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Taming those wild, wild yeasties

Post #1 made 14 years ago
by GrainWaterYeast
This seems to be a perrenial favorite on various home brewing forums (with one of the most extensive discussions being http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/howto- ... st-101886/), so I thought I'd open this particular can of worms amongst BIABers as well.

I've got a kit of Coopers lager and Brew Enhancer #2 from before I switched to the dark side of all-grain brewing, and I can't just let it go to waste. And because I want to keep the Coopers yeast sachet to use in my bottling bucket for my lagers, I figured I could try and capture whatever freaky wild yeasts are being blown about by the wind and waves of the Gold Coast.

After reading the thread linked to above, I'm leaning towards getting some petri dishes, filling them with an agar+wort combination and leaving them exposed to the air in various locations for a couple hours. Then, when funk starts to grow, identify the yeast funk and transfer this to new agar+wort petri dishes to get a 'pure' sample. This sample would then get chucked into a tiny starter which would be progressively kicked up in size until I felt it was ready for a 4 or 5 liter test batch. And if that is good, I'll harvest the yeast for a proper 23 liter batch with my Coopers kit.

Anyone have experience cultivating wild yeast? Any microbiologists out there lurking?
Last edited by GrainWaterYeast on 18 Jun 2011, 21:22, edited 5 times in total.

Post #2 made 14 years ago
by BobBrews
GWY,
I find that if I get lackadaisical in my sanitation I encourage (freaky wild yeasts)! It takes much less work to get sloppy cleaning and sanitizing that fooling around with agar+wort petri dishes. There is places on the web, YouTube, Basic Brewing Radio that deal with the subject. If you like Belgian beers you may cultivate some funk there. Good hunting, you may get lucky and find a winner!
tap 1 Raspberry wine
tap 2 Bourbon Barrel Porter
tap 3 Czech Pilsner
tap 4 Triple IPA 11% ABV
Pipeline: Mulled Cider 10% ABV

http://cheesestradamus.com/ Brewers challenge!
    • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From United States of America

Post #3 made 14 years ago
by GrainWaterYeast
I guess I was inspired by that thread I posted to try and capture my own "house yeast," if you will. In a way, the fun of home brewing is that it's a bit of a crapshoot each time you make a batch. Yes, good sterilization, careful brewing and temperature control will minimize the variation between what you set out to make and what you actually get, but - let's be honest - the vast majority of home brewers don't have the money or time to invest in replicating the standards that the macro-breweries maintain. And why the hell should we? It's fun to have that bit of chance involved in our brewing. Home brewing is an art and a science.

BobBrews, yes, I loves me some Belgian lambic (although my exposure to them is only about two bottles), and I'd love to replicate it. But I want to make sure I can isolate whatever yeast I get if it's a keeper. And to me that means petri dishes + agar + wort + microscopes + lab coats + goggles + frizzy mad scientist hair + lightning + "IT'S ALIVE!!!"...etc.

Joshua, you are absolutely right about grape skins as a source for yeast. Someone on that thread I posted mentioned using flower petals, captured bees and even fruit flies as sources of yeast. And some joker mentioned wearing cammos and hiding in a bush with a gun to blast wild yeast when they come by, but I don't think the gun laws in Australia will permit that.

I'm leaning towards ordering the book Wild Brews (http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Brews-Cultur ... 0937381861). If anyone has read it and has some feedback, please share.
Last edited by GrainWaterYeast on 21 Jun 2011, 19:09, edited 5 times in total.

Post #4 made 14 years ago
by BobBrews
GrainWaterYeast,
One last thing. Remember that the big brewers will ferment with one yeast and add a different yeast at bottling. So if you cultivate a yeast form the bottle "Your results may vary"? It seems like you could get a lot of information from our friends at Basic Brewing Radio on this subject. http://www.basicbrewing.com Good hunting!
Last edited by BobBrews on 21 Jun 2011, 20:13, edited 5 times in total.
tap 1 Raspberry wine
tap 2 Bourbon Barrel Porter
tap 3 Czech Pilsner
tap 4 Triple IPA 11% ABV
Pipeline: Mulled Cider 10% ABV

http://cheesestradamus.com/ Brewers challenge!
    • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From United States of America

Post #5 made 14 years ago
by stux
BobBrews wrote:GrainWaterYeast,
One last thing. Remember that the big brewers will ferment with one yeast and add a different yeast at bottling. So if you cultivate a yeast form the bottle "Your results may vary"? It seems like you could get a lot of information from our friends at Basic Brewing Radio on this subject. http://www.basicbrewing.com Good hunting!
Some do and some don't, if you research the bottle/brewer you can sometimes find out
Last edited by stux on 22 Jun 2011, 13:02, edited 5 times in total.
Fermenting: -
Cubed: -
Stirplate: -
On Tap: NS Summer Ale III (WY1272), Landlord III (WY1469), Fighter's 70/- II (WY1272), Roast Porter (WY1028), Cider, Soda
Next: Munich Helles III

5/7/12

Post #6 made 14 years ago
by BobBrews
Here is some info written from our fellow brewer Eoin Magrath. This is a link to his blog titled. Using liquid yeasts, making starters and cultivating yeast from a bottle.

http://beernvictuals.blogspot.com/2011/ ... s-and.html
I hope it helps or leads to something that will.
Last edited by BobBrews on 22 Jun 2011, 19:56, edited 5 times in total.
tap 1 Raspberry wine
tap 2 Bourbon Barrel Porter
tap 3 Czech Pilsner
tap 4 Triple IPA 11% ABV
Pipeline: Mulled Cider 10% ABV

http://cheesestradamus.com/ Brewers challenge!
    • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From United States of America

Post #7 made 14 years ago
by GrainWaterYeast
BobBrews, thanks for the links. I've been a bit distracted by work 'n such and haven't had a chance to check them out, but I shall do so immediately after I post this.

Regarding cultivating yeast from bottles, I definitely want to cultivate some Trappist (Chimay) ale yeast, and I think that the yeast in their bottles is the one they brew with. But please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm going to go with Joshua's recommendation and find a vinyard, orchard, garden, etc., for my wild yeast sample. Maybe make it a day out with the kids. Teach them about the birds and the bees...but mainly about the bees...and mainly about how bees help carry yeast around.

Post #8 made 14 years ago
by GrainWaterYeast
sigurdur wrote:
GrainWaterYeast wrote:...but mainly about the bees...and mainly about how bees help carry yeast around.
I really hope that this isn't a metaphor .. :o :party:
Nah, my kids are still WAAAAY too young to learn about the, uh, "birds and the bees." That little talk can wait until later.

Me: "It's time I told you where babies come from, son."
Son: "Dad, I already have three kids."
Me: "Oh, okay, so you worked it all out then? Here, have a beer. I made it myself."

I've been horribly lazy about cultivating wild yeast, but I have ordered some petri dishes, wire loops and the Wild Brews book. So I will eventually have something interesting to report.

As a side note, I read somewhere that of the millions of strains of yeast in the world there are only 250 that produce alcoholic fermentation and only some small subset of these that produce alcohol we humans like to drink. Is this true?
Last edited by GrainWaterYeast on 10 Jul 2011, 17:40, edited 5 times in total.

Post #9 made 14 years ago
by GrainWaterYeast
Sigurdur - Thanks for the info. Microbiology used to bore me to tears before I started brewing. But now I'm frickin' ordering petri dishes and innoculation loops! If they used beer brewing to teach university students microbiology, I guarantee interest in the biological sciences would skyrocket.

I guess what surprised me about the limited number of brewing yeast strains was - because yeast are microbes - their mutation rate should be crazy fast, given the number of generations they go through in just a period of days(?), but they seem to have stayed the "same" over centuries. Is that because artificial selection by humans discourages cool new strains of yeast form gaining an evolutionary foothold?

So how's this analogy: if brewing yeast represent homo sapiens, I want to find that elusive bigfoot yeast lurking out there and so far remaining hidden. I predict some serious "sweaty horse blanket" and "barnyard" characteristics for that one...

Post #10 made 14 years ago
by stux
Companies like Wyeast and Whitelabs have to test their strains for trueness to type when they are re-viving them from storage

They would be taking a single cell colony, breeding it up, and then making sure that the performance and characteristics match what they expect. Otherwise they drift away from the original strain

The problem of course is the drift is actually inevitable
Fermenting: -
Cubed: -
Stirplate: -
On Tap: NS Summer Ale III (WY1272), Landlord III (WY1469), Fighter's 70/- II (WY1272), Roast Porter (WY1028), Cider, Soda
Next: Munich Helles III

5/7/12

Post #11 made 14 years ago
by GrainWaterYeast
So is it possible to induce mutations in your yeast? Are there any established techniques for this? Maybe instead of venturing out into the wild with a sack full of petri dishes and agar, I could harvest some of the yeast from one of my batches and "force" changes in it?

Post #12 made 14 years ago
by GrainWaterYeast
Sigurdur - Great points, thank you! So would you say the trick is to manipulate the brewing environment and harvest the yeast that are able to survive and thrive in that environment?

For example, on another thread the topic of Wyeast 2112 - California Lager has come up as a yeast that is able to produce lager characteristics at ale temps. I think I remember reading that this yeast evolved in the early days of brewing in California when they couldn't do the kind of temp control that a lager yeast required, but when this strain emerged, it was selected because it was able to retain lager characteristics at higher temps.
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