Yeast biodiversity... a good or bad thing?

[wbrian]

Hi All!
I'm fairly new to the mead making realm. I've made many wines (most putrid). In wine-making, we strive to sterilize a must and then inoculate it with a single strain of yeast. I see, in meads, a similar practice. I got to thinking, is there a harm in having more than one type of yeast present?
The reason I ask is this. About 10 pounds of my fall honey has started to ferment, ever so slightly. So I am using that for mead making. I am ready to add in a starter I, well started, yesterday. Its roaring along under airlock in Mason jars on honey, water blackberry and blueberry skins and squeezed fruit. There's about a quart of starter at this point. Will the natural yeast in the honey survive? Outcompete? Die?
Do varying strains of yeasts do anything for flavor diversity?
Any insight provided will be appreciated. I'm new and learning.
Thanks a lot!
Brian

Recipe:
7.5# Goldenrod honey (possibly wildly fermenting),
Tea of steeped chopped raisins (handful), black tea, 3 chopped mandarins.
1qt D47 starter in black/blueberry fruit & honey water
RO Water to 3-1/2 gallons.
Starting gravity =1.082

 

[bushpilot]

I am a little new at this, but I think I would done the same as you, just to see what would happen. Now you can do it for me!

Another option would have been (I think) to put 3-4 Campden tablets in the must 24 hours before pitching the yeast, hopefully suppressing the wild yeasts. But, seeing it was already fermenting, I don't know.

There are many out there who use wild ferments, apparently with drinkable results. The book, "Making Mead Like a Viking" comes to mind, a good read.

I look forward to hearing how it turned out. I am a beekeeper as well, and may end up with the same situation someday.

 

[wbrian]

I am a little new at this, but I think I would done the same as you, just to see what would happen. Now you can do it for me!

Another option would have been (I think) to put 3-4 Campden tablets in the must 24 hours before pitching the yeast, hopefully suppressing the wild yeasts. But, seeing it was already fermenting, I don't know.

There are many out there who use wild ferments, apparently with drinkable results. The book, "Making Mead Like a Viking" comes to mind, a good read.

I look forward to hearing how it turned out. I am a beekeeper as well, and may end up with the same situation someday.

Honestly, I was surprised at the honey going to ferment. It was purely capped when i harvested it...

 

[bernardsmith]

Not an expert but here's my thinking: we know that bees are covered in yeast when they extract pollen from flowers. We know that honey - if raw - contains enormous numbers of yeast cells that are for all intents and purposes desiccated by the lack of moisture in the honey but come alive again when you dilute the honey with water to make a must. We know that indigenous yeast (wild yeast) tend to be less tolerant of alcohol than lab-cultured yeast and we know that many strains of indigenous yeast while they can make ethanol from sugars also produce flavors that sometimes we like and sometimes we dislike. If you accept all these claims as true then...
Allowing your honey to ferment for a few days at a relatively low SG at say, 1.030 +/-, with a full nutrient load, will not typically stress any yeast present and you can taste the resulting mead in progress (or "starter) to see if you find the flavors acceptable or dislikeable. If You dislike the flavors you simply pitch some lab -cultured yeast and they will quickly over-run the indigenous cells. If you like the flavors then you can keep them fermenting and perhaps slowly increase the amount of honey:water ratio to help select the more robust cells, the cells that better tolerate higher ABV wines & meads and you can shift this solution from being what is essentially a starter to a must.
All that said, I think that while there is more predictability and more consistency with the use of lab-cultured yeasts we make mead and wines not for profit but for the love of wine making. We are true amateurs (check out the definition of "amateur") and as amateurs we have one advantage over many professional vintner: we can ignore predictability and we can dismiss consistency because we can embrace the uniqueness not only of the harvest of our raw materials (presumably each season's honey is for all intents and purposes unique) but the uniqueness of the yeasts we can employ to ferment the honey (and the fruit etc).

For me bio-diversity is critical in every aspect of our lives not least because it can help ensure that if some catastrophe happens to destroy one variety of apple, of banana, of flower, one strain of yeast, there will be hundreds or thousands of other varieties we can enjoy. Lab culturing of fruits and yeasts etc tends to narrow the diversity available...

 

[Seamonkey84]

Wild ferments can give unpredictable flavors, that can be good or bad, and will be different from batch to batch. I’ve read, Depending on local conditions, not all capped honey is below 20% moisture. Any honey that’s 20% or more in moisture can potentially ferment or otherwise spoil. 18% moisture and below, it’ll have an indefinite shelf life. Some honey can be so antiseptic, it won’t have any viable microbes in it.

 

[bucketnative]

I would point out that the striving to, "sterilize a must and then inoculate it with a single strain of yeast," is becoming less of a mandate in the wine industry. The biodynamic wine label certification is becoming a big thing. And, while it is not all about the yeast used, most certifications prohibit the use of commercial yeast additions. Start on Page 45: https://www.demeter-usa.org/downloads/Demeter-Processing-Standards.pdf

 

[RPh_Guy]

In wine-making, we strive to sterilize a must and then inoculate it with a single strain of yeast. I see, in meads, a similar practice. I got to thinking, is there a harm in having more than one type of yeast present?

To build on the previous comment: Allowing natural yeast in wine has been done for millennia and it's still a common practice.
I've personally made wines and ciders with wild yeast present and they've been overwhelmingly positive.
Wild yeast are scientifically proven to have beneficial effects, although the potential for off-flavors is there too, but rare in my experience.

Some honey can be so antiseptic, it won’t have any viable microbes in it.

Do you have a source for this factoid by chance?

 

[bernardsmith]

Wild ferments can give unpredictable flavors, that can be good or bad, and will be different from batch to batch. I’ve read, Depending on local conditions, not all capped honey is below 20% moisture. Any honey that’s 20% or more in moisture can potentially ferment or otherwise spoil. 18% moisture and below, it’ll have an indefinite shelf life. Some honey can be so antiseptic, it won’t have any viable microbes in it.

I am not sure that the antisepsis of honey is the issue - but the moisture content. Certainly some (or all?) honey contains hydrogen peroxide which is an anti-septic but I think that this is effective more because of the hydrophilic property of the moisture-poor honey. It sucks moisture from bacteria and other microbes. But when you hydrate the honey you also rehydrate those life forms and they can thrive in the sugar rich, moisture rich environment that is must. If the antiseptic peroxide was strong enough and was in large enough quantities then honey would not be fermentable. No?

 

[Seamonkey84]

It was something I read in a few places when I was geeking out about honey and keeping bees a few years ago... but yes it has to do with the dehydrating and some other properties in the honey that kills off the microbes. Might be rare cases, or with honey that has been aged for long enough to kill off anything left in that was still viable. Then there’s the old home remedies of using honey on wounds, like the actual way to use manuka honey, not orally.

 

[bushpilot]

Honestly, I was surprised at the honey going to ferment. It was purely capped when i harvested it...

Do you have a refractometer for checking moisture content? They can be had on ebay and Amazon for less than $30.

Capped should be dry enough, but I have heard that sometimes it is not.