Making a starter from a can of beer

Question

My wife™️ and I made a yeast starter last night using the usual H2O with DME, and we wanted to culture the yeast from a can of beer we've had in the pantry for some time.

The can of beer we chose was 4 four corners el superbee, it's a local beer brewed in the dallas metroplex area, and from drinking previous cans of beer, I've always noticed quite a bit of yeast at the bottom of the can, so I thought I'd attempt to try and build a starter from the dregs left within the can.

I've successfully cultured yeast from bottles of beer before, but have never attempted to culture yeast from a can, so thus the reason for my question.

I'd appreciate any and all constructive feedback on this subject matter.

cheers 🍻
Chris

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March 28, 2020

below is a picture of what i'm seeing ~ 30 to 36 hours later after pitching the yeast from the can into the starter.

https://i.sstatic.net/un6hX.jpg

Answer 1

There is no reason why the process should be different between culturing from a can or culturing from a bottle. At the filling outlet, the beers should be the same for both.

The only thing I would add, and emphasize, always use fresh cans or bottles. Inspect the packaging date, if possible.

The only thing that might be more difficult is seeing how much you already poured out from a can, versus a bottle. Keep your can first a couple of days in the fridge so that the yeast is dropped out well and maybe a little bit compacted, so that you have more chance to keep it in the can before you add your starter wort.

Edit: a bit more about propagating yeast from bottles and cans (after seeing the attached media)

1. Use starter wort of about 5 Bx
2. Start with 5 ml starter wort for your step. Use this to rinse your bottle/can and put this in a small vial
3. Only after this has fermented out, step up to larger volumes, but not more than 10x the previous volume. If you don't have a stir plate, use lower volumes.