My wild yeast collection experiment

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Brewsit

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I put a quart mason jar full of boiled wort outside to see what kind of yeast I could collect. So far, I have an interesting looking array of things growing (5 day mark). It doesn't smell bad, just smells... different. If anyone has the expertise to identify what I have so far, please comment! There is an oily slick look to it, with different mold-looking cultures starting, from what I can tell.

I'll post updates as I reach other points in the process.

photo-3.jpg
 
Any signs of fermentation or active yeast in that jar? Looks like you're getting mold on top, you might want to skim off those white/green/gray fluffy spots or scrap the whole thing and start fresh.
 
Yea I was going to ask the question about skimming the mold. Seeing as here in Texas it's almost impossible to keep mold out of the equation (everything molds here, even rocks, and people if they sit still long enough). It looks a lot more evil and scary today, with bigger growths, some turned yellow, the whole thing looks like a mold garden. There is a decent amount of light colored sediment on the bottom, but I'm not sure if there's any yeast going on. I'll post pictures soon.
 
Don't worry about the mold being dangerous at this point but you do want to scrape it off. I have done a couple of wines using natural yeast and the direction all say to scrape the mold off before doing any thing with it.
 
Thanks for that. I scraped it off (it all came off as one chunk) and spritzed some starsan around the top to maybe inhibit new growth. Of course, I don't know what I'm doing, really. There is definitely a good amount of light tan sediment on the bottom, so we will see where it goes.
 
It's got yeast! I noticed this morning a very healthy tan krausen forming on top. It smells good, too. Hard to say what to expect at this point, but it is fermenting. I have the lid just resting on top, and the ring loose enough for gas to escape. Any tips on how long to let it go before crashing and harvesting?
 
If you are willing to give it the time it needs for a true wild fermentation and don't mind "wasting" a full 5 gallon batch, I would brew something with pils, wheat and low IBUs and pitch that jar while it is still at high krausen
 
I was actually hoping to save it and cultivate it for a later batch. Any reason I shouldn't do this?
 
I was actually hoping to save it and cultivate it for a later batch. Any reason I shouldn't do this?

Ive tried what your trying to do before and....its a nightmare.

Theres a reason we have so much sanitation involved with this hobby. Im not saying its impossible to culture a true sachh/pedio/lacto/brett culture from wild air but its HIGHLY unlikely you get what traits your looking for.

When culturing yeast, you choose healthy uniform colonies to ensure healthy unmutated yeast banks.

Unfortunately that picture you posted is mostly blue mold which is nothing close to what you want fermenting your beer. I would be surprised if this "quart" batch tastes good/drinkable by the end of the week but by all means please experiment, thats where we all get the creative mind to try new things.

Just dont get your hopes up when its not what you expect.
Cheers nd good luck!
 
Ive tried what your trying to do before and....its a nightmare.

Theres a reason we have so much sanitation involved with this hobby. Im not saying its impossible to culture a true sachh/pedio/lacto/brett culture from wild air but its HIGHLY unlikely you get what traits your looking for.

When culturing yeast, you choose healthy uniform colonies to ensure healthy unmutated yeast banks.

Unfortunately that picture you posted is mostly blue mold which is nothing close to what you want fermenting your beer. I would be surprised if this "quart" batch tastes good/drinkable by the end of the week but by all means please experiment, thats where we all get the creative mind to try new things.

Just dont get your hopes up when its not what you expect.
Cheers nd good luck!

If you're trying to cultivate wild yeast, what colors would you look for?
 
If you're trying to cultivate wild yeast, what colors would you look for?

I don't think colors on the top are what you are looking for, rather, actual yeast activity and tan/off white uniform color.

In response to the earlier post - I appreciate the feedback and words of caution. I definitely don't have extremely high hopes for this, but I plan on doing what I can to salvage some yeast from this and use it to inoculate a gallon (or less) of wort to see if I can get any good/interesting flavors out of it.

Any tips to better my chances are much appreciated.
 
I don't think colors on the top are what you are looking for, rather, actual yeast activity and tan/off white uniform color.

In response to the earlier post - I appreciate the feedback and words of caution. I definitely don't have extremely high hopes for this, but I plan on doing what I can to salvage some yeast from this and use it to inoculate a gallon (or less) of wort to see if I can get any good/interesting flavors out of it.

Any tips to better my chances are much appreciated.

I would suggest inoculating more than just a gallon. For as long as it's going to take me the flavors to really develop and come through, you'll be wishing you made a full five gallon batch if it turns out well.
 
Cool experiment. :rockin:
I would make a 5 gallon batch of something and then sparge off a little extra wort for experimenting with the wild yeast culture.
I sort of did that today with my first attempt at a Berliner Weisse. I cultured Lactobacillus (hopefully) from some crushed pale malt and warm water (1 cup grain to 2 cups water, maintained at 95F for 24 hours). I actually made two of those cultures, just in case one went bad or something. I also made a standard DME starter and pitched the dregs of 6 bottles, 4 different sour ales, that I had in the fridge. I used a slow cooker base for heat, setting a cookie cooling rack on top and the cultures on the rack. I put a thermometer in one culture and it was a constant 95F with the slow cooker on the lowest setting. Kind of lucky :D. There was some gas production, probably CO2, after about 10 or 12 hours. Lots of slow, bubbly rearranging of grains and stuff. When I checked it in the morning, it was covered with a white film and it smelled "lactic" to me. It smelled like sour beers. I figured it was doing the right science-y thing and decided I was going to brew.
I mashed for an hour at 150F with 5.75 gallons of water.
3lb Pilsner malt (appears to be fairly standard ingredient)
2lb Light Wheat Malt (standard ingredient)
1lb White Wheat Malt (sounded good from other recipe descriptions)
I also mash hopped with 7 grams of Northern Brewer (because that's what I had in the freezer).
After 5 minutes in the mash, it was only at about 147F. I decided it would be a good time to learn how to do a "decoction mash"... fancy. I drained a gallon or so of wort and boiled it, then poured it back in and stirred more. 150F. :rockin: Pretty simple.
60 min later, I dropped in my (sanitized) wort chiller. Yes, right in the cooler mash tun. Screw it. Then I cooled it down to 110F-ish.
I had a home depot bucket sitting around and decided it was my new sour beer fermenter. I fit a paint strainer bag in the bucket and drained the wort into it. When it started to get full, I dumped in both of my grain-based Lactobacillus starters, liquid, grains and all into the bucket too. I put the cover on and airlocked it up. I'll try to maintain 95F -ish temps by various ghetto methods for a few days or more. I figure I'll taste it in a couple days for sourness, then daily until it has a noticeable sourness. Then I'll pull out the strainer bag with all the grains and cool to 65F. Then I pitch in some basic yeast and ferment until gravity stabilizes. (I'll be using some yeast that I grew from a bomber of Green Flash West Coast IPA, because I'm a cheap bastard).
I also decided to get even crazier so I "cold sparged" with another gallon of tap water and lautered into a 1 gal jug. (poured a gallon of water on the grain to get more, weaker beer). I then dumped in my starter that I made from the 6 sour beers I had in the fridge. We'll see what happens. It was a bubbling starter. It should do something.:D

lactobacillusculture.jpg
 
If you're trying to cultivate wild yeast, what colors would you look for?

I don't think colors on the top are what you are looking for, rather, actual yeast activity and tan/off white uniform color.

Great learning curve dude.
Anything dark/hairy/or having an abstract growth could be considered an infection, and avoided.

In response to the earlier post - I appreciate the feedback and words of caution. I definitely don't have extremely high hopes for this, but I plan on doing what I can to salvage some yeast from this and use it to inoculate a gallon (or less) of wort to see if I can get any good/interesting flavors out of it.

Any tips to better my chances are much appreciated.

If you look up culturing and slanting yeast to get even more into it, you'll be able to pull out individual colonies and grow them up separately to pitch in 1 gallon batches and have the option to decide between pure cultures that way. Look forward to your results!

Cheers.
 
Berliner Weisse sour grain starter update:
It's definitely working. Tasted the wort after pitching a 24-hour old grain starter and leaving it at 100F for 24 hours. Nice and tart. I pulled it off the warmer and passively cooled to 65F. Pitched yeast in the morning. I wrote up the whole process and recipe that I will post soon. This just might work.
 
Very cool. My starter had a really strong frothy krausen that bubbled up and out of the jar, and it lasted like that for about three days. After it fell back down, I had a decent amount of sediment on the bottom with color ranging from near white to tan. No sign of mold after the initial issue. It's sitting in the fridge right now, settling out until I get a chance to do something with it. I might harvest what's on the bottom, step it up, and see what happens the second round.
 
When a coolship is used to collect wild yeast, it is cooled overnight and that's all the exposure it gets. Having done what most of you have, I've found the best results to be exposure no more than 32 hours. My latest batch was exposed overnight, and was bubbling away 3 days later.
Check out my coolship thread. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/coolship-build-367440/

I plan to use this much more in the "traditional" coolship season (once it thaws out here in Maine)
 
I recently dumped 95% of this Berliner Weiss experiment. It was just too sour. I even made some simple syrups of various flavors to try to make it drinkable but it was just way, way too much sour. I dumped the experimental 1 gallon thing too. I thought about maybe keeping some bottles to innoculate another try but no, it was just too sour. I will try other sour beer methods someday. This did work, just too well.
 
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