Culturing yeast from bottles

[The Green Man]

Hello brewing brethren. I had some Belgian beers recently and thought I might try to culture some of the yeast from the bottom of the bottles and mix it in with some of my Saison yeast (that I will also recover from bottles).
At the moment, I have just swirled the bottles with warm water and added some sugar in the hope of giving them something to eat.
I have mixed yeast from three very different beers (dubel, triple and something they referred to as a barley wine?).
Any opinions/ advice?

 

[The Green Man]

My plan is to add this mixture to a little wort from next brew on Wednesday to make a starter/ mini 5 litre batch of a weird NEIPA (without the copious dry hopping) with Belgian yeast.

 

[GFHomebrew]

Your plan looks sound I've done it once and had success. Good luck be ultra sanitary

 

[Bubba Wade]

Note that some of the Belgian beers use a different yeast for bottle conditioning than they use for primary fermentation. You may want to make a small test batch first and verify that you’re getting the desired flavor profile.

 

[The Green Man]

Thanks Bubba and Trial Ben. I am going to let my blend of recovered yeast loose in a very small batch of NEIPA wort and see what it does. I haven't been ultra-sanitary, so it may already be too late this time around. I will bottle up a few and leave the rest on the cake while the test batch bottle conditions. We shall see.
If all goes well, I think I may have enough yeast from my trial batch to pitch into a full batch next time. Just have to see.
Interesting times.

 

[thunderwagn]

If you can find it in your area, Funkwerks Saison makes a fine yeast for culturing.

 

[Nosybear]

Thanks Bubba and Trial Ben. I am going to let my blend of recovered yeast loose in a very small batch of NEIPA wort and see what it does. I haven't been ultra-sanitary, so it may already be too late this time around. I will bottle up a few and leave the rest on the cake while the test batch bottle conditions. We shall see.
If all goes well, I think I may have enough yeast from my trial batch to pitch into a full batch next time. Just have to see.
Interesting times.

I'd try it in a mild, blonde-style ale to see what the yeast really does before pitching it into something so highly flavored. Just a thought.

 

[The Green Man]

I'd try it in a mild, blonde-style ale to see what the yeast really does before pitching it into something so highly flavored. Just a thought.

Thanks Nosybear. I see what you are saying. It's just a convenience thing, tbh. When I brew up using this yeast it will be with a more simple, much less hoppy wort. Like you say the flavour profile may get lost in the hops otherwise.
Not even sure that I will have enough yeast from this 2-5 litre batch to pitch into a full 20 litre batch anyway. Might take another slightly larger batch to get to that point.

 

[Mark Farrall]

I doubt that any of the abbey style beers will be in this list, as it's focused on sours, but it's a useful resource of weird yeast and bacteria that aren't pasteurised or bottled using a bottling yeast - https://www.themadfermentationist.com/p/dreg-list.html