rewster452
Well-Known Member
Okay, so first, I am VERY aware of how ambitious this project is. I am also aware that there is a very high possibility of utter failure and really nasty "beer" that will not be fun to choke down. But I did read one thread where someone was successful, so I'm going to try it.
Here's what I want to do. I have a natural leaven starter I've been cultivating for bread for just about four weeks. I've baked bread with it, and it is not, strictly speaking, a sourdough at all. It is, if anything, almost characterless. This is good news for making a beer yeast, methinks. Because I'm pretty sure the yeast character that does come out in the bread will be much stronger in a beer.
So, tomorrow when I bake some bread, I'm going to take a couple of tablespoons of the leaven and add it to a ready DME beer starter at 1.032, 70F, and put an airlock on it. When this ferments all the way out, I'll cold shock it until there's a dense yeast bed, decant the top, and pitch that in another starter at the same gravity and temp. I'll do that probably 5 or 6 times and then start upping the gravity to around 1.060. Just a few points at a time though, over the course of a couple of months.
Finally, a couple of weeks before brewday, I'm going to make a simple "beer" with DME and some cheap hops, just to make sure it can handle living with hops. If it tastes weird, I might do it again.
The length of the whole process is going to depend on my nose and my gut, and when I think it's ready, I'm going to make a very bready beer, as part of my series of beers exploring the relationship between beer and bread.
I'll go into more details about the beer itself in another thread.
Does anyone know of a really good reason why this won't work? Does anyone know what kinds of esthers and aromas this type of yeast might contribute? I was "trying" to get the yeast for the bread to be less sour smelling and more sweet, and it seems to have worked, but I really couldn't tell you what I did to get that result, or if I just got lucky. Could I expect the same luck converting it to beer?
Here's what I want to do. I have a natural leaven starter I've been cultivating for bread for just about four weeks. I've baked bread with it, and it is not, strictly speaking, a sourdough at all. It is, if anything, almost characterless. This is good news for making a beer yeast, methinks. Because I'm pretty sure the yeast character that does come out in the bread will be much stronger in a beer.
So, tomorrow when I bake some bread, I'm going to take a couple of tablespoons of the leaven and add it to a ready DME beer starter at 1.032, 70F, and put an airlock on it. When this ferments all the way out, I'll cold shock it until there's a dense yeast bed, decant the top, and pitch that in another starter at the same gravity and temp. I'll do that probably 5 or 6 times and then start upping the gravity to around 1.060. Just a few points at a time though, over the course of a couple of months.
Finally, a couple of weeks before brewday, I'm going to make a simple "beer" with DME and some cheap hops, just to make sure it can handle living with hops. If it tastes weird, I might do it again.
The length of the whole process is going to depend on my nose and my gut, and when I think it's ready, I'm going to make a very bready beer, as part of my series of beers exploring the relationship between beer and bread.
I'll go into more details about the beer itself in another thread.
Does anyone know of a really good reason why this won't work? Does anyone know what kinds of esthers and aromas this type of yeast might contribute? I was "trying" to get the yeast for the bread to be less sour smelling and more sweet, and it seems to have worked, but I really couldn't tell you what I did to get that result, or if I just got lucky. Could I expect the same luck converting it to beer?