Wild Yeasts?

[earthwormgaz]

If you wanted to brew beer without using packet yeast, what would you do then?

It must be possible. Just out of curiosity like ...

 

[shearclass]

google it perhaps, look for llambic belgian beers?

I read a post on here once from someone (possibly unclepumble but I am not certain at all about that) who gave a breif description of llambic beers (and likening them to eating road kill, but in a good way).

 

[earthwormgaz]

Googled that a bit, seems like you can use the same tricks as with sour dough bread. So, maybe if I left some malt in water in a jar and covered it for a few days I'd get some yeast growing which I could feed sugar. Then it'd be a case of sticking it in the fridge until I was ready to pitch it.

 

[shocker]

True natural cider relies on wild yeasts .Many wines used to rely on the yeast bloom on the grapes skins .I think that maybe getting the right wild yeast would be the trick and leaving that to luck would be pretty chancey as there are more than a few floating around .Someone must know how to manipulate the situation ,though..... :wha: :hmm:

 

[earthwormgaz]

There's some interesting stuff on here ...

http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtop ... 87&start=0

I agree that chances are you won't discover any "good" yeast, but its worth a try. If you are going to give it a go, it is worth doing right just in case you do stumble across something useful. What I would do...

If possible, get yourself some differential agar. Sabouraud-Dextrose agar is a good choice. Due to the low pH the agar will inhibit bacterial growth. Also, formulations contain Gentamicin which will specifically inhibit Gram negative bugs (like Acetobacter). Once you get the agar, swipe the crabapple with a sterile swab (or even dip it) in a small volume of sterile saline or wort. Use a sterile loop to streak the suspension on the agar. Let it set for 24-48 hrs. and observe. Disregard any fuzzy growth and look for isolated colonies that appear whitish and smooth. Pick several of the colonies and resuspend each in a small volume of saline or wort...Streak again to make sure that each is "pure". Then, step each isolate up and make a starter-sized batch. You can get an idea of how good the yeast will be by observing the starter...If it smells and tastes fine, try it out on a bigger batch. If you like the results, aliquot out your next starter and freeze so that you have a master seed bank of your new house yeast.

You could go through the process described using malt agar, but keep in mind that it is NOT differential and will allow the growth of a lot of unwanted bugs.

I realize that this sounds time consuming, but it is worth the effort. If you simply inoculate a wort and go, you will not know if you have a pure culture. Not having a pure culture will definitely increase the odds of crappy results. In addition, if you do find a good bug you want to make sure that you have a stock of seed. Once you have a seed, you can experiment with different beer styles, fermentation temps, etc. and dial in the characteristics of the yeast.

It sounds like a lot of pot luck, but it'd be well good if you sourced your own wild local yeast, it'd surely give your brews a distinctive character.

Not sounding easy though.