Wild YEAST Appeared!

FIGHT PkMn
ITEM RUN

Pokemon joke. Sorry. Not even sure it's yeast yet anyway, but read on.

So I made up this solution of about 1 tbsp honey, 1 very small red apple (deseeded), and a shot of boiling water to make it blend more easily, blended it, covered it with Chux and a rubberband (I replaced the Chux with an ironed and cut-up old teatowel a few days ago) and left it outside last Thursday, so it's been out about 5 days. This is what it looks like now!



When I left it out, there was nothing exciting at all on top, except for like 3 bubbles in the middle where I had stirred it.

It now has a faint beery, citrusy smell while still retaining remnants of what it originally smelled like. It's not an unpleasant smell. There IS a small blob of mould in it, maybe 2 or 3 mm in diameter, so I'll just remove that with a sanitized teaspoon. I know the sticky said that before two weeks it's probably not the kind of stuff you want, but it reminds me a whole lot of my first experience and only other experience making a starter, aside from the mould.

I have no doubt that traces will remain of the mould once I've taken it out, but I figure that it looks like it's starting a colony and it's best to be rid of it before it gets too big.

So what should I do from here? I know the picture isn't great; it's from my webcam because we can't find the memory card for our DSLR. Here's another from the side. I'm not sure if you can see it, but little clumps of stuff do fall from near the surface down to the bottom, so that might be promising.


I'm happy to answer any more specific questions. The more we can learn about our little cyser metropolis, the better!

Start stepping up a starter and see what it smells and tastes like. It can only kill you once. Just joking. If it smells bad you might not want to drink any.

jeepinjeepin said:

Start stepping up a starter and see what it smells and tastes like. It can only kill you once. Just joking. If it smells bad you might not want to drink any.

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Cool, thanks for the super quick reply. I'm planning on making a mead or cider or something in between from this, so how would I go about making a starter and expanding this ramshackle yeastshanty into some kind of a neat little subrewb? My extremely unexperienced guess would be to bring it inside, add more sugars (honey and/or apple juice), stir, and cover with cloth? Or should I use clingwrap so they get their oxygen from the sugars instead of the air and start making alcohol?

And is there any reason why the sticky's rule of two weeks would be unapplicable in this situation? I'm not sure I want to be imbibing Enterobacter and other nasties.

(I would edit, but you might've begun replying so here's a new post, sorry if double posts are a big no-no here)

Just had another look at the sticky thread, and the initial post implies that during the Enterbacter/Kloeckera stage, there won't be any bubbles and foam, because he said the foam took 2 weeks to appear, and that's at the Saccharomyces stage, so does that mean it should be okay and that the process has just accelerated from the guidelines proposed by the sticky for the use of DME?

If so, my only other worry is the residual mould spores even after I scooped out the small colony and threw it out. It should be okay beneath the surface though, right? I might go and have a teaspoon taste of the liquid beneath the surface...

Back in a sec.

Where is that sticky? I'd like to give it a read. You would be doing yourself a favor to read up on yeast starters. Basically you mix up a sugar solution of a certain concentration and volume and add your yeast. Most often it is covered with aluminum foil. Swirl it around every time you walk by it. After a period of time you repeat the process with a larger volume.

jeepinjeepin said:

Where is that sticky? I'd like to give it a read. You would be doing yourself a favor to read up on yeast starters. Basically you mix up a sugar solution of a certain concentration and volume and add your yeast. Most often it is covered with aluminum foil. Swirl it around every time you walk by it. After a period of time you repeat the process with a larger volume.

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Thanks. I figured it would be as simple as that, but wasn't sure if the process was different for wild yeast, because I think I read that they like more complex sugars or something, but I'll assume you know your stuff.

The sticky is at the top of the Lambic forum.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/howto-capture-wild-yeast-101886/

Pith said:

Thanks. I figured it would be as simple as that, but wasn't sure if the process was different for wild yeast, because I think I read that they like more complex sugars or something, but I'll assume you know your stuff.

The sticky is at the top of the Lambic forum.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/howto-capture-wild-yeast-101886/

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This is the internet. Assume I know nothing. But yes, I would use DME instead of sugar/honey/juice. If you have a gram scale you are set. The ratio is 10:1. For a 1000mL starter measure out 100g of DME and add water to make up a total volume of 1000mL.

jeepinjeepin said:

This is the internet. Assume I know nothing. But yes, I would use DME instead of sugar/honey/juice. If you have a gram scale you are set. The ratio is 10:1. For a 1000mL starter measure out 100g of DME and add water to make up a total volume of 1000mL.

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Well, I don't drink beer with any kind of regularity (maybe 3 in the past month) or scrutiny, so I'd be a terrible judge of whether something even remotely "beer-flavoured" (I assume DME is) has a "good flavour" for a beer, so I'll just mix my culture up in some more honey/water (I'll go with your ratio), maybe with a splash of lemon juice and hope something cool happens.

90mL honey/apple yeast culture
10mL lemon juice
25mL honey
1L water

We'll see how he goes!



I squeezed the foil pretty tightly around the top... should I be letting air in?

Normal temperature drops will pull air in. You don't want flies and what not getting in there.

Added 1/3 of a cup of white sugar because I'm impatient and the mixture hardly tasted sweet at all beforehand. I wonder what would happen if I stuffed a slice of fruitcake in there? I might just go and do that now...

Poured some of the mixture into a glass, mashed about .5 x .5 x 1.5 inch slice of light fruit cake around in it and poured it back in. Looks rank.

Also added about 50mL of dead baker's yeast (I poured boiling water onto it) for nutrient. This'd better frikkin overflow with activity by the morning.

Are you oxygenating your "wort" after 24-48 hours or just leaving it? In order to get any sort of yeast activity you have to give them air. Personally, I would leave it out with just a cover of cheesecloth overnight and then shake it vigorously in the morning. Then leave it in the house to reproduce, shaking again every few hours the first couple of days. I didnt see any sort of "activity" with my grape yeast until day 5 or so. Long lag time should be expected. You're culturing from a VERY small sample pulled from the air. I wouldnt even expect activity until day 4 or 5.

statseeker said:

Are you oxygenating your "wort" after 24-48 hours or just leaving it? In order to get any sort of yeast activity you have to give them air. Personally, I would leave it out with just a cover of cheesecloth overnight and then shake it vigorously in the morning. Then leave it in the house to reproduce, shaking again every few hours the first couple of days. I didnt see any sort of "activity" with my grape yeast until day 5 or so. Long lag time should be expected. You're culturing from a VERY small sample pulled from the air. I wouldnt even expect activity until day 4 or 5.

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Thanks for the reply. I've given it access to oxygen several times tonight, and shaken it more times than I can remember, at least every hour. I'll go and take the cling wrap off and replace it with cloth.

The only other thing I've brewed was some citrus cordial, which was fizzing by the morning after I mixed it, and I had it covered with cling wrpa all along. I had inoculated it with 7g of baker's yeast rehydrated carefully though, so that might explain it.

That would explain it.

These are the steps I used:

1. Find grapes.

2. Make VERY small gravity starter (1.015) about a half a quart.

3. Put grapes in wort over night.

4. Shake vigorously every few hours in the first 2 days after. NO "activity" should be expected as they are just in the reproducing stage. It's just a little harmless yeast sex.

5. Step up the starter to 1.035-1.040 or so and add after decanting the spent 1.015.

6. Shake vigorously for 2 days.

7. Let em go at it again until a bigger sediment of yeast is formed. Then make another 1.040 wort and feed it to them. Now you should expect some sort of fermentation "activity".

I'm going to call it "The Fruity Hebrew", because it's got fruitcake and the brew has one of those headcloth things on it, like in pictures of people in kiddy bibles.

ARGH, my intuition - however limited and flimsy - is getting the better of me. Altogether I've added a tablespoon of honey, a 1/3 of a cup of white sugar, a soupy 100mL graveyard of nutritious dead yeast and a chunk of fruitcake. There's plenty of sugars in there for the yeast to breath and nutrients for them to eat. Something tells me that mould might come to reside on the chunks of cake in there if I let it be exposed to air anyway. I'll have to shake it often so that the potential homes of nasties get demolished often enough.

Covering it back up with cling wrap. If it screws up or doesn't work, I'll only have myself to blame and you can laugh at me.

I just fear for your sake that they're the wrong kind of sugars. They arent maltose. They're glucose.

statseeker said:

I just fear for your sake that they're the wrong kind of sugars. They arent maltose. They're glucose.

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EDIT: This was a dumb disrespectful post. Here's a nice bunny instead:

This morning at about 12 hours, it was fizzing and smelling a teensy bit unpleasant, but nothing too off.

24 hours and the thing smells like eggs. I strained the entire thing into another bottle and added a cup of chopped sultanas. Decided that a) I'll never add cake to any brew ever again, and b) I'm NOT trying to make an alcoholic beverage (I think I was a bit confused as to what I was actually wanting to end up with), so I just covered the thing with cloth so air can get in. I'll shake it tomorrow. Let's hope I can make the thing populated enough to only have to use a small amount of it to pitch a new brew.

If this whole thing goes to sheet, I promise never to add so many variables (and crappy variables at that) to my next wild yeast experiment. I made a similar honey/apple solution and sat it outside yesterday. Hopefully I can catch something else and stop being such a damn foo'.

That sounds like a better (and probably better producing) plan to me. You might end up with something like an apple wine if things go just right. The variables have to be right on. Good yeast, good fermentation, good temperature. Crossed fingers for you.

statseeker said:

That sounds like a better (and probably better producing) plan to me. You might end up with something like an apple wine if things go just right. The variables have to be right on. Good yeast, good fermentation, good temperature. Crossed fingers for you.

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Thanks for the well-wishes. I don't have huge hopes for this batch. I'm not sure I want to be pitching it into a brew if it still smells and/or tastes revolting by the time I'm done breeding, but if I can collect some new wild yeast with my new little solution I've set outside, I'll be much more conservative with my methods.

When you say I might end up with apple wine, are you referring to a) the weird thing I'm making now, b) the honey/apple thing I just set outside to grow new wild yeast, or c) a new product made using wild yeast starter and some apple wine ingredients? Not sure what you mean.

7 hours after I added the sultanas. They've risen to the top and the mixture appears not to smell so bad, but maybe it's just because of my blocked nose. It's bubbling heartily and a good portion of the sultanas have risen to the top.

How will I know the mixture is populated enough?

20 hours after the sultanas and the brew is smelling a lot nicer now, a little bit like the banana, honey and sultana sandwiches I remember from my childhood.

There's a layer of caramel-coloured stuff at the bottom of the bottle, and the sultanas (which have all risen to the surface; getting lighter?) are covered with similar coloured stuff. There are still plenty of bubbles. I'll put a lid on and shake it now.

Haha, it's very apparent that the sultanas I missed with the knife are rehydrating themselves. They just look like small grapes now. The colour on the sultanas might just have been the sultanas themselves, which is a bit of a bummer. I got all excited about the idea of yeasts perching themselves on the fruit and eating away.

So what could that caramel coloured stuff be? A component of the grapes? Stuff that didn't strain when I strained it (even though I used a teatowel)? Or something more microbiological?

Smelling really quite pleasant now. Tastes pretty dumb, though. Still sweet and convoluted from all the weird crap I put in there. It's still also quite opaque. Would it be better if I blended the sultanas that have been in there for the past few days? I'd pour off the liquid into a different container first, then recombine after whizzing in the processor.

I have an inkling it would make the sultanas sink more to the bottom because there wouldn't be so many gas bubbles between them holding them up, and a sub-inkling that that would make it ferment better, since it would all get the chance to be immersed in brew. A lot of the sultanas are floating above the liquid on top of some of their luckier brethren.

My advice.

Be. More. Patient.

It would be easier to be patient if I actually knew what it was I was waiting to happen.

That's where you need to simplify your method. Use your apple/honey mixture. Only use it. Leave it overnight. Oxygenate. Wait 5 days. No yeast? Dump and try again. Adding more sucrose and glucose and different components will only complicate an already long-shot process. I would also suggest getting some extra light dry malt extract to use in the process of building your first starter of whatever it is that you catch, that way it ferments in maltose and can then better ferment in beer. I only suggest this to help you on your mission. Not to in any way discredit your process.

statseeker said:

That's where you need to simplify your method. Use your apple/honey mixture. Only use it. Leave it overnight. Oxygenate. Wait 5 days. No yeast? Dump and try again. Adding more sucrose and glucose and different components will only complicate an already long-shot process. I would also suggest getting some extra light dry malt extract to use in the process of building your first starter of whatever it is that you catch, that way it ferments in maltose and can then better ferment in beer. I only suggest this to help you on your mission. Not to in any way discredit your process.

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Ah well. It's started now. I'm still quite a beginner, and have learnt a lot through experience. I'm sure nothing interesting will come of this experiment, but I have nothing to lose so why dump?
I'll just let this ferment until it stops, then taste it and see if I can use it in anything. If not, I'll dump it. I promise. It's got "wild yeast" in it, whether from the honey or the atmosphere, and that's still an exciting concept to someone so new as me. I really do appreciate the time you've taken to teach me the things you have.

Also, I'm not sure I made this clear: At this point in time, I cannot see myself ever making or drinking "beer". It might just be because I've only tried commercial Australian beer, which makes me wretch.

Anyway, the mixture has cleared now, and tastes unpleasant in a dry way. It's also quite beery in taste and aroma. Probably because I added that fruitcake and the grain in it got fermented.

It's still bubbling a bit though. Is the objective to keep it constantly bubbling and pitch when you're ready, or to pitch when it's stopped bubbling?

You can do either, if it stops bubbling, put it in the fridge to settle, then decant the starter and pitch the yeast. You can also pitch it while it's fermenting, it's really up to you.

statseeker said:

You can do either, if it stops bubbling, put it in the fridge to settle, then decant the starter and pitch the yeast. You can also pitch it while it's fermenting, it's really up to you.

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So I just get rid of the liquid and use the sediment at the bottom? I tried to get rid of the cake sediment (stupid stupid stupid idea to put cake in), but there's still a bit there. What would be the best way to separate the cake sediment from the settled yeast? Or should I just use it all?

EDIT: Actually, not sure if it is even cake sediment. The colour of it is similar to the colour of the stuff under this guy's wild starter:
http://beerandcoding.com/where-the-wild-yeasts-are/

Decanted it into two containers. Here's a photo of the sediment container after having been in the fridge for a little while. Putting it all back in the fridge now to check on in the morning.

Just use it all. The less you transfer and pour and filter and move things around, the less likely an infection will be. Quite frankly I'm shocked that it hasnt gone stinky or moldy yet. I say you take this starter and use it soon. Small batch. Do a gallon. I wouldnt want to do a full five gallon beer until I knew how this wild yeast/bacteria mixture behaves in a maltose rich environment (i.e. a malt wort), which it hasnt gotten to do yet if I've followed the sequence of events closely enough. Whip up a light extract wort and lightly hop it with a neutral bittering hop like Perle (about half an ounce) and put it in a closet for 3 months. At least then you'll know how it behaves.

You seem to be paying wonderful attention to the processes I've gone through, and I thank you dearly for babying me through my naivete, but somehow you keep missing when I've said how
"I'm NOT interested in making beer".
At this point in time, having tried and failed to like it (admittedly I only have access to commercial Australian brands), it will be a while if ever before I make beer, and only ever will if I'm given access to something I like, perhaps more expensive and European or perhaps a lovingly created homebrew that somehow bypasses everything I despise about what I've tried so far.

I might make a cider, a wine, or a mead.

Anyway, my house/equipment must be far less prone to infections, because I've never been a sanitation freak and have never had any problems. The most I do (and I always do this) is put tap water in it and shake it vigourously horizontally and vertically, then tip out and repeat. If I'm using a jug for the first time it's been free of what was in it (milk, juice, mineral water), I put a splash of bleach in, shake like buggery, then tip back into the bottle and rinse vigorously three or four times.

Anyway, I washed the yeast, discarded the liquid, then made a solution of 500g unrefined palm sugar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaggery) and nearly 3L of water, dissolved it all together and pitched the washed yeast into it with some boiled baker's yeast for nutrient. Put the lid on and left it outside in our broken fridge. Might end up with some kind of "Wild Jaggery Wine".

Pith said:

"I'm NOT interested in making beer".

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Stop calling it BREW if you want to avoid confusion. I had to look hard for the ONE post you actually said you didn't want to make beer, and it was hidden even in that. People do make other beverages on here, but they usually make it a LOT CLEARER than you did. Not to mention this is mainly a site for homebrewing beer. Mainly.

suprchunk said:

Stop calling it BREW if you want to avoid confusion. I had to look hard for the ONE post you actually said you didn't want to make beer, and it was hidden even in that. People do make other beverages on here, but they usually make it a LOT CLEARER than you did. Not to mention this is mainly a site for homebrewing beer. Mainly.

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Post #3 says quite plainly "I'm planning on making a mead or cider or something in between from this" (which is kind of vaguely backed up by the fact that I used apple and honey to make my yeastcapture solution rather than DME, but this isn't really big enough a fact to add to my argument) and post #8 hints at my ignorance of DME/beer/whatever by describing how I would be unable to tell a good beer flavour from a bad beer flavour due to my deliberate lack of experience.

Admittedly statseeker had not arrived at this point I don't think, but in reply to his post I said quite plainly, at the beginning of the final paragraph of post #28: "At this point in time, I cannot see myself ever making or drinking "beer"", in a fashion that would not be hidden to anyone who read the entire post, which I assumed he had because he says he is "follow[ing] the sequence of events closely", which to do you would have to have READ EACH POST WITH ANY DEGREE OF CARE.

I will, however, concede that "brew" may have been a confusing term. I'll give you that one. I won't concede that I didn't make it clear that I was not interested in beer.

Pro-tip: Always RDW, but only try to analyse threads BEFORE you HAHB.

Thanks for posting this btw, so someone else doesn't have to.

No problem.

Update:

Well, I left the jug open with the palm sugar, water and yeast for a day until it started bubbling, and now it's bubbling quite vigorously indeed. Since it's wild yeast, I assume that my must is fairly similar to what it would have been like in the countries where palm wine was made since so long ago.

Since the start, it's tasted like little more than sugary water, but it's smelled simultaneously like wood, vegetables, and salt, presumably from the massive buildup of impurities from the sugar that have sunk to the bottom (wikipedia suggest bagasse fibres, proteins, and wood ash) I feel kinda sorry for the natives of small islands who had to make this stuff in order to get drunk. It's really not that splendid. Yet. I don't know if the yeast will feed on anything but the sucrose and inverts that make up the majority of the palm sugar.

I've read about people adding it to their boil for a beer, and indeed the best way to get the unique flavours of palm sugar may be to boil it with the rest of the wort. In fact, palm sugar is used in cooking foods, so the cooking process must be important.

I assume that since the ratio of water to fermentables is something like 5:1, that the yeast will still be rearing to go after finishing off the sugars.

See you in a few weeks unless something interesting happens!

You know what guys? I'm a total ass. You can quote me on that.
http://www.brewery.org/library/LmbicJL0696.html#Enteric

It's probably just bacteria that made the foam on my original culture after all and I'm getting an acidic, non-alcoholic fermentation. I only left the culture outside for like 5 days. Apparently it won't start collecting yeast unless it's left out for 2 weeks. Balls. Oh well. Might be interesting to taste after it's pissed too much acid for it to live in, especially considering that enteric bacteria imparts a "celery, parship or mushroom" flavour and the wort smelled like vegetab.les before I added anything anyway. Maybe I should call it the "Grocery-store Bacteria Wine".

If at first you dont succeed...yada yada yada.

Speaking of which, it erupted half its contents while I was out at a dinner party. If at first you don't succeed indeed.