Hoegaarden Yeast starter

[Aussie Claret]

Hi all,
I've made a few starters previously, without any problem and last night attempted to make a starter for a Belgium Wit from the dregs of 3 Hoegaarden wit stubbies.
I've heard that they can be a bit tricky to get going and that it may take upto 3 days to start, as anyone else tried and did you have any problems?

Probably a little early to see any action (nothing this morning after 12hours).

The starter was made with one large table spoon of Morgans wheat malt and one large table spoon of honey boiled in about 1 litre of water, then cooled; shook to areate then pitched in the stubbie dregs shaken again then banged a bung and air lock on. Everything sanitised.

Thanks in advance
AC

[NickMoore]

when dogger said he had trouble making a starter from cooper's in canada, I thought there might be some quarantine restriction that prohibits the importation of live yeast and so cooper's had to kill the yeast before export.

so I wondered if that was also possible for beer imported here, including your belgain wit.

the australian government website says you can bring in beer yeast starter cultures with a permit, if "the product is not on a grain or milk based carrier".

does a bottle of beer counts as a grain-based carrier?

[Dogger Dan]

Nick,

I actually got it to go but boy, there were some tender loving moments

Dogger

[Aussie Claret]

Thanks Nick,
Others seem to have been able to make a starter from hoegaarden so I believe that the yeast should be viable.

The BB date on the bottles was 10/06, but the yeast looked quite dark brown in colour and there wasn't much of it in the bottles (very thin film); does this seem normal?
Cheers
AC

[NTRabbit]

My belgian white was just bottled last night, and i used a hoegaarden starter for it. Dregs from one stubbie, 500ml of water, 4 tbsp of dextrose and 1/4 tsp of yeast nutrient.

I gave it extra time before my ingredients arrived in the mail because I heard it was difficult to get started - was going after maybe a day and a half, and went so well that it actuallly ran out of dextrose to eat about 2 days before my ingredients got here.

[Aussie Claret]

Thanks guys, I'll let you know if it doesn't start in a day or so.
Cheers
AC

[Aussie Claret]

Well it took 2 days, I fed it further and ended up with about 2 litres which I've just pitched into my clone recipe.
Thanks for the help.
AC
The recipe was
Morgans Golden Wheat 1.7kgs
250g honey
1kg Morgans wheat malt
500g Coopers BE1
4 slivers of orange rind
1 tea spoon of crush coriander seeds
2litres of Hoegaarden recultured yeast.
Hope it works out.
Cheers

[NRB]

I found culturing it easy enough, but the beer it produced wasn't particularly nice. I ended up purchasing some WYeast 3944 for my next crack at Hoegaarden.

[Cheeno]

I put a Hoegaarden down last week using roughly the same recipe that I got at the local brewshop. No honey, and the supplied coriander seeds looked more like two tablespoons than a teaspoon. I also used the rind of two oranges and the supplied wheat yeast. Filled up to 22 litres. It certainly smells like the real deal. Am waiting on a taste test from a friend that is addicted to Hoegaarden. Fingers croosed

[yardglass]

I put a Hoegaarden down last week using roughly the same recipe that I got at the local brewshop. No honey, and the supplied coriander seeds looked more like two tablespoons than a teaspoon. I also used the rind of two oranges and the supplied wheat yeast. Filled up to 22 litres. It certainly smells like the real deal. Am waiting on a taste test from a friend that is addicted to Hoegaarden. Fingers croosed

hey Cheeno,

how about putting it in 'Recipes' for us ?

cheers
yardglass

[Cheeno]

Sorry, didn't have it to hand this morning.

Black Rock Whispering Wheat
1kg Dry Wheat Malt
15g Coriander seeds (crushed)
2 tablespoons orange peel (zest only)
Safale K-97 yeast
Final volume 21 litres

Add malt,coriander and peel to boiling water (2 litres recommended) Simmer 15 minutes. Rest 15 minutes then strain. Continue brewing as normal.

As you can see I added an extra litre of water and a little bit more orange peel. It just felt right. The yeast yeast listed is the one I used.

I am no expert but as I said it sure smells close

[NickMoore]

this from michael jackson's "world guide to beer" regarding hoegaarden:

"A top-fermenting yeast is used. After the primary fermention, the beer is bottle-conditioned with a different culture."

[quart53]

have a similar brew down at the moment, used dregs from 6 stubbies to get starter results are to put it kindly volcanic see post -ntrabbit hoegardenam kind of worried because money latd ouy on this one

[kurtz]

Thank you NickMoore
Michae Jackson is indeed correc. These breweries guard their yeast intensely and are of course not going to send their main yeast strain around the world in a thouand and one ships. Iam not certain about Coopers but certainly all the Belgian Bottle conditioned beers use a bottling yeast, fairly bland and unremarkable yeast that is not likely to go ga-gas under various changing environments.
Hoegaarden, BTW is a Wit beer and this infers a high proportion (50% say) of unmalted wheat. Unmalted wheat imparts a quite different profile than malted.

K

[gregb]

Coopers have (on the Coopers Club forum) repeatedly stated that the bottling strain is the same as the primary strain. They even go on to tell us how to best go about culturing up thier yeast.

Cheers,
Greg

[shane_vor]

Depends on who says what. I reckon I read more than I should have about culturing yeast when I tried the chimay. Someone says no it's a bottling yeast someone else says nah it's the fermentation yeast left in the bottle.
Bugger me! Who's right? Well you'll never know unless you try for yourself.

For my mind with regards to the chimay, the culture 'smells' alot like the beer from the bottle. Poor things have to age for a bit now though....in a while I'll be able to tell conclusively one way or the other...

culture on dudes!

[kurtz]

All a lot of fun and you say that you re-cultured yeast from an $8 bottle !
A few things to remember though...
You need about 10 Billion yeast cells for a 19 litre batch these 10 billion cells do a bit of splitting and a bit of dying and convert this 19 litres of say 1050 wort to say 1010 in about say 7 days.
Brewer adds some yeast to the bottle with the fermented wort (beer now) and lets it do its work to carbonate, he is not however going to use anywhere near as much yeast in the bottle.
Brewer conditions and sends the product out, at best it may have 10 million cells (fresh) in the bottle but as it is transported and shipped and goes through temperature changes, not to mention the effect of the dissolved CO2 on the yeast we are going to have a drop off.
5 million is about as good as you could hope for, 1 million may be closer to the mark (after all once the yeast has done its job of oxygen scavenging and carbonation it is of little use.)
These figures indicate a step up to even get to pitching level of the order of 2 to 10 million times.
Not all that difficult except that few hundred cells of whatever is floating get pushed up 10 million times as well and become a wild yeast infection.
If you really want to ranch up some yeast from a commercial bottle you really need to plate it up, whip off the viable yeast colonies, start them up to say 50ml then boost that up to 250ml and maybe do a third for good luck all under the most aseptic conditions you can.
At the very least collect the yeast before you drink the beer!!!

K

[Cheeno]

Just by the by the beer I'm drinking at the moment is the sister beer of the one mentioned above - it has the addition of app. 200g honey. It's coming up on two months old now and I am enjoying it a lot. Aforementioned Hoegaarden fan is suitably polite. I had a few jars of Hoegaarden in the CBD on the weekend and I have to say that (out of the tap) the flavour of orange and cinnamon is almost medicinal...well maybe compared to mine. Will the flavors in mine intensify in time or drop away?

[shane_vor]

All a lot of fun and you say that you re-cultured yeast from an $8 bottle !
A few things to remember though...
You need about 10 Billion yeast cells for a 19 litre batch these 10 billion cells do a bit of splitting and a bit of dying and convert this 19 litres of say 1050 wort to say 1010 in about say 7 days.
Brewer adds some yeast to the bottle with the fermented wort (beer now) and lets it do its work to carbonate, he is not however going to use anywhere near as much yeast in the bottle.
Brewer conditions and sends the product out, at best it may have 10 million cells (fresh) in the bottle but as it is transported and shipped and goes through temperature changes, not to mention the effect of the dissolved CO2 on the yeast we are going to have a drop off.
5 million is about as good as you could hope for, 1 million may be closer to the mark (after all once the yeast has done its job of oxygen scavenging and carbonation it is of little use.)
These figures indicate a step up to even get to pitching level of the order of 2 to 10 million times.
Not all that difficult except that few hundred cells of whatever is floating get pushed up 10 million times as well and become a wild yeast infection.
If you really want to ranch up some yeast from a commercial bottle you really need to plate it up, whip off the viable yeast colonies, start them up to say 50ml then boost that up to 250ml and maybe do a third for good luck all under the most aseptic conditions you can.
At the very least collect the yeast before you drink the beer!!!

K

Perhaps you're suggesting that culturing from commercial bottles is a bit hit and miss without plating? No kidding! You are not talking to idiots here.

[pharmaboy]

Thank you NickMoore
Michae Jackson is indeed correc. These breweries guard their yeast intensely and are of course not going to send their main yeast strain around the world in a thouand and one ships. Iam not certain about Coopers but certainly all the Belgian Bottle conditioned beers use a bottling yeast, fairly bland and unremarkable yeast that is not likely to go ga-gas under various changing environments.
Hoegaarden, BTW is a Wit beer and this infers a high proportion (50% say) of unmalted wheat. Unmalted wheat imparts a quite different profile than malted.

K

"but certainly ALL Belgian....use a bottling yeast"???? ROTFLMAO! certainly is a big word to cover oh a thousand or so different belgian beers i would think.

So they guard these yeasts so much that hoegaarden would never use their main strain etc, but implicit in your replies is that using a liquid yeast from whitelabs or wyeast is the go - who of course sell belgian wit from hoegaarden! Anyone see the logic gap there?

Having (like many others) brewed using the hoegaarden yeast in the bottle, it is absolutely, positively, without doubt a wheat style yeast, huge krausen, right phenlics blah blah blah. While it is possible that hoe use a different yeast in primary to secondary, they do use a wheat in botle, and its very likely extraordinarily similar to that offered by wyeast, that purprts to be the same.