Wild yeast harvesting

Ingredients
1

The idea of this interests me quite a bit. A few questions…
-how easy is this?
-would it always make for a sour ale?
-any preferred place outside to give it a try?

2

Hey FL,

If you are an AHA member you should check out this Research & Education Fund report we just recently posted on wild yeast harvesting.

Here’s a link: http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/community/research-and-education-fund/completed-proposals/

I’m sure other forumites will have some great ideas, but this is a good place to start!

Cheers,
Duncan

3

They are not always sour, but they are not always very good either.  I did a taste panel of about 20 samples of wort fermented with wild yeasts in February.  Fellow Floridian Mike Lentz from Jacksonville was doing a research project.  They were harvested from fruits mostly as I recall.

4

This is something I’m planning on trying soon, so I don’t have first hand experience. Any place can work, but I have heard in several interviews that locations near fruit orchards tend to produce the best results. Alternatively, you could simply harvest bugs directly from untreated fruit. My plan is to harvest directly from various berries I growthat ripen in different months, to see what is in my area during different seasons.

This won’t necessarily be sour, and not every wild bug produces a significant amount of acid as a byproduct. Heck, not every one produces alcohol, either. But a lot of these wild yeast would probably work best in blends with other bugs that do produce sour beer.

5

Last couple of years I’ve been growing up some wild strains by picking wild persimmons and dropping them in about 400ml of sterile wort. Definitely funky. This year I plan on biting the bullet and making a beer out of it.

6

Just make a batch of starter wort, split between a few growlers, and leave in various places outside.

Mike Tonsmire (The Mad Fermentationist) has a great article on his blog:

7

Frankensteining this because yay Igor!

igor.jpg

Boiled 30g of light DME in 300ml of water with a pinch of hops.
Poured in a sanitised mason jar, covered with sanitised cheesecloth held in place with rubber band.
Placed outside in the crisp night air and left to cool there overnight.
Took back inside in the morning, removed cheesecloth and closed lightly to allow eventual CO2 to escape.

Now the waiting begins :slight_smile:

I’ve also started a rye sourdough starter, from which I intend to harvest bugs into a similarly prepared wort. We’ll see how that turns out when it does :slight_smile:

8

I kept walking by that persimmon tree last fall and never did grab any to make a wild starter. this year maybe.