So I had some extra wort left over on my Sunday sour brew day big batch got gigas fast souring lacto and will be finished with 001 and possible a dry hop of simcoe and cascade not sure will decide after samples
But I had left over from that and decided to toss in some hallo oranges we have for the kid, I cut 3 up tossed half in around 110 degrees and threw the other half in around 75. She’s fermenting away beautifully, my questions are:
1)should I rack off the fruit or will it be fine on the fruit for awhile?
2) any tips for a first time spontaneous brewer that might help the process
Pics of said spontaneous fermentation
This was a day after:
This is two days after
Any help knowledge is welcome thanks in advance. Hoppy brewing
Personally I would pull the fruit out unless you’re trying to get some of the orange flavor and citric acid into the beer. Whatever bacteria and yeast were on the fruit are already in the beer.
I’m not sure I would be too confident about whatever bugs have found their way on to grocery store oranges. Just imagine the places they have been before they made it to your beer. I guess it doesn’t hurt to try to ferment with them, but I would be sure to test that the pH has dropped as well as the gravity before I put it in my mouth.
Yeah, if I were trying to grow up a culture and it wasn’t from my own fruit, I’d probably look for organic produce - preferably something from a local farmer’s market. Most grocery store fruit has been treated/waxed/etc.
Still, if the pH and gravity drops, it smells OK, and there’s no visible mold, then go for it. In all likelihood you’re probably growing up bugs that collected on the fruit from your local flora, rather than something that made its way from the orchard. The oranges probably dropped the pH a bit to inhibit the nasties as well.
On the other hand, just imagine the places they have been before they made it to your beer!
I once attempted to culture yeast off a peach I bought at the grocery store. I have no idea where it was grown but it wasn’t local. The beer turned out very mediocre. I saved some of the slurry in a mason jar in the fridge. A couple years later I was pairing down my stock of yeast and discovered the mason jar. I figured I wouldn’t brew with it again and dumped it. Only after dumping did I smell the jar and discover how stupid I had been. The smell was a glorious blend of brett funk and lactic acid. I was so disappointed that I had lost that culture. So I definitely think good yeast and LAB can be pulled from grocery store fruit even if the fruit’s passengers are international in origin. Probably not coming from ISIS or al Qaeda.