I got a mixture of apples from a local orchard and pressed them, pitched a Bayanus cider yeast into most of the batch, but left literally just a litre bottle of the same juice as-is and put an airlock on it just to see what happens as I have never tried brewing with wild yeast.
Once it got going it was fermenting great, all by itself, all done in just a few days, from about 1.052 down to about 998. I make that about 7% ABV.
And though it smelt and tasted a bit funky just after primary was finished, even a week later, it is tasting amazingly good, I mean better than the Bayanus batch, which has some overtones I can only describe as "vaguely fruity but not apple".
Is that a typical result with wild yeast? I have to say I am quite surprised - at the taste, and the attenuation (was expecting 3 or 4% abv or something, like you get with yeasts with low alcohol resistance, like bread yeast). I have washed some yeast from that wild batch to keep, but I daresay using apples from the same orchard would produce a similar effect again next year.
Once it got going it was fermenting great, all by itself, all done in just a few days, from about 1.052 down to about 998. I make that about 7% ABV.
And though it smelt and tasted a bit funky just after primary was finished, even a week later, it is tasting amazingly good, I mean better than the Bayanus batch, which has some overtones I can only describe as "vaguely fruity but not apple".
Is that a typical result with wild yeast? I have to say I am quite surprised - at the taste, and the attenuation (was expecting 3 or 4% abv or something, like you get with yeasts with low alcohol resistance, like bread yeast). I have washed some yeast from that wild batch to keep, but I daresay using apples from the same orchard would produce a similar effect again next year.