Jon Purchases Magic Beans, Considers Harvesting Yeast

I swear to god, the guy who runs the local brewshop must have seen me coming from day one. I ducked in there today - almost on a whim - to look into perhaps a heating pad. Winter is coming, after all. I'd hate for my beer to get cold before I have a chance to refrigerate it. Anywho, I was presented with two competing heat-pads, one made from plastic, the other made from wood. "What's the difference between these two?," I foolishly ask. Next thing I know, I'm being presented with a badly warped plastic pad (that just happened to be lying around) as if to say "This could happen to you!" That was enough to make me pony up the extra $20 for the wood one, so my Bootleg Bill's Brown Ale now proudly nestles on one of those. True story.

But if I may, I'd like to talk about yeast harvesting for a second. While I had previously considered yeast harvesting to be something from the deepest fathoms of Lovecraft's nightmares, it's come to my attention (on the internet - where else) that people actually do this. I've got to confess that, upon siphoning the beer from primary and being presented with a layer of curdled yeast, my first thought it usually "Yuck! This is going straight down the drain!," as opposed to "I can't wait to collect this in mason jars and use it over and over again!"

Then again, what the hell do I know? I am only - after all - a fledgeling home brewer. If it's supposed to be a cost-saving thing, I really don't see the point if all I'm using (while perfectly decent) are the $7 dried sachets of Mangrove Jack's. If I were to invest in pricier yeast, that'd be a different story. If it were something to do with cross-breeding different strains, that's definitely something I'd like to get funky with at some stage. However as tolerant as my flatmate may be, she'd be none too happy about a row of dirty-ass mason jars full of yeast taking up precious real estate in an already overcrowded fridge.

But to cut a long story short, there goes the last $60 I had for the week. Bummer. I'd hate to wager how much time and money I've sunk into this hobby, but it's been a hell of a lot for just three months. I've always maintained that it'd be cheaper just to buy beer, but if you do that, the beer barons win. And where's the bragging rights?