Wild yeast harvest emergency! Help?

Basically I skinned an organic granny smith and put the shavings in a jar of apple juice with some yeast nutrient a couple days ago.. I was expecting action in a couple weeks maybe, nope; it's going freaking nuts now!

Heres my issue, fuzzy white patches have formed on the liquid where the shavings are now floating, looks like the start of mold.. Should I sanitize some tongs, pull the apple out, dump most of the juice, then take what sediment is now on bottom and pitch it into a fresh jar of juice or am I screwed already?

Fun stuff, yeast is crazy!

I don't know a thing about wild yeast harvesting, but you have peaked my curiosity enought that I am now following this thread, and reading further... good luck!

Since this an experiment anyhow, out of worry I went ahead and sanitized a fork and scooped out all of the shavings, dumped 3/4 the jar, then took the remaining 1/4 a cup and swirled it for about a minute to get the sediment and grounded yeast up and floating. I pitched that into a new sanitized jar with a cup of apple juice in it and some yeast nutrient.

Instead of attaching a co2 lock this time I just put foil over the top, I'm treating this like a typical starter now, if it grows successfully then I'll pitch it into a gallon, if that doesn't turn out fowl, I'll harvest off that and go for 5 gallons..

Pictures coming soon...

BTW, in my experience, as far as yeast and infection, I have never seen any signs other than co2 and krausen happen in the beginning, and any lacto infection I have had, has taken at least 2 weeks...

benbradford said:

BTW, in my experience, as far as yeast and infection, I have never seen any signs other than co2 and krausen happen in the beginning, and any lacto infection I have had, has taken at least 2 weeks...

Click to expand...

Good to know, it was tough to tell if the patches were fuzzy or just bubbles. Had no bad scent when I pulled the switch this morning, smelled very very sweet, pleasant.

After the transfer, I let it go a couple days then dumped the juice, added about 1/4 a cup new juice then tossed the sample in the fridge - it smelled good, no signs of infection.

Last night I pulled the jar, swirled it to get everything back into suspension, then pitched it into a gallon of apple juice, og 1.050. This morning I had to take off the airlock and apply a blow off tube! It BLASTED off! Seems very healthy and is vigorously fermenting.. Looking good.

best of luck. An option for separating mold from yeast is to plate. It is described in great detail here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/howto-capture-wild-yeast-101886/

By isolating yeast strains, your finished product will be more stable and predictable.

Bottled that gallon today, it made it down to 1.002. Tasted fantastic, like an uncarbed Scrumpy Jack. Saved the yeast again, next up 5 gallons....

That is very cool. I'd really like to try some natural yeast experiments. My 1 gallon carboys are all full, so I may need to get another in spring when the weather warms up enough to collect some of the local strain.