Howto: Capture Wild Yeast

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This seems absolutely great !

I wonder if I can still give it a shot; lately it's like 77f to 86f during the day, here in Korea so I guess that it's too high.

I live in the city, but there is a nice smelling forest less than half a mile away.

Does it seem ok to let it sit there overnight,with a cheese-cloth or a finely braided tissue on the top of the jar? (In order to avoid leaves, bugs and stuff to fall in it) Temperature over night there is about 65F.
 
Yeah, that should be fine...it's really just guesswork though on how long to leave it out. The first things to take up residence is E. Coli and friends (don't want those in your beer) then beer yeast. The time frames I posted are just for the lambic region in belgium, no idea for Korea.

Korean wild beer sounds nuts...you should make it with rice and Sorachi Ace or other asian variety of hop.
 
Great ! So you're saying that I should let it out for like... 2 weeks?
Or just let it sit over night, bring it back in, and then cover it and then leave it doing its thing for 2 weeks?

As for asian hops, the only Korean kind is Hyesan Hop, which is only grown in North Korea and almost exclusively sold to Sweden, and the other one, the sorachi is from Japan and is really difficult to get through customs quarantine.
In S.K., there's only that imported Hallertau, Saaz, Tettnanger or Cascade. :(

I have a Wild Rice beer (~9% of the total grain bill) soon finishing the primary, if that thing tastes nice, I'm gonna definitely make a funky beer out of it !
 
Overnight is plenty. Don't leave it out there for 2 weeks! And I think covering it with cheesecloth will prevent it being innoculated. I'd just leave it open.
 
Elut said:
Great ! So you're saying that I should let it out for like... 2 weeks?
Or just let it sit over night, bring it back in, and then cover it and then leave it doing its thing for 2 weeks?

As for asian hops, the only Korean kind is Hyesan Hop, which is only grown in North Korea and almost exclusively sold to Sweden, and the other one, the sorachi is from Japan and is really difficult to get through customs quarantine.
In S.K., there's only that imported Hallertau, Saaz, Tettnanger or Cascade. :(

I have a Wild Rice beer (~9% of the total grain bill) soon finishing the primary, if that thing tastes nice, I'm gonna definitely make a funky beer out of it !
Click to expand...

I would say over night rather than open two weeks.
 
Out of interest, is there any way of knowing when the end-point for a wild beer is reached? The majority of fermentation could be done at around four weeks if you get some sacc, but presumably there's a risk that there's some brett-like beasties in there too, so it could theoretically go on fermenting for a couple of years. If you bottle it at three months, is there going to be a danger of bottle bombs, or of some stinky brett early by-products?
 
Thanks a lot guys !

I'm definitely giving it a shot as soon as I can.
I'll of course keep you updated on how it turns out :D

Once the starter is done fermenting, do you just pour the wort out and pitch the "wild" slurry in a bigger starter?
 
Danek said:
Out of interest, is there any way of knowing when the end-point for a wild beer is reached? The majority of fermentation could be done at around four weeks if you get some sacc, but presumably there's a risk that there's some brett-like beasties in there too, so it could theoretically go on fermenting for a couple of years. If you bottle it at three months, is there going to be a danger of bottle bombs, or of some stinky brett early by-products?
Click to expand...

Danek - Its hard to pin-point, but I think its all about gravity. I had a beer that started at 1.052 and went down to 1.006 and stopped after 1 month. I worried about brett taking over so I racked to a 2ndary and let it sit for two months.

Tasted it at 1, 2 and 3 months. No difference other than clarity. FG was the same each time. 1.006

I understood brett ferments down to 1.000 and creates a pelicle. I saw no change in FG or surface growth. So I decided to bottle it up. I assumed no brett was present. Had my brew stopped say at 1.030 I would have likely let it sit for awhile and wait for pelicle growth. Had that happened I would have signed-off for 6-12, maybe 18 months to let it do its thing.

A wild ferment has multiple stages of ferement. One is usually enterobacter which happens right away 3-7 days. Then saccharomyces at 2 weeks, Pediococcus at 3-4 months , Brett at 8 months.

I am assuming a FG of 1.006 is done. Mainly due to no activity.

IMO - I think what I have is pretty common. I'm guessing the sacch does the job and the ABV kills what's leftover.

My batch so far has been very floral and a bit fruity. It smells a touch sour but has no sour taste. I am waiting for a cold carbonated taste to know what the final result is going to be. I might need to savor these to see if it changes much outside of maturation.

I think the stopping point is determined by your lack of change in gravity, no visual changes or the lack of growth activity and last of all taste. Does it taste like its done. You need to determine if its done.

That's my two cents.

:mug:
 
Yeah I definately agree, I had a double wit made with the culture I've been propogating along and it always had a papery taste, i've been keeping a few in the fridge and it's going away.
 
Drinking this today!

Fleurs du Printemps – modéle Des Moines​

Its the first one, its a half-bottle so it not fully carbed. Not sure if its ready to drink.... Smells good but the grain combo is not been my best choice. (45/45% Pale Malt & Flaked Wheat with a touch of 5/5% special B and victory) It may be just me... I have cursed my palate drinking a tri-hopped Miller Lite Clone with Sorachi Ace. I'm going to have to re-educate my palate to like something that's not really damn dry and lemony.​
 
Gee, ya think those letters are big enough?

How about some pics?
 
ericd said:
Gee, ya think those letters are big enough?
Click to expand...
ericd said:
How about some pics?
Click to expand...


Fleurs du Printemps – modéle Des Moines

Fleurs_Du_Printemps_003.jpg


Not bad today, this one is more carbed and its following coffee.

Its got the floral smell, and I am detecting a phenolic that I didn't notice before.

Might be as a result of the carbonation.


​
 
Cool! That head is so white I didn't see it at first, it blended into your walls :p
 
It's been below 70° in Chicago a lot this July, so I had to try this out. One night when it was under 60° I boiled a couple jars and made up some hoppy DME. I cooled the wort and got it into the sterile jars, and took them to the backyard by the mulberry tree for 60 minutes. I came back in and covered them with sterilized foil.

A few days later, one of the jars has some activity... It's lots of tiny bubbles, so I'm hoping it's Sacch!

The smell is funky, but the jars have been in a sunny windowsill, so the "skunkiness" is the main smell right now.

I'm excited to see what happens! :mug:

Here's the smaller jar. Nothing is happening so far:
wild-small-side.jpg

wild-small-top.jpg


And here's the larger jar with some activity:
wild-big-side.jpg

wild-big-top.jpg
 
I brewed up another starter today. I think I'm going to pitch some mulberries from the backyard in there, in the hopes of picking up some yeast clinging to them. Should I use fallen berries, or fresh from the tree?
 
+1 to that. The yeast should be on the skin of the fruit, so fruit that's still on the tree should be fine. And fruit on the ground could have any manner of crap on it, so there might be an increased risk of picking up something you don't want in your starter.
 
For the record... This beer seems to have changed. :(

It seems to have a good smell but now has prominent "leather-glove" like taste. Its cleared very well though.

I made this without much in the way of hops. ~13 IBU. The taste IMO is all yeast and it lacks bitterness. It seems to detract from the appeal.

Any suggestions? I have never really drank anything with that leather type taste.

Schlenkerla said:
Fleurs du Printemps – modéle Des Moines

Fleurs_Du_Printemps_003.jpg


Not bad today, this one is more carbed and its following coffee.

Its got the floral smell, and I am detecting a phenolic that I didn't notice before.

Might be as a result of the carbonation.


​
Click to expand...
 
I got that with mine too. I don't know what it is, just how the yeast tastes I guess. Lemon will kind of balance it out I've found.

Maybe it cycles during aging like wine? Maybe it will dissapear again in a month or two.
 
Well, the one that got started first got a little mold on it, so I scraped it off and stuck it in the fridge. Hopefully that will inhibit some of the mold and let the yeast have a chance.

I also pitched the fruit into a second batch -- on this batch, I'm using airlocks. I read that there are some nasties who need a lot of oxygen, so I figured I wouldn't give them that advantage. Still, it's pretty warm in Chicago now, so I may move those to the fridge as well.

Fingers crossed...
 
Update on the starter inoculated with mulberries (closed fermentation):
wild-mulberry-krausen1.jpg


wild-mulberry-krausen2.jpg


The dark blobs are mulberries, and the specks above the krausen are hop particles.

Fingers still crossed...
 
It's a bit hard to tell with the airlock on, and I'm too scardey cat to take the airlock off. However, the krausen is slowly rising... I picked up the bottle just now and a bubble was released. It smelled almost like nothing, but maybe very faintly sweet and fruity.
 
Well, the krausens rose to a little more than 1/4" and have since mostly fallen. I smelled one of the jars, and it smells GOOD. Lots of sweet bubble gum and banana happening in there! :ban:

How long should I wait before I pitch one of these into a 1 gal batch?

And should I assume that I'll also be getting some non-sacch action like brett and pedio as well?

If I plate this on agar, would there be any way to separate the saccharomyces from the others?
 
Update... The krausen on both starters fell, and then the smaller starter (B) developed a pellicle. It's white and slightly stringy -- would that be Brett?

The larger starter (A) began to get tiny islands of pellicle, but they never spread across the surface. Instead, starter A developed a brand new krausen! I've never seen that happen before. Maybe the first yeast strain did as much as it could, and now another one is taking over? Starter A is also much hazier than Starter B, which is hopefully yeast in suspension.

I'll post pics later today.
 
Here's the photo... Starter B with the unidentified infection pellicle on the left, and Starter A which so far has looked like a pretty straight Sacch fermentation.

wild-mulberry-starters.jpg
 
The other day I decided to try my hand at capturing wild yeast from my area. I made what is essentially a yeast starter with hops. I put this into a sanitized mason jar (with some star san foam) and a piece of cheese cloth over the top. Then I set it out in the garden over night.

I've noticed some activity today and am wondering what it might be. There's some white stuff on the top (it may or may not be fuzzy), and a green fleck (could be mold, or maybe hops). I also have a weird hanging blob.

I've attached some pictures below. Is this a good sign?

3779140163_9905485bce.jpg


3779140523_79e382c1d6.jpg
 
This morning, I noticed a lot more action in my jar. Lots of foam on the top, and it smells like over-cooked green beans from a can. From a prior post in this thread, this seems to indicate bacteria.

I covered the jar with some foil and stuck it in the fridge. I guess the idea is that in a couple days, the yeast will overtake the bacteria. At that point, I will make a starter and a small batch of beer if the smell goes away.
 
Hmmm, i'd say just just remove the blob and hope for the best. Looks fine otherwise.
 
I put some fresh wort in a few mason jars a few weeks ago and set them uncovered outside for about an hour then poured them into bottles with airlocks. Within a week or so I got what looked like an active yeast fermentation.

However, I realized that I sanitized the mason jars and the fermenting bottles by dunking them in a bucket of Starsan that probably came into contact with equipment that I used to rack beer earlier that same day. So it turns out that my "wild" yeast may not do as wild as I originally thought.

So my question is, can yeast survive in Starsan? I know in wort, Starsan is consumed by yeast, but what about in a solution of 2.5gal water and .5oz Starsan?
 
I've read through this thread a few times and finally decided to give it a shot... Why not?

So I followed the OPs directions and mixed some DME with water, placed into 3 seperate mason jars with a mesh screen over the top (nothing too fine, just enough to keep the big bugs out), and have been placing them outside overnight where it's been reaching about 60 degrees. I did not boil the mixture, I just used warm water and stired for a few minutes.... Sofar nothing, but it seems that overnight the DME is settling at the bottom of the jar and I have to swirl them to get it back into suspension....

I'm wondering if I should just empty the three jars into a pan, boil, and start over... Or maybe it won't matter... Think maybe I'll just have a homebrew for now :).
 
Sure enough... I check on the one that I've only been leaving out for an hour a day this morning, and its looking similar to some of the pics posted here. A nice lay of bubbles stretching across the top. And to think they almost got boiled last night, because of a little worrying and a bit of boredom, ha! :D
 
Everything looked good for a few days....Then mold started to take over.

When I first noticed some promising activity, I kept my jars covered with aluminum foil in my kitchen and stopped placing them outside... Does anybody have any suggestions as to storage once there is activity other than what I did? I pretty much expected this to take a few shots anyways, so for now I'm just going to repeat.
 

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