Wild yeast quandary

[TimT]

Hmm, this is an interesting one.

The other week I made some cyser with early ripening apples and honey from our hive. What with the juice from the crushed apples and the added honey I had a bit too much for the fermenter, so I ended up setting as much aside as I could, deciding to use it to build up some wild yeast I caught recently - quite by accident - when a moth fell into some spare beer wort I'd set aside.

The cyser in the main fermenter is completely done - with staggered yeast nutrient additions and care it went down from an OG of 1.080 to a FG of 0.997, ceased carbonating, and is has now cleared up nicely with a clear yeast cake at the bottom.

The wild yeast cyser I'm not sure about. I took care with this one, building it up with both staggered nutrient additions and staggered additions of cyser must. It hasn't cleared up, still has signs of ongoing carbonation on the top, but the gravity - I just tested - is favourable compared to that of the other cyser - 0.995 (possibly with a correction to be made for the fact that the weather is warm today, thus affecting the accuracy of the hydrometer reading).

I would be happy to leave this for a while longer just to let it clear up for itself. The only thing is, I want to do another brew soon and use the wild yeast!

So: bottle straight away? Would this risk explosion, or is it safe to assume, at the gravity measured, I ain't going to get much more carbonation?

Alternatively I could filter off the yeast and pour the wild yeast cyser in another old juice bottle - I'm assuming the amount of alcohol present in the wild yeast cyser would prevent infection.

Whatcha reckon folks?

 

[MartinOC]

Tim, I just LOVE your eccentric fermentation experiments!

From a lay-perspective in such things, I'd guess that both of your ferments are done, or very close to it.

Bottle-away with gay abandon, but just to be sure, I'd suggest appropriate (ie. pressure-tolerant) bottles just to be sure. You didn't specify if you were planning still or sparkling Cyser, so I don't want to step on your toes, here...

I've done a few of these in the past & bottled them thinking they're done, but to my (pleasant)surprise, they had a very gentle "spritz" to them after 12-18 months, that was rather agreeable.

 

[TimT]

Hi Martin, thanks for the encouragement! I haven't usually primed my ciders and considering the slight uncertainty around this one I won't be doing it with this either. Given the gravity of both the wine yeast cyser and the wild yeast cyser are almost identical I guess I can take that as a fairly good indication now they can be bottled. I'll cast around for some appropriate vessels

 

[MartinOC]

I've got 20 Doz. old Coopers stubbies in boxes(all clean & de-labelled) that are going begging if you can use some...?

I need to free-up some shelf space.

 

[TimT]

Nah, thanks anyway, we have the same shelf space problems, and enough bottles

I have bottled the cyser and repitched with a porter wort (OG 1.070) last night. I got a starter of the yeast going, then added a bit more. When I saw a full krausen on that I added more, and then still more until I'd topped the bottle/makeshift fermenter off and had no more wort left. This way I think/hope I've encouraged the yeasts cells to divide and grow some more so they have more strength to tackle the wort. Just got back now from some music and dinner in Northcote and it's going gangbusters, a fine healthy yeast.

Incidentally I've noticed this yeast seems to have an interesting kind of buttery/chocolatey/almost savoury vegemite smell - diacetyl???!? It's certainly not unpleasant and I wouldn't think of it as a flaw, but it may guide my choices for it in the future. Seemed to have something of this smell to the (somewhat estery) fermented cyser, and it smelled more strongly this way when krausening. May fade with age. We'll see.

 

[TimT]

Hmm. This time the wild yeast has done a little more poorly than the previous occasion. I bottled the wild yeast porter yesterday; it only fermented down to about 1.027, so it faded out early. (Same wort on a different yeast - Mangrove Jacks Newcastle Ale yeast - fermented down to 1.016). So, maybe it just wasn't vigorous enough yet, maybe it found the honey/apple juice much easier to ferment (simpler sugars), or maybe it just got discouraged by the weather (we've had a long run of unusually cool summer days, getting cooler during the ferment). But I'm a little disappointed with my little wild yeasty beastie.

It's in the fridge now. Soon after I get back hopefully I can get it working on a slightly larger ale, which I'll add in degrees hoping to build its strength up. Meanwhile, the bottled wild yeast ales are for drinking fairly fresh. Hooray, another weird beer to force on the brew club committee....