Did I catch a SCOBY?

[Joewalla88]

I left some jars of wort outside to try to catch some wild yeast to play around with. I've been successful doing this once before. The weather started to get down t what i thought was too cold, so i brought the two jars in, covered them with foil, and thought the warmth of the inside might help speed up any yeast growth. One jar was left outside longer than the other, and even though they were covered in cheese cloth, an ant was able to squeez through the one that had been sitting longer. Anyway, after warming up inside, one looks like its getting a little bit of action, but the older one looks gnarly. What's it look like to you?

 

[doomy86]

Looks like fungus to me.

 

[Joewalla88]

Is it bad? I kinda like how it smells

 

[burninator]

How long has it been since you caught the culture? Could be acetobacter, but that can take a few days or weeks to form a mother. On the other hand, I've had some wild cultures do weird things with trub and proteins in the wort, so maybe that's what you're seeing.

 

[Joewalla88]

How long? I left it out for about a week, and brought it inside a few days ago.

 

[doomy86]

Is it bad? I kinda like how it smells

I can never guess, i would not use it for beer like this.

 

[Joewalla88]

I might just try a 1 gallon extract experiment, and see what happens.

 

[oli-aus]

You should try that. If it smells good the chances are your on to a winner.
Let us know how it goes

 

[Joewalla88]

Do you think I should just pitch the whole thing slime and all?

 

[oli-aus]

Yeah just pitch the whole thing in mate, you will have to wait a year with this kind of thing but if the beer works out well you will have your own unique culture to play with.
Mine which I harvested over a year ago now gives out this great Brett character within a month which I haven't been able to achieve through dregs etc.

Wild yeast often produce quite thin beer though so make sure you have some oats or wheat in the grist to compensate.

 

[Joewalla88]

Cool thanks. I'm excited.

 

[Joewalla88]

What kind of IBUs should I be looking at to keep a "balanced" wild culture going?

 

[oli-aus]

Good question. My last couple of beers have been around 12ibus but I really don't have enough experience to say.

You should have a search on the themadfermentationist blog.

 

[Joewalla88]

That's a good idea. Thanks.

 

[Joewalla88]

Pitched into 1 gallon made with 1 lb of wheat dme, and a pinch of leftover apollo.