Ambient/Spontaneous Fermentation Revisited

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urbanmyth

urbanmyth

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So, I was rereading the old landhoney thread here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/ambient-spontaneous-fermentation-43888/
and decided it was time somebody took up where he left off. I do not mean to say that I am the best fit brewer to do so, but I am willing to invest some time into this experiment, and hopefully help some of the rest of you get out and try some wild, home grown experiments of your own!

I brewed a ~1/2 gallon batch of a generic low gravity ale, lightly hopped with EKG pellets today. The OG looks to be about 1.025 when corrected for temperature. Wrapping the carboy in an old tee shirt and then with my BIAB bag, I have set it out to sit on the balcony on my workshop's upper level.

I live in farm country, with corn and soybeans (I believe) rotating in a field not 20 meters from where the carboy sits. Nothing is planted yet, of course, but I am hoping some bugs takes root in my carboy. I am not expecting a Rodenbach level of awesomness from these wild yeasts, but I will be thrilled if it turns out with any amount of good taste to it. With such a small batch made up of leftover ingredients, I am going to consider any result profound.

This is meant to be the first post of many, hopefully with fantastic results to follow!

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Haven't checked on it yet, it's only been out about eight hours. The picture of the uncovered carboy was taken right after I shook it up to aerate. I HOPE a pellicle that huge develops. :D

It is a dream of mine to take the hopefully great results of this, inoculate some oak cubes or a barrel with my own blend of wild bugs, starting a sour shed out back.
 
shake the carboy and take the blow off and rub it all over the walls of the shed. i have pedio in my pants... it's all in the wood BAYBEEE!!!
 
urbanmyth said:
So, I was rereading the old landhoney thread here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/ambient-spontaneous-fermentation-43888/
and decided it was time somebody took up where he left off. I do not mean to say that I am the best fit brewer to do so, but I am willing to invest some time into this experiment, and hopefully help some of the rest of you get out and try some wild, home grown experiments of your own!

I brewed a ~1/2 gallon batch of a generic low gravity ale, lightly hopped with EKG pellets today. The OG looks to be about 1.025 when corrected for temperature. Wrapping the carboy in an old tee shirt and then with my BIAB bag, I have set it out to sit on the balcony on my workshop's upper level.

I live in farm country, with corn and soybeans (I believe) rotating in a field not 20 meters from where the carboy sits. Nothing is planted yet, of course, but I am hoping some bugs takes root in my carboy. I am not expecting a Rodenbach level of awesomness from these wild yeasts, but I will be thrilled if it turns out with any amount of good taste to it. With such a small batch made up of leftover ingredients, I am going to consider any result profound.

This is meant to be the first post of many, hopefully with fantastic results to follow!
Click to expand...

I have something similar going. Just did half and half Vienna and wheat, hopped with Czech saaz. To get the yeast though I made a small amount of starter wort and left it outside for a night, then propped it up. Brewed mine Sunday OG was 1.028. If it turns out we should do a bottle swap. Mine smells very saison-like. http://adventuresinzymurgy.blogspot.com/2012/03/wild-yeast-micro-saison.html?m=1
 
Interesting to find your thread. I'm trying a spontaneous too. Just made a 1.25 gallon batch (single batch series, anyone?) and just going to let it sit out. I've occasionally left hydrometer readings out overnight and they begin fermenting by morning - there's got to be something happening around here. After the primary gets going, I'm going to add apple juice - since the original point of this was to empty some apple jugs for yeast starters.

In Portland, ME.
 
I did a spontaneous, wild fermentation last year. Collected yeast from my backyard. Turned out really good - honestly much better than I ever would have thought. I made a little starter wort, put in bowl, placed some cheesecloth over it and set it outside overnight to cool. I got a little activity. After a week or so, I added additional starter wort to the mix and it took off. I brewed what I called a Wild Yeast Saison (more details in my brew blog if anyone is interested)
 
Jlem, I am going to bump up this brew to 3 gallons this weekend, similar to what you did. I think it'll be more or less a saison. Quite a bit of pilsen DME and some wheat LME. Hopped with either EKG or Spalt Select.
 
vwbrewer said:
Nice blog. Love the photos too. If you ever come up to Portland, give me a shout and we'll swap beers.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm having fun writing about my homebrewing. Hopefully I can keep the blog going. Thanks too about the photos - before homebrewing, photography was my obsession of choice so I try to pay attention to the photo quality (though it's tough sometimes given the same subjects over and over)

Will let you know when I make it up Portland way (not very often I'm sorry to say). Great city.

urbanmyth said:
Jlem, I am going to bump up this brew to 3 gallons this weekend, similar to what you did. I think it'll be more or less a saison. Quite a bit of pilsen DME and some wheat LME. Hopped with either EKG or Spalt Select.
Click to expand...

Good luck and have fun with it. Keep us posted on how it turns out.
 
Well, it seems I waiting a bit too long to put this under airlock. I pulled a sample tonight and tasted nothing but vinegar. Some acetobacter had to have gotten in at some point. Blast.
 
Thought I'd update. I freaking love this beer. Great funky brett character. Works great for a saison. Some small lactic acidity at the back, but not much. I'm expecting my sour bugs will make themselves known more in future generations.

Again the beer itself was just half vienna and half wheat. O.G. of 1.032. Finished at 1.003. A touch of Czech Saaz went into the boil, and I just threw an ounce into the keg.

Overall it's light, refreshing but really interesting from the funky yeast character.
 
I am thinking the next time I try this, I am going to use a third wheat and two thirds Munich. It'll be a bit darker than a lot of other traditional wild beers, but I really enjoy the Munich character. That and I have thirty pounds of it I need to use up.
 
I did a similar spontaneous batch last weekend. 5 gallon batch, 5# Munich, 3# wheat, 3# pilsner, 2# pale ale, ~40 IBU of Pearle at beginning of boil. Left the entire wort in the kettle, covered the top with cheesecloth and left out under my rose bushes overnight. I got spontaneous fermentation within 24 hours and after 4-5 days, it really kicked off! I need to take some pictures of the krausen today, but I'm afraid I've got piles of acetobacter on the top... Hoping not... I'm meaning to pitch a bunch of JP and Flanders bugs into the mix after a week or so.
 
I live in Alaska does anyone think there are some safe bugs here we just over a really hard winter where do y'all think a great place would be to put the wort at to pick up the wild yeasties
 
Saccromyces like to live on tree bark. Try putting your wort under a tree. I tried doing it under a rose bush, thinking something good on the flowers may help it along, but it was also under and nearby a few small trees.
 
Ok I have two trees close to my house that's a good idea what about pollen how does that affect ur beer
 
Pollen is effectively just plant sperm, so it shouldn't do too much except maybe be a raft for bacteria t hitch a ride on.
 
Homebrewtastic said:
Thought I'd update. I freaking love this beer. Great funky brett character. Works great for a saison. Some small lactic acidity at the back, but not much. I'm expecting my sour bugs will make themselves known more in future generations.

Again the beer itself was just half vienna and half wheat. O.G. of 1.032. Finished at 1.003. A touch of Czech Saaz went into the boil, and I just threw an ounce into the keg.

Overall it's light, refreshing but really interesting from the funky yeast character.
Click to expand...

i did a wild last year that is now bottled and ready... the carbonation is a little off, but i'm impressed with the yeast from the aroma, taste to the attenuation - the only issue is that it doesn't flocc very well... i harvested it and just pitched it into a sour saison that is probably fermented out by now (needs to be bottled)
 
What is the time frame for these wild beers? Do they benefit greatly with long term aging, or could you go from grain to glass in 4-6 weeks?

I'm brewing this weekend with some wild yeast I caught from my backyard, very simple recipe, OG ~1.05-1.06. Curious if it can be ready in about 5 weeks.
 
bcgpete said:
What is the time frame for these wild beers? Do they benefit greatly with long term aging, or could you go from grain to glass in 4-6 weeks?

I'm brewing this weekend with some wild yeast I caught from my backyard, very simple recipe, OG ~1.05-1.06. Curious if it can be ready in about 5 weeks.
Click to expand...

Mine was such a low gravity that it fermented out in a few days. I let it clean up and sit for a month before kegging. Mine flocced out pretty well. My keg of it is now kicked, but towards the end, maybe a month or so in the keg, it started to produce some more dominate funky Brett flavors, like horse blanket and forest floor.
 
Okay, thanks for the reply. I'll probably let it sit for a while. I can't wait to get this one going!
 
Inspired by this thread, I'm currently cultivating my own batch of wild (hopefully) yeast. I left a mason jar with a hydro-sample's worth of fresh wort, covered by a hop sock, out under some blueberry bushes overnight. This was in southwest Michigan.

After around 12 hours I brought it back in and covered it with sanitized foil. Every few hours I swirled it, but didn't see any visible signs of fermentation until about a week and a half. Once I saw some bubbles, I started stepping it up. It's now in about 500ml of wort, and to my eyes still looking great.

Am I being overly optimistic? I suppose I could take a gravity reading to be more precise, but I'm definitely getting bubbles.



image-1695154541.jpg
 
Mithranbeer said:
Inspired by this thread, I'm currently cultivating my own batch of wild (hopefully) yeast. I left a mason jar with a hydro-sample's worth of fresh wort, covered by a hop sock, out under some blueberry bushes overnight. This was in southwest Michigan.

After around 12 hours I brought it back in and covered it with sanitized foil. Every few hours I swirled it, but didn't see any visible signs of fermentation until about a week and a half. Once I saw some bubbles, I started stepping it up. It's now in about 500ml of wort, and to my eyes still looking great.

Am I being overly optimistic? I suppose I could take a gravity reading to be more precise, but I'm definitely getting bubbles.



View attachment 64531
Click to expand...

Looks great! Definitely take a gravity reading once things die down some. See how it smells too. Just be sure that your gravity has dropped considerably before tasting it - human pathogens cannot live in beer, but they can in unfermented wort.
 
I got spontaneous fermentation wild yeast awesome I was wondering though my og was 1.030 how low does the fg need to be before I can try it to see if it's good yeast?
 

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