Will a sock of wood chips capture the yeast in fermenter?

[hbajwa]

I heard about the traditional kviek yeast rings and was excited to try using one but it was too expensive on Etsy and Ebay. I wanted to ask if there's anything wrong with this attempt at capturing the french saison yeast.

I filled up a clean sock with oak chips, tied it to contain the chips, boiled it for a minute, and put it in the fermenter for 1 week. I just opened it up today and took out the sock. It has yeast and hop residues on it. I tired my best to scrape off the green hop material. I am air drying it in the shade outside now. I will reuse it next year for the same beer. It will likely not dry in time so I will bring it back out and dry tomorrow.

Will the yeast get locked in and still be viable if I dry it out and store in my fridge? Is there anything wrong in my process?

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

I heard about the traditional kviek yeast rings and was excited to try using one but it was too expensive on Etsy and Ebay. I wanted to ask if there's anything wrong with this attempt at capturing the french saison yeast.

I filled up a clean sock with oak chips, tied it to contain the chips, boiled it for a minute, and put it in the fermenter for 1 week. I just opened it up today and took out the sock. It has yeast and hop residues on it. I tired my best to scrape off the green hop material. I am air drying it in the shade outside now. I will reuse it next year for the same beer. It will likely not dry in time so I will bring it back out and dry tomorrow.

Will the yeast get locked in and still be viable if I dry it out and store in my fridge? Is there anything wrong in my process?

It won’t look fancy, but you could use a wooden spoon. I apparently didn’t clean a fermenter well enough after Lutra, and had a “spontaneous” (not really, but it seemed like that until I figured it out) fermentation months later even after giving it a swish of starsan. So yes your wood chips should work fine. Pitch rates will be up to chance vs using a pouch, but that may be keeping with the farmhouse technique/style.

 

[hbajwa]

That's helpful. Thanks a lot!