# Another wild yeast fermentation



## TimT (9/5/14)

Putting down a pale the other day I thought I'd also try to start a wild yeast fermentation from the peel of one of our apples. I set aside a bit of wort in a jar I'd just boiled and chucked some fresh apple peel in.

It took three days but it's definitely started fermentation. Looks respectable enough (ie, can't see signs of a bacterial fermentation - no kahm yeast or lacto-bacilli web, etc - just some froth/bubbles on top indicating a yeast is making CO2).

Since I've never done this before I'm suddenly not sure what I should do, so I thought I'd field some questions. My aim is to cultivate the wild yeast and pitch it into another ale, maybe an experimental 2.5 litre batch, possibly a light beer.

- It's in a sealed jar at the moment. Obviously this is not tenable if I want to encourage it to get to full strength. Open the lid and risk stuff getting in? I could pitch it at the bottom of a demijohn but that's a lot of oxygen to a very little bit of yeast. 

- Should I slow the yeast down by putting the jar in the fridge?

- Wait until it's at full strength before pitching it into another beer? Or not bother waiting?

(Thought I'd start up a new thread rather than revive an old one).


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## TimT (9/5/14)

I've risked opening the jar lid - probably a good thing; there was the sound of gas escaping and I caught a whiff of it too. Sulfury, a bit like chickpeas actually.


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## rockeye84 (9/5/14)

So wild yeast lives on apple skins? And other fruit too? Cool of you could capture your own strain..


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## TimT (9/5/14)

Oh yeah definitely. If you're a yeast - what's not to like? Balls of sugar and nutrient just dangling there on the tree, waiting for you to drift by. PS - could quite possibly be a yeast from the kitchen anyway, since that's where the apple was sitting - so maybe just a brewer yeast or a bread yeast!


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## Midnight Brew (9/5/14)

TimT I came across this: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/collecting-wild-yeast.html

I think even on AHB maybe but a good read. Really eager to try it but doing so many other brewing things at the moment. Good time of year for it according to the page. I've kept some left over wort from the last batch frozen in the freezer to give it a try. I'm going to try it with about 50ml then step it up when I do actually get around to it. I dont have those handy little petri dishes but they'd be handy in selecting and isolating the strain from the other organisms in the ferment. Then it's just a matter of fermenting and getting the yeast to where you want it. Time consuming and fun by the looks of it.

Subscribed. Keep us updated.


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## Not For Horses (9/5/14)

Check out a company in the states called South Yeast Labs. They're doing some cool stuff with fruit and flowers and stuff. Right up your alley TimT.

I've done a wild yeast capture from some apricots. All went well, got it in a starter and stepped it up then into a 3L batch. Only problem was it was super low attenuating. Went from 1.045 to 1.030. So I guess not all wild strains will be suitable for brewing.
I've not been dettered though and nor should you!


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## TimT (9/5/14)

Thanks Not for Horses - the possibility of low attenuation is why I'm thinking it might be good to give it a go on a mild, light beer. I think you shared a South Yeast Labs link with me before - it's quite possible. They pretty much recommended doing what I'm doing.

Cool link, Midnight Brew, and very helpful. So my plan is probably cover the jar with foil or glad wrap - minimise infection from outside, though gas will still escape round the corners - and wait until I get a nice yeast cake. I have no gelatin or petri dishes though I could definitely work a variation on the method there, by making a solution with malt extract, boiling to kill bacteria, adding a bit of lemon juice to acidify the environment slightly, and pitching the yeast cake into that, and perhaps start an experimental wild yeast brew mid to late next week.


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## TimT (11/5/14)

This one's a write off. Most of the yeast dropped out of suspension yesterday and a generic mould took over. Bad fungus! Bad bad fungus! I made an attempt to salvage the yeast cake by filtering it out through a cloth but of course caught most of the bad fungus as well as the good fungus. An SG test also revealed the gravity hadn't dropped appreciably - maybe two points or so.

Still, while there's life (and apples), there's hope. I've got a malt extract-water solution cooling down in the fridge and I'll have another go at nurturing a wild yeast colony with some more peel this evening; I'll let folks know if there are more exciting developments!


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## TheWiggman (11/5/14)

I've gotta say Tim I'm a fan of your experimental and out-of-the box approach to brewing, you've more than one thread like this. At least if your beer's no good you can just say "it was experimental".


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## Not For Horses (11/5/14)

You inspired me today TimT so this was the result:
Sloe berries covered in powerdery white yeasty (hopefully) goodness harvested from the back roads of Evandale dropped into a 1.040ish starter made from yesterday's leftover wort.


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## TimT (12/5/14)

Nice. Erlenmeyer flask might be just the thing for this sort of fermentation - I'm going to try it again soon and I want something I can put it in that can be fitted with an airlock. Not full demijohn sized though!


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## Not For Horses (12/5/14)

2L Glass juice bottles work well too. Plus you get 2L of juice as a bonus!


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## TimT (12/5/14)

I like your thinking. I have a few 2.5 L bottles, not sure if the seal would be perfect though? I'll have another look.


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## n87 (12/5/14)

you can buy a kit of bottle tops for various sized bottles with a airlock hole and seal.
i saw it Saturday at one of the home brew stores, they use it for cider.


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## TimT (12/5/14)

Thanks. I'll have a look round.


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## TimT (14/5/14)

Take No. 2. I peeled another apple and made a mixture of malt extract, water, and a bit of vinegar, with the hope the slight acidity will deter the various non-yeast beasts that are interested in taking part. It's in a 2.4 L juice bottle which I cleaned with a sodium metabiusulfite solution. It's on the heat pad. There's various tell-tale bubbles around the surface already and when the bottle starts feeling too tight I'll pop an airlock on it. Touch wood!


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## Mutaneer (14/5/14)

Questions
where are you getting the apples from?
Where are you doing the peeling.?

If you're not picking them from the tree in an orchard, and peeling them on the spot you're going to introduce a lot of nasties.

After a long discussion with both the head brewer at Two Metre Tall brewery here in Tassie (they use wild yeasts a lot in their brews and brew "sour style" beers) and the brewers at Lark Distillery regarding wild yeasts, they are abundant absolutely everywhere.
The lark guys will crack their large fermenters and lift the lid the smallest amount for half a day to a couple of days to introduce a small amount of wild yeast,
but in the height of spring they will only need it open for a couple of hours to introduce sufficient wild yeast.

So anything that's travelled any great distance or been in any store around people, animals, other fresh produce, cheese, dairy products, etc is likely to be covered in rubbish that will just turn to mould.

Wild yeast that's contained within fresh, unpasteurised juice would be the best option to cultivate,
it's picked, and pressed on the farm, keeping the exposure to nasty "foreign" yeasts to a minimum.

I've done exactly that, kept some juice aside from a batch, stuck it in a sterilised 500ml bottle and airlocked it, 
it bubbles away after a few days, then calms down, then goes off again.
I'm assuming as it produces alcohol, it is killed off, but then the strong ones grow again, then die off.
so by the end of it, hopefully the yeast that is left is a high-alcohol-tolerant wild yeast that can be washed out and cultivated.

I haven't tasted any of the results yet, but it's an interesting experiment anyway


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## TimT (14/5/14)

Apples from my trees out front. Probably a bit of lead from the cars going by as well.... 

If anything bacteria is even more prolific than wild yeast so there's always that risk as well. Ah well. We'll see how we go.


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## TimT (14/5/14)

Hey, I could be wrong on this - need to check my cider book - but I think the 'second' fermentation that a wild fermented cider goes through is the malo-lactic one: basically, the yeast, having got in there and chomped up some of the goodies, dies down - giving lacto-bacilli a chance to get to work. I'll check up on that.

UPDATE: Yep, that seems to be the indication from my cider book: the initial fermentation is yeast driven; the second is bacteria driven. Yeast as we all know likes to start off with a bang and then dies down after that; bacteria is a slower, more patient beast. 

Malo-lactic fermentation helps to mellow out the cider if it's too sharply acidic, turning the malic acid into lactic acid and CO2.

However, not being very familiar with wild yeast fermentation it's entirely possible some yeasts might like to have a go twice over, as you suggest.


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## Mutaneer (14/5/14)

Yeah, I'd just expect that the amount of good yeast around and on the Apples from a few trees is far less in proportion to the bad than the fruit in a large orchard in the country.
As for MLF, Mine isn't at a secondary ferment stage yet.


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## TimT (14/5/14)

I dunno.... don't the yeast just drift by and start living on the apples? At any rate I'd imagine it'd be pretty unpredictable either way, whether fermenting from yeast found on suburban apples, or yeast on country apples.


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## Mutaneer (14/5/14)

Yeah, but when you think about an established orchard, the same yest that landed once upon a time ago has now populated itself on everything in the vicinity,
and no doubt other yeasts have come in, maybe taken over with time, but you would probably find that one/ two/ five dominant strains would be particularly abundant, obviously depending on other sources in the area.

All just a theory, and happy to be schooled by those boffins who know and study such things.
Maybe I should go back to uni and do this as a PhD topic....


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## TimT (14/5/14)

Mmm but depends a bit on whether it's good yeast or not. Not sure whether a big orchard would help in that selection process - though I suppose it might make an attractive environment for all sorts of yeast, making it more likely that the 'right' sort of yeast is living on one of the apples.


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## Kiwifirst (14/5/14)

Subscribed. What a fascinating thread.


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## TimT (14/5/14)

Ha, what if this is the end of the thread?

Oops. Well now I've said that it clearly isn't....

Interestingly, this second attempt has started much quicker than the other, I guess basically because I didn't faff around for three days before putting it on the heat pad.

No sign of anything other than healthy yeast growth at the moment. (Watching yeast grow is a fascinating thing, btw - I often work in the study beside my ferments and got to enjoy at close range the start up fermentation of this year's batch of cider: it started with a ring of bubbles on the surface of the cider must, which quickly formed into a kind of donut shape. It formed a blanket a day after that, and then one or two days after that the blanket began to clear up and carbonation really began in earnest. Okay, maybe you had to be there....) It's clearly been spreading out from where it started this morning, when it was mostly close to the apple peel, whereas now it's covering most of the surface of the wort. The carbonation is slow (when compared with the sort of carbonation a domesticated yeast strain might be giving at this point) but steady.

Of course a mould could knock it out overnight but at the moment it's looking pretty good. I'll take it day by day.


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## Kiwifirst (14/5/14)

Ha! Just told my boy to stop faff'ing around and get to bed. Then I see you using the word. 

This is irrelevant to this scientific thread, I know.


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## TimT (15/5/14)

So today it was different again - the action on the surface has turned into a white pellicle. At first I thought it was a kahm yeast, precursor to a lacto-bacilli activity. Now.... I'm not so sure. I looked around in the infection thread and found my way onto some brewing blogs for good measure.... now I'm more hopeful, it could very well be a wild yeast pellicle; apparently brettanomyces is in the habit of forming them, sometimes in the company of a bacteria. Carbonation still happening, bit slower than yesterday.

I risked a sniff last night (when it just looked like a more normal yeast); didn't get much - whereas my first attempt was generating weird chickpea smells, this one, if anything, just smelled a little peppery (and maybe I was fooling myself about that).


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## TimT (15/5/14)

It's looking very much like the pellicle in photos two and three on this blog post.


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## Midnight Brew (15/5/14)

How big was your starting wort Tim? Was it around 2L in the juice bottle? Did it take 4 days before that activity you described above?


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## TimT (16/5/14)

No, I used a 2.4 L bottle but it's only a small amount in that bottle, maybe three quarters of a litre? It's in its third day now.


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## TimT (17/5/14)

Day four; the white pellicle is dissipating and we're seeing a return to the kinds of surface action we saw on the first day - some carbonation, light brown colour. Still stuff going through the airlock at a leisurely rate. Very little sediment at the bottom so I'm not sure how much conversion is happening. I wonder if I made the malt extract too rich? It had a gravity of about 1.090.


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## Kiwifirst (17/5/14)

I am going to give this a go, it looks like a lot of fun. I have three fejoia trees at the end of their fruit cycle and I have plenty of fejoias lying around. Don't have any malt or grain at the moment, so will do what you did first time round and use a bit of next weeks mash.
I am going to get a couple off the tree now and put them I a zip lock bag till next week, probably better than the ones on the ground.


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## TimT (17/5/14)

Ooh! Feijoias! We made a nice fej wine last year, got to be careful with them though as I think they might be quite alkaline. Not to say yeast won't be living on them, I'm sure it will, but you might definitely want to add something to the wort to balance up the pH and tip it to the acidic side.


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## Kiwifirst (17/5/14)

So would the best thing to do there, is to make up a starter and add the right salts, then keep adding and testing the alkalinity until it looks fine?


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## TimT (17/5/14)

Yep, I think so, maybe mash the feijoias up a bit and mix them in so you don't get 'acid' parts of the starter and 'alkaline' parts? If I was starting from feijoias and had the right kit - brewing salts,and pH testers, I'd definitely do that. Also next time I try a wild starter I think I'd get several separate jars as an insurance policy, so if some starters fail others might still work.


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## Kiwifirst (18/5/14)

Oh I wasn't planning on using the fruit only the skins. Do you think I should try and get the yeast started only with the fruit and some water, then add some malts?

Does sound like I need to get some ph test strips.


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## Kiwifirst (18/5/14)

Ha! 
Slightly off topic, but still on the wonders of yeast. 

https://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/drink-night-without-getting-drunk-212500989.html


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## TimT (18/5/14)

Oh. Right. Skins. Like with my ferment. D'oh!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/fi/c/c3/D_oh.jpg







Maybe the pH wouldn't change that much then? I assume the alkalinity mostly comes from the flesh.


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## Mardoo (18/5/14)

Kiwifirst said:


> Ha!
> Slightly off topic, but still on the wonders of yeast.
> 
> https://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/drink-night-without-getting-drunk-212500989.html


That deserves its own thread!


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## Kiwifirst (18/5/14)

Mardoo said:


> That deserves its own thread!



It does, i'll do that


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## Not For Horses (19/5/14)

Had a massive kraussen going over the weekend so I decided to brew tonight.
Pitched a 500ml starter in a 10L batch of Vienna/wheat.


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## TimT (20/5/14)

Coming up to the week now and I'm getting a small yeast cake at the bottom. I've taken it out to the shed because as it apparently contains a brettanomyces (or something related that formed the pellicle) I may be waiting quite a while for stuff to happen, and also I didn't want it to get into my study (if it hasn't already). Actually it seems likely - considering the development of a cake - that there's other yeast in there too, including a relatively fast-fermenting one too. I hadn't been ready to try my hand at sours and brettanomyces beer but it looks like I'd better get ready.....

We're out of our own apples now but I'm having fun, I think I might try using a few of our rose hips to make further starters.


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## Kiwifirst (20/5/14)

I'll have a crack at my fejoia starter this weekend.


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## Kiwifirst (23/5/14)

Ok so I have had a rough go at this wild yeast farming. I have no idea if this is going to work, but I made up a litre of starter with 100g of DME, cooled it and split it into three. Then threw some fejoias of the tree in it. Two of the beakers had scooped out fruit and one had whole fruit. Be interesting to see if anything starts cooking.


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## Kiwifirst (24/5/14)

Nothing much happening yet. Have bumped the temp up in the cupboard to about 24c and given everything a shake.


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## TimT (24/5/14)

Could be a while before it gets going, three to five days is often the time frame given in those recipes I've read that require you to get a wild yeast starter (eg, ginger beer bug, sourdough).


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## Kiwifirst (25/5/14)

I think it will be much happier now the cupboard is warmer. I'll keep you posted late in the week. I think I made the starter a bit big, probably should have started smaller and grew into it.


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## Kiwifirst (26/5/14)

Have some light activity on the surface of the two jars that had peel only, the jar with the full fruit was still uneventful, I gave it a bit of a shake to oxygenate and one fruit fell to pieces. I'll leave them with the fruit in for another couple of days, until strong activity and then decant off the pulp. 

This is fun


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## Not For Horses (26/5/14)

Mine is still fermenting away nicely. Fairly sure I've got a brettanomyces strain. Got some farty smells but they were slowly replaced with fruity/oaky/earthy smells. The other starter on the stirplate finished and there is a big cake left.


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## Kiwifirst (27/5/14)

I don't think I have yeast activity, just skunky mold growth. Might need to decant and get the fruit out.


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## Kiwifirst (28/5/14)

Now we're cooking.


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## Kiwifirst (2/6/14)

Two out of three of the samples are now ripping through the fresh wort. Developing a nice little cake, probably still only half a teaspoon of yeast at this stage. Had a sniff and risked a taste of one fully under way. Well when I say tast, more like a dab on the lip.

So they don't smell bad or skunky. They smell tart, sharp with a bit of fruit. It does remind me of a sour beer I had in Germany.

Loving this project,


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## Kiwifirst (3/6/14)

Very interesting, I have one jar now finished with maybe 10ml of yeast cake and a mild beer smell from wort on top. Chilling that for a decant and step up starter.
Two other jars still smelling fruity and sharp.


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## Kiwifirst (4/6/14)

I am going to make 5l batch of pale ale with one of these just to see the flavour. Then maybe get some Petrie dishes and start seeing what I have in the other two.


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## Kiwifirst (5/6/14)

I blame you for this Tim.

I now have on order, petri dishes, small vials, little 30ml bottles, not quite sprung for the bunsen burner yet as I hope to find one at the local trash and treasure.


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## Midnight Brew (5/6/14)

Where did you end up ordering the petri dishes from? Something I've always wanted to try.


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## Kiwifirst (5/6/14)

On ebay, Hong Kong supplier, got a range of things and then spent an hour admiring and laughing at what else they had.
I have some dental instruments that I will use for scrapping and making your own agar seems easy enough. 

But there is a whole load of suppliers for the disposable dishes. Brought an extra pack because I thought I would run some bacteria experiments with the kids before and after washing hands. Good time with a load of gastro going around the school. There is foot and mouth too, be interesting to get a swab of that and see what it looks like. I reckon a Foot'n'Mouth APA wouldn't have the friends hankering to try that.

Decided tonight to step one of the wild cultures out on a 750ml starter with a bit of cascade hops before I throw it in a 5l batch. Hoping that the hops will inhibit some of the more funky strains and allow the better ones through.


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## Mardoo (5/6/14)

Thanks for the continued posting Kiwifirst. I'm lovin' it!


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## Kiwifirst (6/6/14)

Oh good, did feel like I hijacked this thread somewhat.

When I get the wild yeast onto the plates I will did out the macro lens and do some shots of the growth.


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## Kiwifirst (9/6/14)

Ok tonight I pitched the wild fejoia yeast that I have been building into a 5l SMaSH of pale ale and Victoria Secret hop. 
Starting OG is around 1.034

Made up a batch from a kg of pale. 6 g at 15mins of VS and then another 6 at 5.

Going to ferment at 20c


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## Kiwifirst (9/6/14)

Forgot the starting photo. That isn't activity, just star san and froth from pouring in.


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## Kiwifirst (10/6/14)

24 hours in. Good yeast cake, airlock activity at 1 bobble per 3 seconds and more importantly a lovely fresh smell coming from the airlock.


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## AJ80 (10/6/14)

Loving this thread mate - keep it up!!


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## Kiwifirst (13/6/14)

So the first brew is almost finished, just trying to eke out the last couple of points. I have tried it and it is a bit hard to say what the yeast is adding to the flavour. My first problem is that it is at around 30ibu's (should have made that a lot less). Secondly, the abv is only about 2.9% bad planning on my part. 
So far I would say that the yeast is very clean tasting, nothing jumping out at me, certainly nothing like the funkiness I was worried about.


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## SimoB (13/6/14)

The colour change a bit? Taste like beer? If so what type

Sent from my HTC_PN071 using Tapatalk


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## Kiwifirst (13/6/14)

It has lightened up, will take a photo tomorrow. 

Yes it tastes like beer, it tastes like a low alcohol pale ale with quite a bit of bitterness, which it is  

What is interesting, is a bit of tangy, almost fruity first taste, which I am not sure if it is coming from the Victoria Secret hop or the yeast. I will definitely say that is a clean tasting yeast. I think the next thing for me to do is when I make my next beer, a IPA or APA, i'll make an extra 5L, and run it through with he higher gravity. I'll consider this as a good 5L starter to build the yeast bed, which looks great.

I'll leave it a few more days and bottle it anyway, but it will be hard to really gauge the quality of the yeast with only 2.8%


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## Kiwifirst (22/6/14)

Ok, so 5l trial gave me a low alcohol bitter ale. I have taken the yeast bed and currently going for a full brew to get a better feel for this wild yeast.

Had a coopers Australian pale ale can so using that with:

1kg Briess golden light dma
150g crystal light
100g carapils

20g Victoria secret @ 15 mins
10g Amarillo @ 15 mins

20g cascade @ 5 mins
20g Amarilo @ 5 mins

Ferment at 18-20c

Will take a photo once krausen starts.


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## fletcher (22/6/14)

awesome work mate. would you consider making something really pale and bland, like a cream ale, or an all pils-malt ale with perhaps only 11-15ish ibu of something? might really get a feel for any yeast contributions then?


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## Kiwifirst (22/6/14)

Yeah that is what I planned for the 5l just pale but I over hopped and didn't give it enough grain. I'll definitely rinse after this brew and use again.

The bitter hoppy low alcohol 5l batch got dumped on top half a keg of bland Mexican blonde. Tastes good now


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## Not For Horses (22/6/14)

I started another culture last weekend from some gorse flowers that I collected from a heritage listed hedge at the site of northern Tasmania's first European settlement. Kind of wanky I know but who doesn't love a good story! 
It's active now and ready to be stepped up before I brew with it in the next couple weeks.


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## Kiwifirst (22/6/14)

Nice work. 

My Petri dishes have arrived so I am going to start having a look at trying different wild yeasts and see if I can't pick out some interesting strains.

Going up to country Vic up near aubury wading a soon, so going to take some vials of wort and leave the open over night.


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## Kiwifirst (22/6/14)

Damn, was going to keep some of the pre pitched wort aside for the Petri dishes. Bugger, now have make a starter and I am out of dme.


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## Kiwifirst (23/6/14)

24 hours in and a huge big creamy krausen with a wonderful smell, getting excited about my Newport Ale Yeast.


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## Not For Horses (13/7/14)

I bottled my first beer tonight with my original wild yeast capture. It is exceptionally clean. That's all there us to say really. It may as well be American Ale. I guess that's ok but I like de funk.


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## Kiwifirst (13/7/14)

I am conditioning mine. Just finished a week ago. Pretty good so far, clean taste at end of primary. I pulled the yeast cake and gave it a clean for round two.


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## hijukal (17/7/14)

After brewing a quadrupel on June 7th, I used the second runnings to create a 7L beer of some sort (I guess a dubbel!) with a small handful of 2012 Czech Saaz and left it out overnight in the garden beside a lemon tree.

This is what it looked like a month ago (about two weeks after being left out):





When I tasted it around two weeks ago (had gone from 1.048 -> 1.007 from memory), the yeast imparted what seemed to be a strong nail polish / paint thinner taste, with super concentrated lemon rind bitterness (without any of the delicious lemon tartness). Well, I assume it was the yeast anyway, never had a beer taste like that before. I nearly dumped the lot (I couldn't finish the sample!) but have instead left it for a couple of weeks, and am now planning on putting it into bottles tonight and leaving it alone for 6-12 months unless I find it tastes better than the last sample I had.

Other than washing and chucking it in the fridge, I'm not really familiar with long term storage of yeast, but I'd really like to find out if this yeast is at all viable and worth continuing with (and sharing with anyone else interested). I was thinking of setting aside a small amount of my next couple of brews (say 1-2L) and after they've finished fermentation add some of this yeast and leave them for 6-12 months as well. Anyone got some suggestions on 1-2L fermentation vessels? Otherwise I'll probably just grab a couple of 5L demijohns and hope for the best.

Some other pics at 4, 5, 6 days after brewday:


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## TimT (17/7/14)

Nail polish taste often gets mentioned, usually a byproduct of the yeast - ageing ought to help a lot of that to break down.

I've been a bit quiet because I've no idea what to do with the Brett that I have. And I've distracted myself with other projects too. I'll get back to my Brett project soon.


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## hijukal (21/7/14)

TimT said:


> Nail polish taste often gets mentioned, usually a byproduct of the yeast - ageing ought to help a lot of that to break down.


Well, I tasted it the other night, and sure enough that horrible taste has virtually disappeared and the sample was quite drinkable. Not a normal sort of Brett funk, but definitely a strange funk going on. Down to 1.004 from 1.048 in six weeks, still on the yeast cake.

I really should get around to either bottling it or putting it into some sort of secondary vessel soon.


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## Not For Horses (22/7/14)

My new yeast starter went into a saison on sunday. It is smashing the 5L demi now, smelling funky and delicious!


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## Kiwifirst (25/7/14)

Drinking my pale ale tonight. Time to see just what I have made.


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## Kiwifirst (25/7/14)

Well I am sitting here supping on a pretty nice APA. So I have to say my wild yeast experiment is an success.

But, I know realise I don't know how describe the yeast, I guess being a hoppy pale ale means it is not completely obvious anyway. But my beer tastes similar to other APA's I have made with a US05.

I guess next step is to make something lighter in hop flavour and see what it does. Not sure what could be. A British mild? I find hem a bit boring to drink though. A steam ale?

I have rinsed the yeast and have at least 100mls for the next brew.


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## Midnight Brew (25/7/14)

May be boring but:
100% Base
FWH to 20 IBU
Wild Child Yeast

Could always make a smaller batch or even use a lower carbonation level and syringe it. A steam ale or blonde ale would be right on the money I think, just have to dial back the late additions for the first batch.


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## hijukal (31/7/14)

Well, I've racked my wild yeast experiment into a 5L glass demijohn to leave for 6-12 months:






I also washed the yeast, in two 1L jars, and after a couple of days it still hasn't settled out yet, the bottom 2/3 of the mason jars are still really cloudy. Sure taking its time!

SG is currently 1.004 (from OG of 1.048). I tasted it and it still has the same harsh taste it started with, but hopefully time will fix that up. I'd really like to add some sort of wood stave or spiral to harvest some of the bugs that way too -- anyone got some suggestions on suitable wood in the Melbourne area?


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## Not For Horses (31/7/14)

My second group of bugs is completely different to the first lot.
This batch went through a slow-ish but still fairly normal ferment and produced some sulfury yeasty smells then that changed to some aceto/lacto type smells and in the last couple of days it has gone mental and started climbing out of the demi.


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## Kiwifirst (31/7/14)

hijukal said:


> Well, I've racked my wild yeast experiment into a 5L glass demijohn to leave for 6-12 months:?


Wow! Why so long?


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## Not For Horses (2/8/14)

Just had a hydro sample of my second batch of bugs. It is currently at 1.030.
It smells really good. Fruity with a definite pineapple note but it tastes like a sweet rubber glove. Very conflicting.


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## hijukal (4/8/14)

Kiwifirst said:


> Wow! Why so long?


Well, it'll need some time to (hopefully) scrub off the harsh flavours. But possibly more importantly, if there are any Brett bugs present, I want to give them time to do their thing. I'm not in any rush, though the yeast I've washed will need to be used or properly stored soon.



Not For Horses said:


> It smells really good. Fruity with a definite pineapple note but it tastes like a sweet rubber glove. Very conflicting.


So, like Crown Golden Ale?


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## TimT (2/9/14)

I've been a bit slack on this but I finally sampled my second attempt at a wild yeast starter (the one that I think was/is a Brett).

Stats: the gravity went down from the high 90s to about 28. I think activity had appreciably ceased when we had a run of cold days. To make my starter I used a few tablespoons of malt extract, dissolved them in water with a few unscientific sloshes of vinegar (hoping the acidic environment would kill off bacteria. Er, yeah.... moving on now....)

Anyway, the smells and flavours are all very interesting. Definite alcoholic smells, with a hint of wine-iness, too. I'm also getting a hint of the smells I get from my older meads - a kind of toffee/caramelly/woodsy whiff. I'm assuming this comes mainly because a) the starting gravity in this one was quite high, hence making for a lot of malty aromas, and b) the Brett's been breaking down some of the malt sugars that a Saccharomyces mightn't be able to. I also get an acidity - I think that's probably mostly the vinegar, though I think there is some bacteria in there too - and a slight fruitiness, which would mainly be from the peel.

So all in all not a bad experiment.

I've been afraid of doing something with this one because of the probable presence of bacteria. I don't really have the equipment to isolate the Brett on its own. But maybe I can just run with it. Next time we get some warm days I might make a second starter with the intention of building this yeast up.


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## TimT (26/9/14)

Rebottled the yeast with some fresh malt. I'm going to attempt to make a few starters to get the yeast numbers up.


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## mofox1 (26/9/14)

TimT said:


> I've been afraid of doing something with this one because of the probable presence of bacteria. I don't really have the equipment to isolate the Brett on its own. But maybe I can just run with it. Next time we get some warm days I might make a second starter with the intention of building this yeast up.


Have you tried hitting it with an acid wash, or chlorine dioxide (from sodium chlorite)?

Purportedly the chlorine dioxide will kill off the bacteria leaving the yeast unscathed... I've used it for rinsing fermenter slurry berfore and the yeast have certainly fired up in a starter later on with no issues. HOWEVER - I obviously have no idea if it is actually accomplishing anything, *or even if there was anything to accomplish in the first place*.

I'm not going to go all evangelical on this. It may work, it may be hokum. Here is the article that inspire my own experiements: http://www.birkocorp.com/brewery/white-papers/coming-clean-a-new-method-of-washing-yeast-with-chlorine-dioxide/

They don't profit directly from the results, so it's not like an oil company doing their own eco impact statements... but it's still from the wild world web of binkini clad deer hunters.

And it might help to isolate your strain(s).


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## TimT (26/9/14)

Decided to go the gung ho approach. Just let the bacteria have fun with the yeast 

To tell the truth on tasting it the other week there weren't noticeable signs of lactic souring. Lots of funk and mustiness and odd winey tastes. But no noticeable souring.


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## Kiwifirst (28/9/14)

I have now run a AIPA batch through the Newport Wild Yeast. I was finishing off a Hefe in the same cupboard and had just begun warming it up a couple of degrees to finish off. So my wild yeast ran much warmer than I was planning, probably 23-25 (the Hefe was 21). It was pretty done in 3 and finished in 4. It definitely didn't smell that great, more like a light rocket fuel smell. But I left it for two weeks at 18c and it certainly settled. 

No conditioning time as the kegs are empty, so tried it last night. I put a lot of hops in this, including dry hopping in that two week rest. But either the high ferment temp of the yeast seems to back those hop aromas considerably.

Washing the yeast again for third gen. Going to petri dish it next weekend and freeze so that I keep a strain.


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## TimT (5/11/14)

My latest starter - about 1-1.5 L - has had time to age and ferment out.

Similar cidery/winey quality (I like it, it retains some of the original qualities of the apples it came from but it's still got a full bodied beer taste). Apple smell combined with a bit of fungusy funk in the nose. Doesn't have the kind of toffee/woodsy/meady smells that my first starter gave off, but I'm assuming this is because it's much younger than my first ferment. And it's proved to be a strong performer, chewing through about 60 sugar points (SG around 1.080, FG around 1.019).

No idea about other Bretts, but this yeast is bloody weird, so when fermenting a full-blown ale with it I think my plan is just going to be give it LOTS of time.

So now I'm building up the starter to 2L - 2.5 L. When that's started up, I'll build it up a bit more - then maybe I'll have enough over the weekend/early next week to do a 4.5 L ferment. Things are getting fun!


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## TimT (26/1/15)

Got a 4.5 L mild fermenting away on my Brett at the moment. Very healthy. I've had this damn fermenter sitting in my shed for months now and it's never had an infection (aside from the infection I've been feeding, that is). I haven't bothered to give it any heat source because I pretty much want it to retain that wild vigour and HTFU, as Chopper would say. Besides, the shed can get quite toasty warm in the day. I'm going to drink this mild fairly fresh because partly it's intent is to build the yeast up more; when it's fermented out in a week I want to straight away pitch an IPA base onto the yeast cake and do a fairly long ferment. 

As for the previous fermented starter that I'd built up on it (just from a water/malt crystal solution) - it had a strong bready vibe to it! I've had it in some saisons. Very nice.

Meantime, got another wild yeast fermenting a dark ale away in my study. I'm having fun now


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