Wild Yeast Capture Attempt 1

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South OKC.

You should have lots of wild yeast up there, still rather high in elevation and of course windy,
 
measured gravity today in prep for plating.. just to know and it is at 1.01 down from 1.0375 OG... I think there is some potential here.
 
reed1911 said:
South OKC.

You should have lots of wild yeast up there, still rather high in elevation and of course windy,

Is it a must to plate the stuff? With the yeast from my plum tree, I was planning on a handful of plums in some starter wort in a half gallon jug on my stir plate. Then step it into my 2L flask until I had enough to do a small test batch.
 
I have heard of many people going that route. Theoretically I should be able to step up what I have and pitch into a 5G batch... but I am trying to take it a step further and isolate some individual colonies in a way that lets me keep them relatively pure and continue to reuse those relatively pure strains for years. Anyway.. that's the vision.
 
No, plating is a breeze. If you are just trying it for giggles, I'd opt for the Hobby Lonny route. They sell a 2 pack plating expermint kit for 2.99 that comes with 2 plates and 2 bags of agar which the box says is good for three rounds (6 plates) but I think it is closer to 4 plates. The only draw back is the plates are plastic and not glass, however they are heavy enough that they can take the hot agar/wort mix.
 
My problem is identification and storage. I'm not sure I would know yeast growing on a Petri dish if someone drew me a map.

And even if I did manage to isolate a beer yeast, how do you store it and how long will it keep?
 
most of my plating went well.. I think I may have been rougher with my innoculation loop than necessary. We'll see what comes of it. I saved a 12oz bottleof the yeast/wort mix so I can replate if these plates go bad. I have glass plates and am using a pressure cooker. I plan to use slants for the colonies, grow them up... transfer each cnadidate colony to a couple other slants then grow 3 up in 1 gallon batches and see what I get. Then I pick one (or more though if I get 1 worth a damn I will be shocked).. and make sure I keep slants of it and make some batches and enjoy.

Anyhow that is the plan. I did taste the wort/wild medium and it was not bad.. I have good hope. We shall see.

I think it it works out I will be freaking thrilled... if not.. I will try again.... and again... and again... never give up. never surrender.
 
checked the plates tonight and lots of yeasty looking stuff grew. Too much. I am going to have to re-plate this weekend and be a bit more gentle. not posting pics of my current plates because they look like a 2 year old colored them with yeast markers.
 
checked the plates tonight and lots of yeasty looking stuff grew. Too much. I am going to have to re-plate this weekend and be a bit more gentle. not posting pics of my current plates because they look like a 2 year old colored them with yeast markers.

Made me laugh...out loud...LOL just doesn't seem to convey what I am trying to say ...maybe I'm old!
 
Interesting, mine have been at it for almost two weeks now, they grew well the first week and a few white spots, but have since done nothing. Makes me wonder if the bits I had growing did not get a good enough hold or possibly something else. I wanted them to get a bit larger so I could choose the biggest healthy individual colonies to start batching up. May need to make another attempt at capture. We'll see this weekend what they look like.
 
Well, even with the small growths on the plate I went ahead and nabbed some, ran in 1 cup of 1.030 for a week on the stir plate, smelled slightly fruity more spice than fruit though, cold crashed for 2 days, just upped it to a 1/2L last night and even on the stir plate it has a 1" krausen on it and looking good. I plan to let that go for a week and then make a gal 1.045-1.050 with some Saaz and let it ride and see how it tastes. I'll update here what it looks like. I went ahead and left the plates growing I had selected two colonies from each plate for the best bet on my end. In the event that it is terrible I will select another set and try it again, if it has the same aroma though I won't bother stepping it up. Not pessimistic, just like to plan for all contingencies.
 
Well, even with the small growths on the plate I went ahead and nabbed some, ran in 1 cup of 1.030 for a week on the stir plate, smelled slightly fruity more spice than fruit though, cold crashed for 2 days, just upped it to a 1/2L last night and even on the stir plate it has a 1" krausen on it and looking good. I plan to let that go for a week and then make a gal 1.045-1.050 with some Saaz and let it ride and see how it tastes. I'll update here what it looks like. I went ahead and left the plates growing I had selected two colonies from each plate for the best bet on my end. In the event that it is terrible I will select another set and try it again, if it has the same aroma though I won't bother stepping it up. Not pessimistic, just like to plan for all contingencies.


sounds awesome..

I just re-streaked my plates tonight. Will snag some colonies in a few days and get something going with them. Still super excited. I am feeling hopeful. I did put some samples of the old plates into slants but they are definitely not single colony samples. keeping them for.. well.. not sure.. but keeping them.
 
2 days later and the Krausen has fallen, big sweet banana smell from it, I'm getting anxious to use this now.
 
make beer.. sounds like it should work... I figure in a couple days I'll pick some colonies and start growing them up. I am planning a 3G batch split three ways with a small starter from each colony. That will give me some things to taste and see which one I like best (if any are palatable of course) and then that one gets grown up, saved on some slants, etc and goes into a 5G batch.
 
Cold-crashed over the weekend, will brew up a gallon this week and let her rip. Lots of banana and bubblegum with some funk at the end. I did not detect the funk much, but my bloodhound-nosed wife did. So long as it makes beer I'll drink it, pleasing her OTOH is sometimes a challenge, but if it does everyone else will like it. She's my best critic!
 
reed1911 said:
Cold-crashed over the weekend, will brew up a gallon this week and let her rip. Lots of banana and bubblegum with some funk at the end. I did not detect the funk much, but my bloodhound-nosed wife did. So long as it makes beer I'll drink it, pleasing her OTOH is sometimes a challenge, but if it does everyone else will like it. She's my best critic!

Pics, we want pics! ;)
 
ok, so I finally got some plates that I could pull a few colonies off of. Just did that. Used 1 isolated colony per slant. Hopefully they grow in the slants then I will do sample 3G batch split between three 1G jugs each with one of the yeasts.

The picture is a but blury but you can see the yeast in the plates. One of the plates I was still too heavy handed with and didn't get enough separation but there was plenty on the other two that I could use.

Yeast Plates.jpg
 
Subscribing.

I was lazy last weekend and forgot my cylinder with hydrometer out for two days. When I went to clean it, I noticed that the reading had dropped from 1.056 to 1.038 and there were signs of fermentation. It smelled good so I put it in a sterilized jar and added some starter. I now have who knows what growing and bubbling away, smells good, so I'm going to brew sometime this week and toss it in a five gallon batch and see what happens.
 
I have a few wild tests going, including the one in the picture here. Nice pellicle on this one. BUT, I used juice in this to drop the pH. I used 30% grapefruit juice in the wort for the initial capture of this stuff, then stepped it up with 250 ml of wort to 25 ml of lemon juice. No mold, just a nice looking pellicle, IMHO. Because of the juice, though, I can't properly judge the character. Smells like citrus!

So, that being the case, I want to chill this, decant and make a normal starter and see what I have here. With that in mind, what's the deal with that pellicle? Should I try to decant that off and just pitch what's settled? Or is it composed of top cropping yeast?

For the record, I have 4 sets of tests going. 2 used juice in the initial wort and both have what seems to be a better result, ie no mold and a nice fermentation. The 2 without juice both have white and green mold growing on them. Collection times and wort were different though, so it's not a proper control.

Base wort here at the start was Black IPA wort taken from a batch I brewed. Just siphoned off a bit after chilling. So, heavy hops here could have helped in addition to the juice.

DSC01051_800.jpg
 
For comparison, here's one of the other tests with the mold growing on it.

These are both wort in jars, not petri dishes.

Base wort at the start was leftover from an APA I brewed. Some hops but not a lot.

DSC01042_800.jpg
 
my guess is that pellicle is not yeast based... but wtf do I know? not sure best route here as I am just learning about wild yeast myself... interested to know where the pellicle stuff goes though.
 
my guess is that pellicle is not yeast based... but wtf do I know? not sure best route here as I am just learning about wild yeast myself... interested to know where the pellicle stuff goes though.

Maybe it's not yeast. But there's yeast in there. I saw it fermenting in a classical way for yeast for the first day, bubbles rising, krauesen, etc. Second morning, it looked like a krauesen covered with white powder. Lots of large bubble shapes covered in powder. It looked a lot like some pictures if you run a Google images search for "brettanomyces fermentation:

brettanomyces fermentation

A bit after that, it looked like this picture below. This is once the bubbling had settled down a bit. Still powdery, but only small bubbles.

After that, it looked like the first picture I posted before. Then after that, it developed a "ropy" look on the surface. Same powdery look, but then it had some ropy looking tendrils spider webbing the surface. From reading Wild Brews, on page 114, sounds like it could possibly be pedio.

"Pedioccocus produces a layer on top of the wort resembling long elastic threads best described as ropy and a hazy viscosity, a bit like oil."

It seems to me to be a mixed culture. I don't think it's pure or anything. But from the pics I've seen of Brett fermentations, it looked like that at certain points. Only used Brett once myself and used it in primary and it didn't even get a pellicle.

Anyway, I intend to decant this and make a fresh starter, so was wondering if anyone knows what the pellicle is composed of, even if it's a mixed culture. Not precisely what it is, if its mixed, but if it's composed of stuff I want to keep or stuff I want to toss or it doesn't matter. At the moment, I intend to chill for 3-4 days, pour off everything except what's settled, pellicle included and pitch into a fresh starter.

DSC01039_800.jpg
 
Pellicles form in the presence of oxygen as a layer of protection. It basically blocks O2 from getting to the beer and therefore prevents oxidation. That is why you didn't get a pellicle when you used Brett for primary fermentation-it was an oxygen free environment. You can rack the beer from underneath the pellicle and if you wash the yeast the particles of the pellicle will likely float to the top and you can pour them off. Or you can pour/ scoop the pellicle off first. Won't hurt anything though.
 
Pellicles form in the presence of oxygen as a layer of protection. It basically blocks O2 from getting to the beer and therefore prevents oxidation. That is why you didn't get a pellicle when you used Brett for primary fermentation-it was an oxygen free environment. You can rack the beer from underneath the pellicle and if you wash the yeast the particles of the pellicle will likely float to the top and you can pour them off. Or you can pour/ scoop the pellicle off first. Won't hurt anything though.

Thanks!
 
So, we boiled up 1/2oz of old hallertau and 1lb of xlight pilsner DME (1 gal batch), cooled and pitched 1/2L of the wild capture, this morning she was just about to the airlock and going like mad. Great hefe smells coming off of it. Flocculation was terrible even after being crashed for 3 days in the fridge. Leaning away from planning a Belgium around this now, we'll see what this gallon does first.
 
Reed:
You're in south OKC and if memory serves, you also plate yeast, right? If that's the case, I have a proposition for you.

I have neither the skill, the patience, nor the desire to go any deeper into yeast harvesting than growing up the dregs from a bottle.

That being said, another homebrewer I work with got a couple of fresh cans of Heady Topper in a beer trade recently. We decanted all but 100ml each from 2 cans into our glasses Saturday. The beer was beyond wonderful.

I had 2 sanitized flasks waiting with 150ml of aerated starter wort. I have been slowy stepping this up since the weekend (finally went to 1L for each start tonight). By the look and smell of things, I think I've caught a clean start of Conan in each flask. With the schedule I ran through yeastcalc.com, I am estimating that I'll have 600-800 billion cells to wash out of the starters and split with my brew buddy once I am done (hopefully by next weekend).

If you plate and keep a yeast bank, would you be interested in taking a portion of our finished product to plate and store, in exchange for us being able to "come back to the well" as it were from time to time when we'd like to grow up another clean Conan culture?

If this works, I have three 750 ml bottles of Cantillon Gueuze that I hand carried back from the brewery in Brussels last summer. I have been putting off opening them until I got serious about trying to culture from commericial bottles.
 
So now I have 3 slants with some yeast growing on them. Tonight I plan to use some of each to start growing and propagating into a large enough pitch for a gallon. I am figuring I'll be ready for that by next weekend... :)

The growths on each vial look a little different. To me that is a clear sign there are three different organisms I am dealing with. (assuming they are pure.. which visually they appear to be. since they each came from a single colony I am assuming that is correct) The 1G batches should determine the best one to use for a full batch and weed out any of the samples that are not really yeast... just in case I picked a colony that doesn't ferment. Excited. This is taking me a long time to complete but I am absolutely thrilled with the current progress. :)
 
This is truly fascinating, thanks for putting so much work and for sharing with us. I've always been interested in how ancient cultures made alcoholic beverages without modern devices or methods. I'm interested in what the alcohol content of the finished product will be. keep up the good work. Cheers
 
right now I am still in the process of stepping up from the isolated colonies. I have 3 starters going and expect to be able to start up the three 1G test batches next week... possibly on memorial day. Planing to let ferment for three weeks, then crash and force carb in coke bottles to be able to taste. Will update again when the test batches are running with details. Of course the big test will be when they are finally ready to taste. Hoping to be able to have my local brew club taste them and give feedback. Still excited. Once that is done... if one of the is good... time to make some wild yeast ale. Recipe to be determined based on yeast flavor profile. :)

So far this has taken a lot longer than I anticipated but overall been easier. (except for being patient)
 
My update:

The pics I put in this thread before indeed seem to have NOT been yeast. Maybe pedio, I don't know. I'm still letting it run along. I pulled it and decanted, but the mix had so much juice in it (I used juice in the mix to drop the pH) that I can't tell if it's sour on its own. But it had malty sweetness in there, so wasn't fermented by yeast anyway. Smells interesting but not so much like beer. Not unpleasant though.

The other test is far, far more successful. That one has been coaxed along for some time. It was decanted about 10 days ago and then a normal starter was made on a stirplate and stepped up twice, ending with a 1300 ml starter. Chilled it earlier and just sampled it and it tastes awesome. It tastes not so far off from a Wit yeast. Phenols in the lead with a complex fruity character, especially in the nose. Very dry finish with a very slight tart edge to it. Could result in a sour beer, time will tell. I'll make a small beer after my main brew this weekend and use that for this wild beer. So far so good. The starter smelled amazing the whole time except for a few days ago when it threw some sulfur for about 24 hours. Stopped doing that, though and I don't pick any up in the starter I drank. Interestingly, I also usually get some sulfur from Wit yeast when I use it.

Best of luck with yours, theonetrueruss.
 
update:

All three of my 1 gallon test batches are fermenting nicely.. I made a 1.044OG wort with some Hallertau at 60 mins Thursday night and pitched at a little over 70F. They are being stored at 65 to 68F right now.

They were starting to form krausen yesterday but this morning they are going nicely.

pictures to come later today. In a few weeks I should be able to crash them, force some carbonation and do some tasting. Excited!
 
theonetrueruss said:
update:

All three of my 1 gallon test batches are fermenting nicely.. I made a 1.044OG wort with some Hallertau at 60 mins Thursday night and pitched at a little over 70F. They are being stored at 65 to 68F right now.

They were starting to form krausen yesterday but this morning they are going nicely.

pictures to come later today. In a few weeks I should be able to crash them, force some carbonation and do some tasting. Excited!

I'm stoked for this.
 
well.. after a month of being in the 1G fermentors I had very little attenuation... like <5%. Definitely not yeast that is good for beer making. Will make attempt #2 next year and each year after that until I catch something worthwile.
 
well.. after a month of being in the 1G fermentors I had very little attenuation... like <5%. Definitely not yeast that is good for beer making. Will make attempt #2 next year and each year after that until I catch something worthwile.

Sorry to hear it. Don't give up! Mine did 83% and 87.5% on the two beers I made with it so far. Tastes great as well, though a pretty bitter finish for so low of ibus.

It's worth giving it another go!
 
I'll never give up.. just going to have to try again. Waiting till spring next year. I'm hoping to have a microscope by then.
 
You don't necessarily have to wait until spring. You can take the yeast straight from some fruit without having to leave the wort open to the air. Not sure yet if this will result in good yeast or not. I just tried it with cherries from our back yard. I did my usual technique; starter with 50% grapefruit juice. Poured this into six jars and dropped a cherry into each. 5 of them look foul. 1 of them, however, formed a nice krauesen and looked like a normal fermentation. It's still early on, but I'll see what this results in.

Anyway, point being, even if it's warm, you can try again using fruit to innoculate. I can't say if it will give good results or not this early on, however.
 
Any updates? Tried collection any more?

My cherry experiment is going well. Stepped one of them up a few times and the resulting starter tastes quite nice.
 
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