Baking bread with wild yeast (not sourdough)

[z-bob]

I had a quart and a half of watery peach juice (extracted with a steamer from overripe peaches) in my fridge, waiting for months for me to do something with it, and it fermented. (I just now drank it and it tasted pretty good) I'm thinking about culturing the yeast at the bottom; not for making beer or wine but for bread. Assuming it's still alive, is this likely to work? Anybody done it before?

I assume it will be like baking with wine yeast, whatever that's like. I have some bread yeast, but it's a scarce commodity right now and I just wanna see how this works.

 

[day_trippr]

Cool!
I think you should at least see if you can grow up your dregs with a small mild starter, and if it kicks off nicely you can decide to go all in or not...

Cheers!

 

[z-bob]

Cool!
I think you should at least see if you can grow up your dregs with a small mild starter, and if it kicks off nicely you can decide to go all in or not...

Cheers!

I added the dregs to some bread flour to make a batter, with a half teaspoon of sugar and a pinch of yeast nutrient. I should know in a day or two if I got something. It might have been in the refrigerator too long, although it fermented in the fridge so I suspect it's okay; just dormant.

 

[day_trippr]

I'd have gone the more fluid starter route to build up a yeast store, but I'm not a broadly experienced baker, maybe starter dough will do the job...

Cheers!

 

[RPh_Guy]

There's a good chance it will sour.

 

[z-bob]

There's a good chance it will sour.

It's okay if it does, that's just not my intent

 

[TurnipGreen]

Yes, you can more than likely use it. It was common place for bakers to use beer yeast cakes at one time.

You’ll likely need to build a starter up and in doing that it will probably sour because flour naturally has a pile of bacteria on it.

If you don’t want it to taste sour, simply feed the starter more than once a day as you build it up for baking. This will keep the yeast really strong and higher numbers that the source bacteria.

 

[hottpeper13]

I take 7-14 grams of malted wheat and put it in the bullet and grind to flour (diastatic malt powder) and use it in a thin,think pancake consistency, starter called a poolish.

 

[z-bob]

No sign of life yet I thought it would be at least a little bubbly today. If this doesn't work, I may try it again with raisins and water for a starter. I like the idea of giving it diastatic malt the first time I add flour.

 

[z-bob]

I started over with a handful of raisins and some bottled water and a teaspoon of sugar. I shook it up once or twice a day. After a couple of days some of the raisins started floating (a good sign!) It took almost a week to actually show active fermentation. A couple of days ago I added a pinch of yeast nutrient and another teaspoon of sugar. Today it was quite fizzy and didn't really smell like alcohol, but it was kind of winey. I strained out the raisins and measured the liquid. It was 300 ml. I added 200 grams of whole wheat flour and stirred it up. A couple of hours later it was foamy and had risen as much as you'd expect from a dough that wet.

A little while ago, I put 400 grams of bread flour in a bowl, and dissolved 10 grams of salt in 150ml of warm water. Added the salted water to the flour and mixed it up a bit, then added the raisin water batter. Mixed and kneaded it just until it was all combined, and covered it with some plastic wrap. It's about time to go check on it. I'll knead it briefly, then put it in the fridge to deal with tomorrow.

That's 600 grams total flour and 450 ml of water, or 75% hydration. (very wet for a bread dough, it will be messy and hard to work with) I made some practice bread last weekend using 75% hydration and 2% salt. After several mishaps, it turned out really good. I'm using a little less salt this time, and a little higher percentage of whole wheat flour.