Culturing Yeast & Bacteria off Fruit

Discussion in 'Homebrewing' started by hoptualBrew, Jun 6, 2014.

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  1. hoptualBrew

    hoptualBrew Initiate (0) May 29, 2011 Florida

    Anyone experiment with this? If so, what method worked for you? Any success?

    I recently tried my hand at it & am about to plate some cultures and try to isolate something promising. A few different fruits: mango, orange, star fruit from local produce stand, washed them water then sprayed lightly with starsan mix, cut a few chunks of skin off and pitched to sterile mason jars of boiled & lightly hopped starter sort. It's been riding for 5 days now. After I see enough growth in the jars, I'm going to plate & try to isolate. I'll then grow up promising looking colonies from the plates and pitch a few ml each to a few 64 oz growlers of a clean Blonde ale and let sit for a few months.

    Any suggestions on process? Debating whether or not to attempt to grow anything up to try to primary ferment with it.
     
    #1 hoptualBrew, Jun 6, 2014
  2. jbakajust1

    jbakajust1 Pooh-Bah (2,552) Aug 25, 2009 Oregon
    Pooh-Bah

    I've done it. I'd say Best of Show is a success.

    It was my first really true sour beer (only a sour mash before that), and it turned out great. Since then I have gotten much better on my culturing process, as well as starting to plate and such.

    I made 2 starters, about 1 pint each of 1.020 wort, 1/5 of the liquid was simple apple juice. I did a quick cold water rinse from "wild" Blackberries in the back yard and 3 organic peaches from the Farmer's Market. I threw all the blackberries into 1 starter, fit with an airlock, and did sporadic shaking for a week. I cut up the peaches and put them into the other starter, did the same shake with it. After a week or so I boiled up some 1.040 wort, no juice, and added it to the blackberry starter to make it ~ 1.030 @ 1 qt. I didn't step up the peach one. On brewday I added the whole starter from both jugs to the wort (I would crash for at least a week to get all the microflora out of solution and decant next time).

    I of course smelled the starter to make sure it didn't grow some nasty stuffs. Super fruity, light funk, tart. Starter also had a pellicle form, as well as yeast at the bottom of the jug.

    When I do this again in the fall, I am taking plates to the orchards to catch airborne microflora, and then I will make starters from fruits like before (under much more sterile procedures and no shaking/O2 for the starters). I will plate and grow, then re-plate to see what I have (Lacto plates, BG, cyclohexamide, etc.). Then grow them all up individually to see how they perform in wort (1/2 gallon at a time).
     
    #2 jbakajust1, Jun 6, 2014
    Last edited: Jun 6, 2014
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  3. mattbk

    mattbk Savant (1,111) Dec 12, 2011 New York

    I just think this is fantastic.
     
    #3 mattbk, Jun 6, 2014
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