TravelingLight
Well-Known Member
My GF and I just came back from our first time in Denver. Probably 50% of our trip revolved around beer. Got to see and taste at some great places (Crooked Stave, GD, Former Future, Baere, True (Trve?), etc) but I'd like to talk about Former Future as it was one of our favorites.
We happened to be there on the day of James Howat's Black Project release. Which, as best as I can tell, is his side project focusing on purely wild beers and spontaneous fermentation. As noted on the card at the brewery listing the beers, he lists his techniques at the bottom. This one caught my attention...
"Native Yeast Blend. A proprietary technique that helps remove much of the acid-producing microbes from a spontaneous culture, allowing for non-sour beers produced by the native wild yeast ecosystem."
He's also using coolships, isolated wild yeast, soleras, etc. The two beers he had with this native wild yeast strain was a saison and a dark farmhouse.
I'm curious as to this technique. If I understand it correctly, he caught wild yeast then scrubbed it of lacto, pedio, and brett? Or just the lacto and pedio, leaving any brett etc? Is this even possible on a homebrew scale? Or would this have to be done in a lab setting with equipment far out of my budget? I'm really starting to nerd out on science-y beer stuff and had not seen someone capturing wild yeast and scrubbing it clean. I talked to Howat's wife about it for a while. At least I think it was his wife. She was very knowledgeable and open about it but I'm going to reach out to him for more input. Just curious everyone else's thoughts.
We happened to be there on the day of James Howat's Black Project release. Which, as best as I can tell, is his side project focusing on purely wild beers and spontaneous fermentation. As noted on the card at the brewery listing the beers, he lists his techniques at the bottom. This one caught my attention...
"Native Yeast Blend. A proprietary technique that helps remove much of the acid-producing microbes from a spontaneous culture, allowing for non-sour beers produced by the native wild yeast ecosystem."
He's also using coolships, isolated wild yeast, soleras, etc. The two beers he had with this native wild yeast strain was a saison and a dark farmhouse.
I'm curious as to this technique. If I understand it correctly, he caught wild yeast then scrubbed it of lacto, pedio, and brett? Or just the lacto and pedio, leaving any brett etc? Is this even possible on a homebrew scale? Or would this have to be done in a lab setting with equipment far out of my budget? I'm really starting to nerd out on science-y beer stuff and had not seen someone capturing wild yeast and scrubbing it clean. I talked to Howat's wife about it for a while. At least I think it was his wife. She was very knowledgeable and open about it but I'm going to reach out to him for more input. Just curious everyone else's thoughts.
