accidentalis.com
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Offline Saccharomyces

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Re: Hoping to slowly return to brewing and yeast culturing
« Reply #21 on: August 02, 2020, 08:58:51 am »
Glad you are back! We missed ya!

I missed the camaraderie displayed on this forum.  It is a very "chill" forum compared to other brewing forums.  The other forum to which I used to post, Jim's Beer Kit, is kind of like a British equivalent of the AHA forum in that respect. 

What I like about the AHA forum and Jim's Beer Kit that everyone appears to be open to new ideas. I will may take a little persuasion, but most people will give a new idea a shot. Not having to feel defensive all the time when posting allows one to take in new ideas and knowledge.  The last four years were not my first multi-year hiatus from the hobby.  I took an eight-year hiatus while raising my children.  I did not think that I would come back to brewing, so I dispensed with the brewhouse and labware I had at the time (which was significantly less than the gear and labware that I let go during the last four years); however, as I mentioned, brewing is like the song "Hotel California," one can check out, but one can never truly leave.  I remember a sales person asking a new homebrewer if he planned to batch or fly sparge the first time I re-entered a homebrewing supplier that I have been using since early 1993 after my first hiatus.  Batch sparging, what the heck is that?  At first, I was certain that it would not work as well as continuous sparging, but I was wrong.  To my chagrin, Denny returned the favor.  SNS was not a slam dunk with him, but he gave it a shot and realized that he was working harder than he needed to work.  That is one thing that I truly admire about Denny.  He is constantly in search of brewing the best beer while using the simplest process.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2020, 09:20:59 pm by Saccharomyces »

Offline ynotbrusum

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Re: Hoping to slowly return to brewing and yeast culturing
« Reply #22 on: August 02, 2020, 02:01:43 pm »
Learning from others is arguably the best use of one’s time.   Confirming with your own experience could be the second best use of one’s time.  Humility and open-mindedness are wonderful human traits, as well...I find those here a lot.  Cheers, homebrewers!
Hodge Garage Brewing: "Brew with a glad heart!"

Offline smkranz

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Re: Hoping to slowly return to brewing and yeast culturing
« Reply #23 on: August 02, 2020, 06:38:35 pm »
Well dang, Mark, it's great to see your return.
Steve K.
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Offline BrewBama

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Re: Hoping to slowly return to brewing and yeast culturing
« Reply #24 on: August 02, 2020, 08:25:17 pm »

I missed the camaraderie displayed on this forum.  It is a very "chill" forum compared to other brewing forums.
...


+1   Though we’ve had our moments (I’m looking in the mirror), I often go to other forums and forget where I am. It doesn’t take long be be snapped back to reality.  ...and not just brewing forums.  You might not be surprised but there are some real jack wagons out there. I heard on the news some lady in a knitting circle committed suicide because of hell she caught in a forum for having the ‘wrong’ position on a topic. Crazy stuff.

You figure a forum of like minded folks congregate to ask and answer questions, and carry on thought experiments would be a friendly environment, but some are down right nasty to a newcomer asking a question. ...and not shy about berating a newb for ‘not doing your homework’ or ‘research’ before asking, either. They eat there young. I laugh because without the new blood consistently regenerating from the bottom the top will simply die off and the forum will collapse.


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Offline Saccharomyces

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Re: Hoping to slowly return to brewing and yeast culturing
« Reply #25 on: August 02, 2020, 10:04:03 pm »
My first experience with online brewing conversations was on rec.crafts.brewing, which was a USENET group.  That was when I first started to brew.  I am almost absolutely certain that James Liddil was almost single-handedly responsible for introducing the magnetic stir plate to the homebrewing community, but he was dealing with difficult to culture microflora. Jim was the first person I know of who attempted to rescue wild yeast and bugs from bottles of Lambic.  Brewers today have no idea as to how primitive things were during the first big growth spurt of the hobby.

To answer BrewBama's question as to how I feel about dry yeast, all I can say is that the dry yeast that is being produced today is light years better than what was available when I entered the hobby in early 1993.  However, I rarely used dry yeast before I took my latest hiatus because yeast culturing was always a big part of the hobby for me.  What started out as a necessity due to the fact Wyeast smack packs were difficult to get on the East Cost turned into a companion hobby.  We have to remember that White labs did not exist in 1993.  I started by culturing BRY-96 from a bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. I started the dregs from a bottle in a small amount of 1.020 wort.  I then plated the starter after it started for "singles." The healthiest well-isolated colonies were transferred to slant.  I was able to successfully culture a few other brewery yeast strains before I encountered a BrewTek advertisement in Brewing Techniques.  BrewTek was a fantastic resource for the yeast culturing brewer. What a lot of people do not know is that Wyeast 1450 was originally a BrewTek culture known as CL-50 California Pub Brewery Ale.  Denny managed to keep the culture alive until Wyeast picked it up.  That is why the yeast culture is known as "Denny's Favorite 50."  The "50" is for CL-50.  I maintained a handful BrewTek cultures for a decade before I took my first hiatus from brewing. What I am led to believe is that the early BrewTek cultures came from the Maltose Falcon's yeast bank.  Maribeth Raines, the scientist behind BrewTek, was a Falcon.  The source of CL-50 has never been disclosed, but my bet is on it being North Coast's house strain, which Mark Ruedrich acquired from UC Davis.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2020, 06:55:02 pm by Saccharomyces »

Offline BrewBama

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Re: Hoping to slowly return to brewing and yeast culturing
« Reply #26 on: August 04, 2020, 07:29:34 am »
Interesting history.


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Offline denny

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Re: Hoping to slowly return to brewing and yeast culturing
« Reply #27 on: August 04, 2020, 07:43:17 am »
My first experience with online brewing conversations was on rec.crafts.brewing, which was USENET group.  That was when I first started to brew.  I am almost absolutely certain that James Liddil was almost single-handedly responsible for introducing the magnetic stir plate to the homebrewing community, but he was dealing with difficult to culture microflora. Jim was the first person I know of who attempted to rescue wild yeast and bugs from bottles of Lambic.  Brewers today have no idea as to how primitive things were during the first big growth spurt of the hobby.

To answer BrewBama's question as to how I feel about dry yeast, all I can say is that the dry yeast that is being produced today is light years better than what was available when I entered the hobby in early 1993.  However, I rarely used dry yeast before I took my latest hiatus because yeast culturing was always a big part of the hobby for me.  What started out as a necessity due to the fact Wyeast smack packs were difficult to get on the East Cost turned into a companion hobby.  We have to remember that White labs did not exist in 1993.  I started by culturing BRY-96 from a bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. I started the dregs from a bottle in a small amount of 1.020 wort.  I then plated the starter after it started for "singles." The healthiest well-isolated colonies were transferred to slant.  I was able to successfully culture a few other brewery yeast strains before I encountered a BrewTek advertisement in Brewing Techniques.  BrewTek was a fantastic resource for the yeast culturing brewer. What a lot of people do not know is that Wyeast 1450 was originally a BrewTek culture known as CL-50 California Pub Brewery Ale.  Denny managed to keep the culture alive until Wyeast picked it up.  That is why the yeast culture is known as "Denny's Favorite 50."  The "50" is for CL-50.  I maintained a handful BrewTek cultures for a decade before I took my first hiatus from brewing. What I am led to believe is that the early BrewTek cultures came from the Maltose Falcon's yeast bank.  Maribeth Raines, the scientist behind BrewTek, was a Falcon.  The source of CL-50 has never been disclosed, but my bet is on it being North Coast's house strain, which Mark Ruedrich acquired from UC Davis.

Was and still is.  We have some yeast storage info from her coming up on the next podcast.
Life begins at 60.....1.060, that is!

www.dennybrew.com

The best, sharpest, funniest, weirdest and most knowledgable minds in home brewing contribute on the AHA forum. - Alewyfe

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell

Offline Slowbrew

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Re: Hoping to slowly return to brewing and yeast culturing
« Reply #28 on: August 04, 2020, 07:57:06 am »
I remember rec.crafts.brewing.  It was a very important resource to me way back when I started this.  Forums are so much easier to use than USENET was. 

I have no interest in today's "social media" environment (I really struggled with that adjective  ;) ).  Too many years in software security work to ever consider those sites safe in any way.  It's also a bit of "git off my lawn" mentality, I'm sure.

Glad to see you back on the forum and looking forward to more insights and learning from your experience!

Paul
Where the heck are we going?  And what's with this hand basket?

Offline Saccharomyces

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Re: Hoping to slowly return to brewing and yeast culturing
« Reply #29 on: August 04, 2020, 07:29:58 pm »
Was and still is.  We have some yeast storage info from her coming up on the next podcast.

I will have to check that one out.  It is amazing how much impact Maribeth and the Falcons made on amateur brewing. She taught an entire generation of brewers how to collect and manage yeast cultures. The number of yeast cultures available to the amateur brewing community exploded after she put together her yeast culturing book and kit. I learned how to pour almost condensation-free plates from Maribeth.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2020, 07:35:23 pm by Saccharomyces »