Wild yeast capture success. Maybe

[kh54s10]

A little over a month ago I started an experiment. I made a small weak starter and dropped a Hibiscus flower in it. After a day there was a little foam around the side of the jar. I fished out the flower and let it ferment. It smelled like beer so I did a few more steps with the starter. The results were a nice layer that seemed like yeast so I brewed up a SMaSH. Rahr 2 row and Centennial. I did a BIAB and got about 2.5 gallons. OG was 1.052 and FG was 1.013.

This turned out very good. I am no good at describing flavors but the yeast add a lot to this one. I get a little floral and not much citrus in the aroma, Spicy but not much citrus in the flavor from the Centennial. The 2 row would not add much malt and I don't really get that but there is a pretty strong presence so I think it is the yeast.

The maybe part of the title comes from replies in another thread stating that you might get commercial yeast from the brew area. I did this in the same place that I make other starters. But the flavor of this is unlike any yeasts that I have used since moving in last November and resuming my brewing in December.

So success, now to create another recipe and use it again.

 

[Dcpcooks]

Nice! I’m a week away from one year in the barrel on my coolship spontaneous inoculation beer. I need to pull a sample and hopefully it turned out.

It’s possible you got some house yeast but I kinda doubt it based on your timeline. Unless you painted the walls in yeast 4-6 months is a short window of time for a house culture.

You may have captured some lacto if your milling grain in the brew space. In my experience lacto is the first bug to take hold in a brew space.

Congrats on a nice project. If you really want to see what you captured you can send a sample of the yeast to bootleg biology and they will plate it and see what you got. If it’s a unique strain they may add it to the yeast bank!

 

[jcav]

Very cool! Nice job! You should send it in to the lab and see what you got!

John

 

[PoppinCaps]

Great project!

If Bootleg wants to charge you to do a test if you're interested in doing that, PM me. I run a propagation lab in NC, and I'd be happy to identify/characterize it for you as best I can.

 

[enkamania]

How big was the original starter with the flower in it? Also, how weak was the starter?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Sounds like a success to me, nice work!

Here's an interesting read about S. cerevisiae lineage that touches on what it means to be wild.
http://allaboutbeer.com/article/the-family-tree-of-yeast/

From what I can gather, "wild" yeast do behave differently:
Less flocculation.
Lower alcohol tolerance and/or lower/slower attenuation.
More phenolic/flavorful character (POF+). Might be more expressive with an acid rest!
Changes in character if propagated. (Mutations)

So I'd think just by taste and observing the characteristics you could make an educated guess whether or not it is a "wild" yeast.

 

[divrack]

Nice. I've been thinking of doing some stuff like this after hearing about the supposedly New fast souring yeast that is in the pipeline that was a random harvest from a tree.
I re propagated an accidental infection a bunch of times as it was so good.

 

[kh54s10]

The first was .25 liter at about 1.025, stepped up with .5 liter at 1.030, then .5 liter 1.035-1.040, then a final step of .75 liter at 1.035-1.040

I cold crashed and poured off the liquid each time after the second step, and continued until I had a cake the thickness I usually get when making a normal starter. I had no other reference to go by.

 

[kh54s10]

Sounds like a success to me, nice work!

Here's an interesting read about S. cerevisiae lineage that touches on what it means to be wild.
http://allaboutbeer.com/article/the-family-tree-of-yeast/

From what I can gather, "wild" yeast do behave differently:
Less flocculation.
Lower alcohol tolerance and/or lower/slower attenuation.
More phenolic/flavorful character (POF+). Might be more expressive with an acid rest!
Changes in character if propagated. (Mutations)

So I'd think just by taste and observing the characteristics you could make an educated guess whether or not it is a "wild" yeast.

I would say that the flocculation might have been a little lower than a lab yeast.
I don't know about alcohol tolerance. My test batch ended up at 5.12% ABV and 74% apparent flocculation according to Brewer's Friend calculator.
It certainly had a strong flavor that I couldn't attribute to the malt or hops.
I will have to see if it mutates. I guess I should brew the same beer again and see if it stays the same.

 

[redllama]

Nice job. I did the same thing last year with a flower from the magnolia tree in my front yard. I get nice Belgian/Saison notes of floral and light spice. It has produced some nice beers for me and I am not experimenting using it as my base Sacc strain with sour beers

 

[Miraculix]

I would say that the flocculation might have been a little lower than a lab yeast.
I don't know about alcohol tolerance. My test batch ended up at 5.12% ABV and 74% apparent flocculation according to Brewer's Friend calculator.
It certainly had a strong flavor that I couldn't attribute to the malt or hops.
I will have to see if it mutates. I guess I should brew the same beer again and see if it stays the same.

It is very unlikely that it is only one yeast, it is probably a mix of many many yeasts. The ratios between those yeasts will likely change from beer to beer and evolve, together with the possibility of mutations, so the flavour might change for many reasons.

But that is the fun part, isn't it?

But one thing, if you are botteling I'd be very very careful determining the final gravity. Some of those wild yeasts eat nearly everything but do this very slowly. So what might look stable on a 3 day apart reading might be a bottle bomb in three months, if bottled.

 

[ESBrewer]

Sounds great. And yes, there could be several strains(or species) and they may be perfect together(but the ratio of these strains may change over time) . Or you may dilute and plate the mixture and extract individual colonies from agar plates.