Yeast Harvesting from Can Homebrewing

Hello /r/Homebrewing

 

I just wanted to get some discussion going about yeast harvesting from cans/bottles of unfiltered beer. Today I was able to score some Heady Topper and really wanted to harvest some of that Conan yeast. I kind of just flew by the seat of my pants and did what I thought was best. Please comment if there's maybe things that I could improve on or things I could do to have a better chance at a higher yield of yeast!

 

• Took 4 cans drank 80% of them and swirled the remaining 20% into my Erlenmeyer flask
  • Forgot to sanitize the rim of the can, something I thought of afterwards
  • Kept the sanitized flask in my refrigerator with it sealed until I enjoyed all 4 pints
• Then attempted to make a starter
  • Added 1L of water to a pot and brought it to a boil
  • Took the flask out of the refrigerator and let it warm up a bit while making starter
  • Added 62g of DME
  • Checked the gravity after 15 mins of boiling and was only at 1.030 and wanted to get to 1.04
  • Added another 25g of DME took another reading and was at 1.05 :/
• Chilled the wort in my sink with an ice bath
• Let the beer warm up a bit on my stir plate while I chilled my wort a bit more
• Finally put the wort into the beer and it's sitting on my stir plate now

 

For some reason I think that I may have messed something up and that I'm not going to get out a nice harvest. Somewhere between the unsanitary cans and the high OG of the starter or the temps of wort/beer I think it may not turn out how I want. Anyways let me know your experiences!

 

Thanks!

Submitted January 13, 2016 at 04:03AM by EpicDildo http://ift.tt/1UN3fW0 Homebrewing