Going on a Yeast Hunt

Robert68 said:
A brewing friend and I have been considering to find some wild yeasts locally here in Beijing and then trying to make a beer. Does anyone have any experience "hunting yeast"....... definitely would appreciate any advice. Thanks in advance!
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Cool I don't have any personal experience with collecting wild saccaramyces but I was listening to this podcast recently on the subject.

I know @oliver has delved into wild spontaneous fermentation which I've been toying with trying out.

Podcast
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5i...i=2m_AYnzGQ66xHoIFvfO1fQ&utm_source=copy-link
 
Get out of the city if you can...any place with fruit orchard or a forest? There's a guy that are an award winning brew with the yeast he harvested off a log he found in Central Park NYC! Go figure...it was his first try brewing too!
 
I've tried putting wort covered with cheese cloth at the foot of trees in orchards. It captured some yeast and the results were ok, but I haven't kept any. Talking to another yeast hunter and he add pieces of the fruit and flowers to half and one litre wort containers. Then blends the ones that generate enough ABV and have interesting flavours.
 
Trialben said:
Cool I don't have any personal experience with collecting wild saccaramyces but I was listening to this podcast recently on the subject.

I know @oliver has delved into wild spontaneous fermentation which I've been toying with trying out.

Podcast
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5i...i=2m_AYnzGQ66xHoIFvfO1fQ&utm_source=copy-link
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About half of my spontaneous ferms were great, extra tart, good flavors... the other half were absolute garbage. Smelled like poop or vomit, grew mold, a variety of different issues. But the ones that turned out good took a long time to get good, they looked like they went through some pedio sick phases or something, but the wild yeast eventually took over and cleaned up. Just takes time. It's definitely a gamble with spontaneous fermentation, unless you're certain you have "good" wild yeast flying around your brewery, like I'm convinced breweries like Jester King and Jolly Pumpkin just have developed a great environment of wild yeasts in their space, and it's now easier, per se, for them to make good wild ales. If that makes sense?

Use Bootleg Biology's guide: https://bootlegbiology.com/backyard-yeast-wrangling-tool-kit/ for wrangling yeast. In Louisiana we have lots of fruits and flowers that carry tons of good wild yeast. Some one recently brought me two strains harvested off of Baby Pinecone, and the other Satsuma flower.
 
Yeah we left a plum on the window sill in the kitchen recently and it grew a mouldy yeasty white stuff on the skin.
Maybe that woulda been good I'm half keen to do this again and scrape that stuff Into some wort and see what happens?

It sounds like an enormous amount of patience is needed.

Man when and how do you decide its "good":eek:
I'm imagining tasting this wild fermentation stuff could be fraught with danger.
 
Trialben said:
...
Man when and how do you decide its "good":eek:
I'm imagining tasting this wild fermentation stuff could be fraught with danger.
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There's not a lot that lives in an alcoholic liquid that can harm humans, so the basic rule for me is, if it isn't above 3% ABV after a week or so it can go down the sink, untasted.

Then keeping it comes down to whether it tastes good. I've had a couple that are awful, a couple that are boring. Nothing good yet. I think I should have kept the boring ones to blend in with interesting ones if I come across them.
 
Mark Farrall said:
There's not a lot that lives in an alcoholic liquid that can harm humans, so the basic rule for me is, if it isn't above 3% ABV after a week or so it can go down the sink, untasted.

Then keeping it comes down to whether it tastes good. I've had a couple that are awful, a couple that are boring. Nothing good yet. I think I should have kept the boring ones to blend in with interesting ones if I come across them.
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Thanks Mark the thought of brewing a beer with yeast captured in my own back yard intreags me.
I'll have a crack this winter out under my citrus trees when their fruiting maybe capture some yeast or something lol.

Something about winter being cooler and all seems to be the time to this...
 
All must has natural or wild yeasts. That is why metabisulfites are added to the juice in wine. If you want you can extract 1L from the wort prior to boiling and hops. Place it in an amber bottle. Leave it at a temperature between 20 and 24C. That will be your fermentation temperature range. By using this type of wild yeasts you will not always get the same aromas and flavors. But you may discover some that will give you good satisfaction
 
The Sui Generis Brewing Youtube channel has a good tutorial about capturing wild yeast, part 1 here


and parts 2 and 3 (as well as a lot of other related videos) can be found from the channel.
 
I can't recall where I read it but the method they recommended was to place a few cheese cloth covered mason jars with some 1040 ish wort in them over night then see what comes of that after a couple days to let the girls do their work...stinky wort = toss it...no stinky or smells good = play with it!
 
I'm wondering also if lowering the PH of the wort will help catch the more beneficial microbes.
My thinking is spoilage bacteria and such don't like low PH mediums.

Take your sourdough culture or even the Kombucha Scoby that stuff is tart .

Oh what about these Dates I think that greyish film is yeast?
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The serious yeast prospectors have different types of wort to capture different types of bugs. The fiddle with hopping rate and pH to target different things. So if you're mainly after yeast strains, increase the hops. Higher pH will stop some microbes that you may not want.

Though some lambic's seem to get some of their flavour from enterobaceteria. Which is definitely not something you'd choose to put in your blend. Turns out it's safe enough once the ABV gets up high enough.
 
Trialben said:
También me pregunto si reducir el pH del mosto ayudará a atrapar los microbios más beneficiosos.
Mi pensamiento es que las bacterias estropean y tales no les gustan los medios de pH bajo.

Tome su cultura de masa madre o incluso el Kombucha Scoby que las cosas son agrias.

Oh, ¿qué pasa con estas fechas, creo que la película grisácea es levadura?
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That looks like the mogo of salamis when dried, it is a mogo that protects what is being dehydrated. In salamis it is an indication of health. In sweet fruits of high sugar content I think that it is because it still evaporates water. possibly with little air circulation. These spores are not fermentable.

The PH, sugar, salt are natural preservatives all depends on the concentrations. With safe high PH are culture of bacteria and spores of all kinds.
 
Mark Farrall said:
The fiddle with hopping rate and pH to target different things. So if you're mainly after yeast strains, increase the hops. Higher pH will stop some microbes that you may not want.
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Good point Mark and in line with what I was listening to on the MB podcast #239 yesterday. All of the starter stuff or propagation stuff that I've read or listened to to date have not mentioned hops until now, I guess that adding a little bit of hops for the nutrient or like and their antiseptic qualities.....just like in fermentation but WITH oxygen!
 
Well I went to a small Homebrewers meeting here in Beijing on Sunday and one of the guys has some access to wild yeast from the Great Wall......so hopefully (Covid Lockdown dependent ) I can get some and try to make a batch of beer in the week or two...... who would have thought my yeast hunt would be this easy,
 
Better get your grain bill and yeast asap @Robert68 ..watching the news tonight and things are looking pretty draconian there.....fences up and shelves empty! Stay positive...Test negative!
 
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