harvesting yeast from Great Lakes beer

New to brewing and harvesting yeast. Stupid question: I've heard certain commercial beers that are bottle conditioned can be harvested for yeast. I'm wondering if Great Lakes Commodore Perry IPA (which I understand uses a WL London Ale 013 Yeast) is bottle conditioned? and if yeast from the bottle could be harvested for starter kit? I've seen information on internet doing this with Sierra Nevada but not sure about Great Lakes Beer. Have also seen that some breweries use different strains of yeast for bottling than making the beer.  I know it would be easier to just purchased a vial of WL 013 but the scientist in me is interested in trying this. I'm growing something in the starter, just not sure it's the yeast I'm looking to put into my Commodore Perry clone. Any help/input appreciated, thanks, Moose

I'm not sure if the Perry IPA is bottle conditioned, but you'd want to build it up since you don't know what state the yeast is in. What size starter did you use? And from how many bottles are you harvesting from?

If you have the option to harvest from a lower ABV, go for it. If you don't have that option, you're welcome to try. I recently harvested yeast from St Bernardus Pater 6. I used three bottles in a 200ml 1.010 starter to wake the yeast up. Let that run for a week and then pitched the whole thing into another 1.010 starter. Then a 1.020 starter. Then a 1.040 starter. Brew day.

It worked, but it took some time. So I was successful with a 7% beer. 7.5% shouldn't be that difficult. Does whatever is fermenting in your starter have a smell?

Thanks for feedback. The yeast is multiplying, no real smell. I didn't measure out starter, put about a cup of DME in two cups of water, cooled, poured into santized glass container, put foil over top,allowing air, shook it. Did starter with the DME and 1/5 bottle of Commodore Perry from two bottles. Shaking consistently. Yeast today, multipled about five times plus from when started. Not sure if it's the strain I'm looking for. Could try it, also thought about having another starter with Calif Ale, splitting the batch and ferment separately and see what happens. Just didn't want to ruin the batch. From the looks of it, if I let this continue, it would be ready to pour into wort by weekend if I use the eyeball test for how the yeast is multiplying.

Moose said:

I didn't measure out starter, put about a cup of DME in two cups of water...

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Did you get a gravity reading on this?  Sounds like it might have been pretty high, goal is typically 1.030-1.040.