My latest project has involved gaining a greater understanding and appreciation for the yeast that I use in the brewing process. One of my earliest posts regarded freezing yeast for long term storage. At the time I was simply regurgitating information I had read on internet blogs and homebrew forums. While this process did seem to work (to an extent at least), I have since learned that it is not the best method for yeast storage. A far better method involves culturing onto an agar slant and storing in the refrigerator as shown here:
The same knowhow that goes into this process also allows for isolation and purification of yeast strains on agar plates as so:
If you are at all interested in learning these methods I can't recommend this book highly enough (Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermenation). My hope is that employing the techniques I have learned in reading this book will not only allow me to store yeast more successfully, but will also improve the quality of the beers I brew.
One of the main reasons I haven't updated the blog in a while is that a number of my most recent beers have suffered from flaws, which render them less than enjoyable, in my opinion. While I fully intend for this blog to be a catalog of every beer I brew, I cannot deny that I have found it more difficult to motivate myself to write about the failures. However, the failures also tend to be the primary factors moving the ship forward and saving me from complacency. One of my favorite writers (David Foster Wallace) loved to expound upon the profound meanings underlying many of the cliches we all know but seldom follow. Anyone who has seen this video will know what I am talking about. He died 6 years from yesterday, so in his honor I will end this post with a cliche. Those who can't learn from their failures are bound to repeat them. Here's to hoping we can learn from ours.
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