I've been following this thread for some time:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/howto-capture-wild-yeast-101886/
Lots of good info in there, and it inspired me to capture my own backyard yeast strain. I boiled up some water and light DME to a gravity of ~1.030, poured it into a mason jar, covered it up with some cheesecloth, and left it outside for a couple of days to take in the atmospheric goodness. Then I brought it inside and put some sanitized foil over the top. I'm basically treating it like a 1 quart starter at this point, sans stir plate.
It's a week later, and I have a nice, cloudy wort with a good 1/2" of kräusen on top. This is a good thing! Unfortunately, I also appear to have a few little fuzzy mold patches growing along the sides, right above the kräusen. I would assume this is a bad thing. The smell is a combination of sour and sweet, and the mold ranges from snow white to kind of a pinkish color.
My inclination is to push on, let the thing ferment out, and then try to be extra careful when pouring into the next starter wort to step it up. My (admittedly poor) understanding is that mold requires oxygen to grow, so I'm hoping that the CO2 and alcohol will ultimately kill the mold.
Any thoughts? Bad idea? Worth a go?
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/howto-capture-wild-yeast-101886/
Lots of good info in there, and it inspired me to capture my own backyard yeast strain. I boiled up some water and light DME to a gravity of ~1.030, poured it into a mason jar, covered it up with some cheesecloth, and left it outside for a couple of days to take in the atmospheric goodness. Then I brought it inside and put some sanitized foil over the top. I'm basically treating it like a 1 quart starter at this point, sans stir plate.
It's a week later, and I have a nice, cloudy wort with a good 1/2" of kräusen on top. This is a good thing! Unfortunately, I also appear to have a few little fuzzy mold patches growing along the sides, right above the kräusen. I would assume this is a bad thing. The smell is a combination of sour and sweet, and the mold ranges from snow white to kind of a pinkish color.
My inclination is to push on, let the thing ferment out, and then try to be extra careful when pouring into the next starter wort to step it up. My (admittedly poor) understanding is that mold requires oxygen to grow, so I'm hoping that the CO2 and alcohol will ultimately kill the mold.
Any thoughts? Bad idea? Worth a go?