Sourdough bread and wild beer yeasts

[i4ourgot]

So I was just wondering are the same yeasts that make sourdough bread the ones that make sour and wild beers, lacto and pedio?

 

[emjay]

Sometimes. Wild yeast is used for sourdough and many sour/wild beers. But lacto and pedio are actually different, as they are bacteria rather than yeast (which are actually a kind of fungus).

That being said, wild yeasts can all taste different and most are considered to actually give a poor taste - which is why some locations are renowned for their local wild yeast strains. Even then, what's good for beer isn't necessarily good for bread, and vice versa; for example, wild yeasts in the Senne river area are renowned for beer (and are responsible for lambic), whereas the wild yeasts in the San Francisco Bay area are widely considered to produce some of the best sourdough bread in the world.

 

[dinnerstick]

for sure lactobacillus is active in every sourdough culture, but there are many many species of lacto. it's not a trivial matter to isolate all of the species in a microbial blend like a sourdough culture, let alone to then identify individual species or strains, so i would say that in answer to your question, probably/sort of/nobody really knows. i remember reading somewhere that lactobacillus strains isolated around the world from sourdough starters were almost always indistinguishable strains, but i can't find the reference. i have a very nice sourdough culture that i have been using for over a year, which i started from the bottom of a pack of roeselare (note correct spelling! quite a novel thing on this website. i take any opportunity to rant about people spelling it roselare and pronouncing the first part like 'rose'. why would you do it?) blend, ie. the rodenbach yeasts and bugs. i have no way of knowing if those are the active strains in my culture, so many generations later, or if they don't do well on flour and were replaced long ago by whatever was on the flour and in the air. i like to think that these are the rodenbach guys so i have convinced myself of it, with no supporting evidence whatsoever. but here's the thread!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f56/sourdough-roeselare-blend-335050/