So like the title stated, I’m trying to harvest a yeast strain that ferments wort and also that taste good. I have spent the last year reading about this. I have also been doing some yeast experiments, freezing, reusing, etc to get me ready for this very task.

One thing that I have learned is when harvesting yeast you want to do it at the ideal time of year. During the summer months the air is going to be full of a lot of active bugs and not the best time to harvest yeast from the outside. What I have learned is harvesting yeast during a cool day is ideal as we know yeast ferments 50-70F(10-21C) and that is around when we want to harvest. I had brewed a beer on the weekend and pulled 1000 mL of wort off to be used for the experiment. It happen to be a sunny cool fall day and though this was the perfect conditions to get what I’m looking for, maybe?. I had placed the flask with 1000 mL of wort outside near where I grow my hops. I had just cut the hop vines down the other day, additional in the area there is a crab apple tree, a pear tree, and an apple tree(not sure of the variety but they taste good). Left it there from 10 am till about 6 pm and brought in the flask from the outside and tossed on an air lock.

After a few days, there wasn’t really any activity until day 3 and I started to see some activity and on day 4 this yeast was going to town on the wort with no current off smells from the fermentation. What is the chance I got something clean right off the bat? Morning of day 5 the krausen had started to fall.

After full fermentation was completed, no gravity reading just seeing the activity stop I placed the flask in my keezer at 40F(4.4C) to allow the yeast to drop out so I can decant off the beer. I had purchased some new toys for the next steps.

So after a few days in the keezer I poured off 12 oz into a can with some sugar to carbonate up. Can’t wait to taste this compared to the original beer using Imperial Yeast. The smell wasn’t bad and smelled just like the original beer. What is the chance I got a yeast on the first pass by?