Need help with a little project... creativity needed

[TRob]

Hello all,

I recently moved to Costa Rica and am getting the itch to make something alcoholic again, however, all the fancy yeasts and supplies that are so easily accessible in the states are a little more difficult to attain here. Thus, I was hopping (beer pun) that all of the bright minds here could help me with this project.

The most readily accessible sugar source here is fruit, namely mangoes, this time of the year, so I was thinking why not get some mango wine going. The dilemma arises in the fact that brewing or wine yeast isn't too easy to get here, so I've been brain-storming ideas to fix this problemo and have come up with three:

1) allow the natural, wild yeast to do their work

2) use bakers yeast (will probably end up bready and not that great)

3) culture yeast from a microbrew here or possibly a wine (is this possible?)

I'm leaning towards the third option right now and I've recently started a sourdough yeast culture just with flour and orange juice, and am wondering if I could do something similar since I don't have access to agar and petri dishes? Does anyone here have experience with reculturing from beer or wine and have an old-school, non-lab tech recipe for a culture?

I'm sure more questions will arise as I think through this, but any help would be great.

Gracias

 

[Double_D]

I'd go with #1 or #3. If you have some simple wort made form DME you could just dump the dregs in and let it go to work. Same with using wild stuff. Just let it sit. But #1 is much less predictable.

 

[static]

You can't order some dehydrated wine yeast through Amazon?

I'm just curious, are there restrictions on stuff like that?

 

[TRob]

Thanks DD, but that brings up another issue: what is a good, easy to find substitute for malt extract? I really am in the middle of nowhere, so shipping is basically out of the question. There are grocery stores around with normal cooking needs, just not brewing stuff. Also, would #3 work with wine dregs as well? Is there enough living yeast in wines?

 

[Pickled_Pepper]

I'm thinking there has to be at least one homebrewer near you that would be willing to share some yeast...if not, I bet they would be willing to share an order with you to cut cost on shipping. Hell, they may even know of a way to make the mango wine.

A quick search on google came up with this facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Puerto-Rico-Homebrew/107758205936433

EDIT: well apparently that FB page is old...maybe you could contact the owner of the page and see if they are still around?

 

[duboman]

I'm thinking there has to be at least one homebrewer near you that would be willing to share some yeast...if not, I bet they would be willing to share an order with you to cut cost on shipping. Hell, they may even know of a way to make the mango wine.

A quick search on google came up with this facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Puerto-Rico-Homebrew/107758205936433

EDIT: well apparently that FB page is old...maybe you could contact the owner of the page and see if they are still around?

Costa Rica, not Puerto Rico...........

 

[Pickled_Pepper]

DOH!

I guess I need to stop drinking now...haha

EDIT...EDIT>>>HAHA:
Ok this article is dated this year;
http://www.thirstypilgrim.com/2012/02/costa-rica-gets-first-craft-brewers.html

 

[divi2323]

Surely someone would be willing to mail you a dollar packet of yeast. Can't be more than a buck for the stamp.

Once you've racked off the first batch, wash your yeast via one of the many YouTube videos or threads here and stored properly it should be good for many batches to come

 

[divi2323]

That willing party would be me of course. Forgot to add. Shoot me 3 bucks in PayPal and ill mail you a five gram packet of dry wine yeast on Monday.

 

[Daze]

wild yeast can be fantastic!!! I got a sample of wild yeast sent to me from another guy on the forum. He had captured it from apples while making a keeved cider. I have since used it for lots of brews from cider to skeeterpee. I like it better than the commercial yeasts. These are my observations on this yeast

1. Slow starting yeast. Seams like when I pitch it, it takes about twice as long to cloud up the cider and get bubbling compared to Montrachet or other commercial yeasts.
2. Has a mild to non existent flavor. Love this!! When the cider is young but still clear, the samples I taste are clean and fresh with no yeasty notes. I have found commercial yeasts to be a bit more assertive until they have aged.
3. Clumps like champaign yeast. Another major positive as it allows me to rack it with out getting much yeast in the new container. Also a major plus when bottle carbonating.
4. Less lees, with identical batches I get about 1/2 the lees I get from Montrachet.

All in all I love this yeast. My point is you will probably be really happy with A yeast that you harvest locally and it will be well suited to your environment which should produce some really good wines, beers, ciders and coolers with local ingredients.

As to your idea to harvest yeast from a commercial beer or wine, most commercial establishment do not want to share there "special" yeast so they filter out all the yeast OR they pasteurize.

If the natural yeast won't do the trick send me a PM with your address and I will send you several packs of dry yeast no charge

 

[TRob]

Great! Thanks everyone for your help. I'm thinking I'll try both natural yeast and dry yeast, if it can make it down here without any issues. If this works out well there's so much fruit here that I'll probably wind up doing everything I can find. I'll keep everyone updated no matter what. Thanks again

 

[TRob]

Quick update: Just got the natural yeast batch going. I used two, huge, very ripe mangos along with some additional sugar and water. I made sure to catch all of the water used to rinse the mangos in the hope of getting the natural yeast off the skin since I didn't want to add the skin to the actual juice. I blended the fruit down, added the hopefully yeast-ridden water, a little sugar water and now have it going in my fancy-dancy three leter coke bottle with a rubber extension cord, sin the wires, going from the lid to a glass of water by its side as the airlock. Like I said, it's not too easy to get brewing/wine making equipment here, so I think I made the best with the materials at hand. I'll keep everyone updated with the results in the next few days.

I was also thinking, that it might make sense to try leaving out a little container of mango juice and maybe some flour or something as a base to try to catch me some wild yeast. Thoughts?

 

[Daze]

Your yeast is on its way. The three kinds I am sending are

Doric, ail yeast
Montrachet, cider and wine yeast
Premier Cuvee, same as ec-1118

each pack is good for a 5 gallon batch so I would use each one to start several small batches that way if one batch goes bad you have not blown the entire pack on one shot. from there I would read up on yeast washing. I have found I can get 3 starters from the lees of a 1 gallon batch.

 

[divi2323]

Same here. Lalvin ec-1118 is on its way.

 

[Rivenin]

culturing yeast from a bottle would be easy.

or contact a brewery there and see what they would charge for brewing yeast?
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/breweries/brewers-directory-0-52.htm
if they have breweries there, there has to be something close by (next countries over?)

 

[TRob]

Great- thanks Daze and divi. That'll help a lot with getting in my brewing fix down here. I'll be sure to keep everyone updated with the progress

 

[TRob]

So a quick update from way down south: first batch using natural yeast washed from the mango skins turned into vinegar, probably due to acetobacter in some bruised flesh. However, now with a ton of thanks to Daze and divi I have brewing yeast, so today I got a new batch going which comprised of 6 big mangos, 1 big pineapple, and 4 lbs of cane sugar. This time I also boiled it all down for about an hour just to make sure there aren't any acetobacter lurking around. So, now I have four batches of ~6-2 liters with Premier Cuvee, Lalvin EC-1118, Montrachet, and Doric ail yeasts in them. Hopefully, I'll get better results than last time, although I must admit the mango vinegar wasn't too shabby

 

[divi2323]

Very cool to hear! Make sure you wash it and refrigerate so you have more for future batches!

 

[Daze]

for future reference you don't need to boil it. 140ºF for 10 minutes will kill off everything with out cooking the fruit. Glad to see that all is going well with the yeast you got.

 

[Cascadegan]

Flour doesn't do anything for yeast (they can't eat it...)

You could probably find wheat/barley on the island for beer if you wanted (as for specialty malts you can make toasted malt but not much else)

 

[TRob]

Flour? Island?

 

[Caucasian]

Does your local grocery have malta goya? It's basically wort in a 12 oz can. Could use that for starters or making some kind of mango beer.