Wild Yeast Capture - questions

If anything you could just do a small 1 gallon boil of 50/50 pilsen/wheat dme @ 1.050ish with a small amount of low aa hops and pitch a small amount of the starter. You'll know pretty quickly then if it will yield a tasty brew.

 

I would skin and add the skins only. Eat the rest.

 

I have a very good yeast that I captured from peach and plum rinds, made 3 batches of straight lambics, very tasty beers with a mild sourness.
I would like to advise you to do not drink it until 15 days, it is the time needed for yeasties to kill E. Choli. Let it go as it is, every once in a while give it a sniff to control bad odours, a bit of sulfur is something usual, of course if it smells like rotten eggs you will need to dump it.This first part of this fermentation you show in your foto I think is due saccharomyces work, other bugs must be present for sure.So let it go 7-8 months, sourness will come with time.

 

For those of you who are AHA members there is a great article entitled “Isolating Wild Yeast Strains” that was published in the July/August 2014 edition of Zymurgy. The author isolated 13 different wild yeast stains (one strain was from blackberry) and he ranked the potential of these 13 strains for beer making via high, medium and low. For example the blackberry strain he isolated he ranked as being high.

I would encourage folks to read this article.

Cheers!

 

I'm trying the same thing at the moment. Got some sacch looking activity from soaking some wild plums in some wort. Stepped it up once and now I'll leave it for 4 or 5 weeks to see how it develops. Then step it up some more and if it smells good, pitch it in a beer with homegrown hops and locally produced malt.

 

I thought the exact same thing when I isolated my strains! Looked over at the garden and thought Hmm I could grow some grain over there haha. Estate ale FTW.

 

Conveniently I live in Bamberg so my local Maltster is Weyermann.

 

Weyermann malts are not easily available to you in Ohio?

I live in PA and I can easily obtain Weyermann malts from my LHBS and on-line vendors that I regularly order from.

Cheers!

 

Ah, obviously I was confused. Thanks for clarifying that.

I have not brewed with them but near me are two local malting companies:

http://lancasteronline.com/features...cle_c36a069a-a00a-11e4-af50-a7b1b8c9ef63.html

http://www.doubleeaglemalt.com/

Maybe it is only a matter of time before some Ohio malting companies open?

Cheers!

 

I agree that growing barley and then malting that barley is a 'bridge too far' for most homebrewers (including me).

I grow my own hops but I have yet to harvest local yeast. I look forward to reading how well harvesting local wild yeast works out for you.

Cheers!

 

I was just chatting about doing the same thing. I am going to capture some new wild yeast to play with, and there is an empty field behind my house that no one actually uses. Thinking I might take our a patch of the weeds and grass that is growing out there, plant some barley and wheat, harvest then malt the barley myself and kiln it in the garage in the summer heat. Add homegrown hops that I age in the same garage. Brew an estate Lambic.