So I decided I wanted to wild ferment my mead. I have a 1.5 gallon big mouth bubbler (fantastic for making fruit infused mead/cider), and I added about 3 pounds of raw honey to a bit less than a gallon of water. I started this process on 1/11/20 and I have been stirring it at least once daily (I know I'm supposed to be stirring more frequently, but I'm busy with school and work, lame, right). I have a cheese cloth draped over the top of the bubbler so that the yeast gets oxygen and I've been told and have read that there isn't any threat of oxidation while the yeast is growing and multiplying. However, I have no idea if this thing has taken yet. It doesn't smell off, there isn't any mold or anything, I just don't see any signs of yeast doing anything? No bubbles or anything. About five days ago, I threw some raisins in there and have been stirring... my question is, how do I know if it's going and can be re-racked and what else can I do to get it going if it isn't already?
How to get my wild fermented mead going??
- Thread starter Vincemcg
- Start date
-
- Tags
- mead wild fermentation
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
You need something called a hydrometer.
Seamonkey84
Well-Known Member
You need to start with Less honey per gallon for most wild ferments. High gravity plus little to no nutrients from honey will make this a show or not start before infections occurs. Maybe stick this in the fridge, and get a starter going with few tablespoons of Raw honey in a pint of spring water. let it sit out at room temp or on top of fridge, if it starts to bubble and doesn’t have mold, pitch that in. https://www.denardbrewing.com/blog/post/Honey-yeast/
RPh_Guy
Bringing Sour Back
Hi and welcome to HBT!
With a "spontaneous" fermentation it's wise to keep the sugar content relatively low, with a specific gravity no higher than 1.070. That's about 2 lbs of honey per US gallon. This is an alcoholic potential of around 10-11% ABV and should ferment fully dry with wild microbes.
You can sweeten it later if desired.
To ensure a quality wild fermentation (and prevent mold growth), you need to make sure that wild yeast are getting into your must (honey + water mixture). A common way to accomplish this to put it outside uncovered for at least several hours in a location with good air flow and ideally near foliage. The air outdoors should have a higher diversity and concentration of microbes than the air inside your home.
Nutrients are not required but are likely helpful, e.g. some Go-Ferm and Fermaid O or Wyeast nutrient.
Making a starter is a different approach and will yield different results.
Isolating yeast is not necessary, and not desirable if you're looking for the result of a wild fermentation.
With a "spontaneous" fermentation it's wise to keep the sugar content relatively low, with a specific gravity no higher than 1.070. That's about 2 lbs of honey per US gallon. This is an alcoholic potential of around 10-11% ABV and should ferment fully dry with wild microbes.
You can sweeten it later if desired.
To ensure a quality wild fermentation (and prevent mold growth), you need to make sure that wild yeast are getting into your must (honey + water mixture). A common way to accomplish this to put it outside uncovered for at least several hours in a location with good air flow and ideally near foliage. The air outdoors should have a higher diversity and concentration of microbes than the air inside your home.
Nutrients are not required but are likely helpful, e.g. some Go-Ferm and Fermaid O or Wyeast nutrient.
Making a starter is a different approach and will yield different results.
Isolating yeast is not necessary, and not desirable if you're looking for the result of a wild fermentation.
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
Hi Vincemcg - and welcome.
RPh_Guy is the scientist but in my experience if you are aiming for an indigenous yeast fermentation you want to begin with half the concentration suggested above. I would go for the equivalent of 1 lb of honey and 1 gallon of total volume must but that doesn't mean that you have to experiment with a whole pound of honey. Four ounces of honey dissolved to make 1 quart is the same as 1 lb and 1 gallon - and much less expensive if the experiment fails.
I also don't know that you need to go hunting for yeast. If you are using good quality honey and that honey is listed as"raw" then it is likely full of yeast. The issue for the yeast is that honey is so dry that it sucks the moisture from organisms so they are unable to ferment or spoil the honey until you dilute it with water. Once you dilute it sufficiently the yeast that were present are rehydrated too and they can begin to ferment the honey. The one negative is that not every strain of yeast will provide you with the flavors you prefer. But if the quart of must begins to take off and if when you taste the results - and you want to taste them from the moment it begins to ferment - you like the flavor - then you encourage those yeast to reproduce by adding oxygen and you encourage the cells that have the most tolerance for greater concentrations of sugar AND greater concentrations of alcohol by slowly, slowly increasing the amount of honey in solution while increasing the total volume of this "starter" . Your aim (in my opinion) is less about making a mead this time around than it is about creating a solid biomass of healthy, viable yeast capable of making a fine mead after you harvest the colony. But this is your honey and your call...
RPh_Guy is the scientist but in my experience if you are aiming for an indigenous yeast fermentation you want to begin with half the concentration suggested above. I would go for the equivalent of 1 lb of honey and 1 gallon of total volume must but that doesn't mean that you have to experiment with a whole pound of honey. Four ounces of honey dissolved to make 1 quart is the same as 1 lb and 1 gallon - and much less expensive if the experiment fails.
I also don't know that you need to go hunting for yeast. If you are using good quality honey and that honey is listed as"raw" then it is likely full of yeast. The issue for the yeast is that honey is so dry that it sucks the moisture from organisms so they are unable to ferment or spoil the honey until you dilute it with water. Once you dilute it sufficiently the yeast that were present are rehydrated too and they can begin to ferment the honey. The one negative is that not every strain of yeast will provide you with the flavors you prefer. But if the quart of must begins to take off and if when you taste the results - and you want to taste them from the moment it begins to ferment - you like the flavor - then you encourage those yeast to reproduce by adding oxygen and you encourage the cells that have the most tolerance for greater concentrations of sugar AND greater concentrations of alcohol by slowly, slowly increasing the amount of honey in solution while increasing the total volume of this "starter" . Your aim (in my opinion) is less about making a mead this time around than it is about creating a solid biomass of healthy, viable yeast capable of making a fine mead after you harvest the colony. But this is your honey and your call...
RPh_Guy
Bringing Sour Back
A lot of the flavor of a wild fermentation is contributed very early in the process by yeast such as Kloeckera and Hanseniaspora genera. Much of this early wild yeast is alcohol-sensitive and will die soon after alcoholic fermentation begins.
Therefore, starting small via making a wild starter, harvesting the culture, etc will result in a much lower microbial diversity and much different (less complex) flavor profile.
Commercial-produced wild beers and wines are typically made by exposing the entire batch to wild microbes. Commercial producers also groom their Brett cultures (which largely impact the long-term flavor) and utilize blending of the final product to reduce variation between different barrels.
Therefore, starting small via making a wild starter, harvesting the culture, etc will result in a much lower microbial diversity and much different (less complex) flavor profile.
Commercial-produced wild beers and wines are typically made by exposing the entire batch to wild microbes. Commercial producers also groom their Brett cultures (which largely impact the long-term flavor) and utilize blending of the final product to reduce variation between different barrels.
I have started my wild yeast starter the other day. I used a chunk of raw honeycomb, from a local apiary. I wasn't sure how this was going to work, so I used a half gallon mason jar and heated some RO water to ~100°. I dropped the honeycomb into the water and broke it up and mixed it as well as I could. I took a gravity reading and it was way too high, so I heated up some more water and finally got the gravity under 1.050, and also added some fermaid O, yeast energizer and yeast nutrient. I purchased a seed starting heating pad and have the covered jar sitting on it to keep the temps up. I shake the jar a few times a day, then just loosen the top a quarter turn. We'll see what happens in a week or so.
Seamonkey84
Well-Known Member
I wouldn’t recommend heating it, maybe stick it on top of your fridge where it’s warmer.
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
Totally get the idea that harvesting the colony towards the end of the fermentation means that you are not going to capture any significant numbers of those cultures that started the fermentation but why is the size of the starter an issue any more than someone plating the yeast and growing a colony from a petri dish? AND, if you allow any next batch of honey or fruit freedom for two or three days to encourage those same indigenous cultures the floor without pitching your harvested yeast then presumably you achieve much the same complexity of flavor even if not identical to your previous batch. No?
RPh_Guy
Bringing Sour Back
I'm not sure I understand these questions correctly, so please elaborate if these answers aren't sufficient.
Exposing the entire batch to a full array of wild microbes will produce the most flavor diversity.
Using a wild starter will provide a moderate amount of flavor diversity; the size of the starter doesn't necessarily matter. The lower the alcohol, the more microbes it will allow to survive.
Isolating a single strain of yeast (from a plate) will produce the least flavor diversity.
For the most flavor, It would be good to wait until visible fermentation begins until you pitch the harvested yeast. This will give the "apiculate yeast" time to produce esters. Otherwise, I'd agree that's a pretty solid plan, especially if your pitched culture produces flavors that you like. I think it's good to err on the side of low pitch rate in this situation, mainly so you don't add a lot of dead cells (unless you like it really funky).
Cheers
P.S. https://www.mdpi.com/2311-5637/4/3/76/pdf
There's nothing wrong with any of these approaches, it just depends on your goal.
Exposing the entire batch to a full array of wild microbes will produce the most flavor diversity.
Using a wild starter will provide a moderate amount of flavor diversity; the size of the starter doesn't necessarily matter. The lower the alcohol, the more microbes it will allow to survive.
Isolating a single strain of yeast (from a plate) will produce the least flavor diversity.
You're asking about exposing the whole batch to wild microbes for a few days and then adding yeast harvested from a previous wild batch?
For the most flavor, It would be good to wait until visible fermentation begins until you pitch the harvested yeast. This will give the "apiculate yeast" time to produce esters. Otherwise, I'd agree that's a pretty solid plan, especially if your pitched culture produces flavors that you like. I think it's good to err on the side of low pitch rate in this situation, mainly so you don't add a lot of dead cells (unless you like it really funky).
Cheers
P.S. https://www.mdpi.com/2311-5637/4/3/76/pdf
Last edited:
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
Appreciate your response but what is the problem caused by adding dead yeast cells? Wasn't that in fact the standard "commercial" method of adding nutrient to any batch of wine or mead in the historical past? Dead yeast cells can provide the necessary building blocks that viable yeast need if the nutrient load in the fruit or honey is low or non existent. Indeed, even today, you can simply rehydrate bakers yeast and zap them in a microwave and use that in place of lab manufactured versions of "nutrient" which is a lab version of the same process. No?
RPh_Guy
Bringing Sour Back
Brettanomyces produces "funky" flavors from dead yeast. It's a good thing if you like those flavors, and a bad thing if you don't.
If Brettanomyces isn't present, then it may not make much difference.
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
Okay, no argument from me about Brett and possible funky flavors, but why would there be a large enough colony of Brett on apples or in honey if you were simply encouraging the indigenous microbes to multiply. You wouldn't expect that there would far larger numbers of Saccharomyces cerevisiae
