Wild Fermentation - an experiment

[Reman]

It started with a La Sirene Wild Saison, not quite a lambic style but it had the flavours and aromas. Compared to a Saccharomyces-only ferment the complexity can be a little over-whelming.

The local bottle shop has a great selection of Belgians and I've started to slowly (and expensively) work my way through them. My favourite so far has been the Rodenbach, but local examples have been few and far between a few Berlinnerweisses, 8 Wired had a Red Flanders and there was Wild Tripelle from La Sirene. The American scene is apparently flourishing, but it's almost impossible to get a Russian River or a New Belgium here in Australia.

It's both interesting and very disappointing that there aren't more Australian brewers doing lambic or sour beers. I try them where I can.

I bought some books, first was American Sours which was ok but it's very process oriented and possibly more for someone who is already producing sour beer and is looking for ways to refine the process. An absolute gem though was Wild Brews, which focuses on lambic methods, I learnt a lot from this book.

Now, I've decided I'm going to try capturing my own wild yeasts! This may take a few months so I'm going to try and update as I go along.

According to lots of people, now is definitely not the time to try to capture wild yeasts and bacteria, but I say stuff it. There are a whole bunch of things flowering right now and I've decided that using flowers to start my wild fermentation might give it a better chance to work and not grow bad stuff like mould or go off. Not sure why I think it will work better, but I'm going to give it a go and see what happens.

Ive also been going crazy looking for things on the forums, here's a couple of threads you can peruse since this might take a while.
http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/80016-another-wild-yeast-fermentation/
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=101886

 

[Reman]

I started this experiment last night.

Step 1 - I originally bought these to do yeast starters in, they are 1L glass bottles with a flat bottom and at $5 from Kmart they were hard to go past.


Step 2 - measure out 6g of 2.4%AA Tettnanger, I wanted 5 IBUs in the wort to try and discourage the worst of the bacteria and mould.


Step 3 - 300g of LDME for 3L water to make around a 1.034 wort.


Step 4 - just a touch of potassium metabisulfate to dechlorinate the water which could discourage some of the beneficial bacteria.


Step 5 - put it all in the pot and heat it up for a 10 minute boil


Step 6 - the boil


Step 7 - cooling in the sink

 

[Reman]

The next morning I got he bottles out and lined them up and filled them equally with wort.


Then I went out in the garden to look for likely specimens.

A melon flower


Comfrey flowers


Grevillea Flower


Lemon Flowers


Lined up in front of their bottles


Then I pretty much just dumped them in the bottle


Of course after this I thought it would be a good idea to add some yeast nutrient


I put the corks back in, and left them in my kitchen for the day. Pretty excited to see how my little babies were going when I got home.

 

[seehuusen]

Following this with interest! Keep the updates coming bud, good luck

 

[Rocker1986]

Interesting stuff! I did a wild yeast experiment once but in my case I just left a hydrometer test tube sitting around and it began fermenting by itself a couple of days later. It was yeast in the bottom of it so I grew it up a bit in a tiny starter, then saved 2 litres of wort from a SNPA clone batch and fermented it with the wild yeast, for comparison against the main batch with US-05. The wild version was lighter in colour and seemed to have more bitterness but also a distinct flavour from the yeast. Hard to describe it.. although I still have one bottle left that's been there for about 2 years.

Not something I'd do again, as I'm not really a fan of all that funky stuff, but it was interesting and fun to do all the same. Will keep a lookout for updates on these ones here too.

 

[Reman]

This is what greeted me when I got home tonight. There had definitely been some activity. I had a smell of each jar and there was definitely a bit of a fecal smell that I'm guessing is coming from the enterobacteria.


i fished all the flowers out, though some had some bits left behind and now just before bed time they are looking like this and making me a little nervous.

Ok, not looking too bad!


Uh oh, not so great


Holy crap, it's alive!!


And back to not so bad...


We shall have to see what the morning brings.

 

[Benn]

There's an interesting beer smith podcast on exactly this subject, well worth a listen.
Keep us updated

 

[Reman]

There's an interesting beer smith podcast on exactly this subject, well worth a listen.
Keep us updated

Do you remember which number it was? I've learned listened to a fair number of beersmith podcasts not sure I downloaded a wild ferment one.

I've also been binge listening to The Sour Hour podcast as well. But 90% of American sour brewers aren't doing spontaneous, most are doing pure pitches of wyeast, etc bug mixes or bottle dregs.

If this experiment doesn't work, I'll probably head down that route and try the Roselare blends and other "lambic" blends.

 

[TimT]

Once I had the yeast start up I'd give it a feed pretty much straightaway. Encourage the cells to multiply and grow!

Keep a close eye on 'em too. You want to find out more about the yeast. What sort of esters does it have? Three or so days in, once it's fermented the starter out, what does it taste like? High/low attenuating? Other stuff (eg btiterness, as noted above? Anything else - a 'thin' taste, diacetyl, etc?) About two weeks in - does the starter start developing a pellicle that might indicate it's a wild sacch or a Brett?

 

[Benn]

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/beersmith-home-beer-brewing/id398500515?mt=2&i=218741711
Beersmith podcast #71 (Dec 2013)

 

[TimT]

Here in Oz you can probably do yeast starters all year round. So long as daytime temps run above 10 degrees C and below 40 degrees C I'd say there'll always be a few yeasts flying around.

 

[manticle]

It started with a La Sirene Wild Saison, not quite a lambic style but it had the flavours and aromas. Compared to a Saccharomyces-only ferment the complexity can be a little over-whelming.
The local bottle shop has a great selection of Belgians and I've started to slowly (and expensively) work my way through them. My favourite so far has been the Rodenbach, but local examples have been few and far between a few Berlinnerweisses, 8 Wired had a Red Flanders and there was Wild Tripelle from La Sirene. The American scene is apparently flourishing, but it's almost impossible to get a Russian River or a New Belgium here in Australia.
It's both interesting and very disappointing that there aren't more Australian brewers doing lambic or sour beers. I try them where I can.
I bought some books, first was American Sours which was ok but it's very process oriented and possibly more for someone who is already producing sour beer and is looking for ways to refine the process. An absolute gem though was Wild Brews, which focuses on lambic methods, I learnt a lot from this book.
Now, I've decided I'm going to try capturing my own wild yeasts! This may take a few months so I'm going to try and update as I go along.
According to lots of people, now is definitely not the time to try to capture wild yeasts and bacteria, but I say stuff it. There are a whole bunch of things flowering right now and I've decided that using flowers to start my wild fermentation might give it a better chance to work and not grow bad stuff like mould or go off. Not sure why I think it will work better, but I'm going to give it a go and see what happens.
Ive also been going crazy looking for things on the forums, here's a couple of threads you can peruse since this might take a while.
http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/80016-another-wild-yeast-fermentation/
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=101886

Have you found the babblebelt forum, mad fermentationist blogspot or liddil lambic lesson pages?

 

[Reman]

Have you found the babblebelt forum, mad fermentationist blogspot or liddil lambic lesson pages?

Found and read them all mate! There is also milkthefunk which has an awesome wiki http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki

 

[Reman]

Here in Oz you can probably do yeast starters all year round. So long as daytime temps run above 10 degrees C and below 40 degrees C I'd say there'll always be a few yeasts flying around.

From what I've read the standard practice for lambic breweries is to only brew when it's cool. In the warmer weather you get higher proportions of bacteria, where as in cooler weather you get higher proportions of yeast.

That's why I collected first thing in the morning when it was coolest. If this doesn't work out so well I might repeat the experiment in winter to see if there's any truth to the theory.

 

[Reman]

Once I had the yeast start up I'd give it a feed pretty much straightaway. Encourage the cells to multiply and grow!

Keep a close eye on 'em too. You want to find out more about the yeast. What sort of esters does it have? Three or so days in, once it's fermented the starter out, what does it taste like? High/low attenuating? Other stuff (eg btiterness, as noted above? Anything else - a 'thin' taste, diacetyl, etc?) About two weeks in - does the starter start developing a pellicle that might indicate it's a wild sacch or a Brett?

Hey Tim, thanks for commenting. I read your threads and they were awesome. As an aside are you still going with your wild culture?

What signs did you look for that indicated yeast fermentation? I can see some of them look like they are having a bit of a krausen form. Also I'd be a bit hesitant to taste it if there are any enterobacteria still active.

 

[TimT]

One of my wild yeasts I've decided to throw out (fun while it lasted but I just didn't have anything I wanted to add it to). The other, a lovely wild yeast which introduced itself to some of my beer wort via a small moth, is still in my fridge. It was rather lethargic last time I tried to do a starter on it, which I hope doesn't mean it's dying out. I should try to do another starter for it soon and grow it a bit more.

Honestly, at this stage you'll soon have more experience than me, but I tend to assume with wild yeast starters that the numbers are going to be low and fermentation won't start so long, so the minute I see signs of yeast activity - small formation of bubbles on the surface and/or the growth of a krausen and/or brown residue on the sides of the glass - I'd give it more food. The ultimate aim of course would be to get it to a stage where it's big enough and healthy enough to ferment out a standard size brew - and ideally to keep growing it, so you can split up the yeast starters and have two instead of one (that way if it's a good yeast you won't have to rely on just one batch).

 

[TimT]

Oh and of course at some stage you'll have to pop an airlock over the jars so CO2 can escape and the whole thing doesn't burst!

Also I'd be a bit hesitant to taste it if there are any enterobacteria still active.

Hahaha at some stage you'll have to drink the results though, won't you! I'd say if you have signs of a wild yeast fermentation then you'll probably be alright: that means the yeast is probably getting to the nutrient before other bugs do. And as the brew acidifies and becomes alcoholic the potential for the brew becoming infected gets less.

 

[hirschb]

Yep, American Sour Beers, the Sour Hour podcast, and the Milk the Funk wiki are the best places to go.
If you are just starting out making sour beers, I highly recommend that you do NOT start out with spontaneous fermentation. It's really difficult to get good stuff spontaneously. You also went about it in a bit of a weird way. Typical yeast wranglers will leave their container out in the open covered with cheese cloth (to prevent chunks of stuff drifting in). Placing a branch or flower directly in the wort should be less likely to lead to good results, and you are limited by what is on that particular piece of vegetation. Typical spontaneous fermentation involves getting bacteria, yeasts, etc.. from the air. The other thing to consider is that you want to place your wort outside when it is COLD (close to 0C is ideal). It's also be good to make sure that the acidity of your wort is a bit low... which helps reduce clostridium, enterobacter, etc.. (I'd put a bit of acidulated malt in your mash).
In my experience (and Mike Tonsmeire has said this as well), the best sour beer results I've had are using dregs from commercial beers. Unfortunately, it's really hard to get the classic lambics here (Cantillon, Tilquin, 3 Fonteinien), or any of the current US sour breweries (Bruery and Jolly Pumpkin dregs are famous for reliably good results). I've actually just moved here from the States, so we've brought several bottles of sour beers that will have their dregs propped up (Jolly Pumpkin, Jester King, Crooked Stave). In the States, there is a fair amount of yeast/dreg trading, particularly for East Coast Yeast samples that are hard to acquire. Our container is currently crossing the Panama Canal, so it'll be a while before I'll have any samples to share.
So.... without access to good commercial dregs, I think your best option is to use commercial yeast labs. Wyeast Roselaire and Lambic blends are ok, but a lot of home brewers have reported that using those blends alone wasn't sufficient to get the results they were looking for (Rosalaire is famous for being better on the second pitch). I would highly recommend using some of the new blends from Gigayeast or The Yeast Bay. I haven't used Gigayeast yet, but the Melange blend from TYB gave me really good results.
I'm glad there are people in Australia interested in sour beers, as that is pretty much 75-80% of what I brew. I see the big problem here is that there is so little market for sour beers that it is difficult/impossible to find commercial examples. Hell, it's hard to find a saison down here!

 

[Reman]

Hi hirschb welcome to the sunburnt country!

The sour beer industry is very much in its infancy and the craft brewing industry following a similar trajectory as the US but 10-15 years behind. Walk into any pub and you'll be lucky if you can find a non-mega lager. And if you do it will be a "craft" beer like James a Squires or Fat Yak.

We have very few sour/wild breweries and most sour/wild beers are special releases.

You can get some of the best Belgians here in Australia, but even the best known US sour breweries - Russian River, New Belgium, Jolly Pumpkin - are virtually impossible to get.

All your advice is excellent, I agree with all of it. Unfortunately my personality is the type to never take the easy road!

It's summer here and flowers abound, not something you get in winter (or 0c degree days either!). If I was going to do it now rather than wait till it's colder I thought I'd try something different. Not much to lose really!

If it does fail then I'll fall back on a commercial blend, we don't get a lot of choice there either!

 

[Reman]

This is what they currently look like, all of them have a fecal or sulphury smell, ranging from strong to a whiff. The smell was strongest yesterday and has slightly diminished.