Fermenting with wild yeast (topic moved from intros)

[Guest tom]

Hello,

I am an archivist and historian who specializes in the American Distilling Industry. I am curious if anyone here has tried to cature their local wild yeast to use in distillation.

Mike Veach

Mike, I tried this yesterday, I have read in several places that you take 2 eggs, rye flour and salt and it will ferment in 24 hours. I am asuming that this is some kind of yeast trap for yeast in the air, or yrast on the rye grain itself, this must have been the way they used to do it. My grandfather never used any store bought yeast, he just left it alone until it fermented or soured as he called it. I will have to let you know how my experiment goes.

[bourbonv]

Here is a Transcript from the Johnathan Taylor Diary at the Filson Historical Society.

Transcript from Taylor Diary circa 1820 - Filson Club

Distillery - 2 stills - one One of 110 gallons the other 70 gallons _____.

The size of the still House Twenty four feet by thirty. Six feet pitch from the floor of the tubs to the loft.

For a distillery of this kind it will require Eighteen Tubbs. One Doubling Cask 20 Gallons and four Singling Cask to contain 15 Gallons each a Cask to hold Singling with an open end to hold 70 Gallons. The Still Tubs for mashing out (aught?) to be low and it is most convenient to mash in another cool somart (somewhat?) in one two gallon piggins - one spouse buckett to hold four gallons one Yeast cann to hold two Gallons a mash stick.

The art of making whiskey in the first Place the Distiller must be an Industrous man a Cleanly Sober watchfull man _____.

To Prepare the Yeast take two Eggs which you are to break up in three pints of Tolerable warm water with a spoon full of salt Then Thicken it with Rye Mealover shorts so as it wont turn set it where it will keep about milk warm it will work in about Twenty four Hours this Yeast will do to make Bread with but for Distillery after your Water in the Stills Boils say you want to mash four tubbs put one pint of yeast to each after your Tubbs are Cooler so as to be able to bear your hand in then the yeast must be put in, it is a fact that the warmer you put in your Yeast the sooner your Beer will be ready for Stilling.

Mash one Bushel and a half in each Tubb if you have Rye to mix put corn in first & twenty Bushel of Corn make use of 24 Gallons of Scalding waterlet it stand covered up an hour then put in the malt after pouring in a small quantity of warm water from the Flakestand (?) on the top of the crust let it stand so for 20 minutes then stir it up and put in the rye meal let it stand then about one hour before you begin to stir then stir as much as possible and when you get it cool enough to bare your hand put in the yeast and in four days the beer will be ready

As you can see the method he uses for capturing yeast is very similar to what you describe. I would be very interested in knowing how your experiment turns out.

Mike Veach

[Guest tom]

Here is a Transcript from the Johnathan Taylor Diary at the Filson Historical Society.

Transcript from Taylor Diary circa 1820 - Filson Club

Distillery - 2 stills - one One of 110 gallons the other 70 gallons _____.

The size of the still House Twenty four feet by thirty. Six feet pitch from the floor of the tubs to the loft.

For a distillery of this kind it will require Eighteen Tubbs. One Doubling Cask 20 Gallons and four Singling Cask to contain 15 Gallons each a Cask to hold Singling with an open end to hold 70 Gallons. The Still Tubs for mashing out (aught?) to be low and it is most convenient to mash in another cool somart (somewhat?) in one two gallon piggins - one spouse buckett to hold four gallons one Yeast cann to hold two Gallons a mash stick.

The art of making whiskey in the first Place the Distiller must be an Industrous man a Cleanly Sober watchfull man _____.

To Prepare the Yeast take two Eggs which you are to break up in three pints of Tolerable warm water with a spoon full of salt Then Thicken it with Rye Mealover shorts so as it wont turn set it where it will keep about milk warm it will work in about Twenty four Hours this Yeast will do to make Bread with but for Distillery after your Water in the Stills Boils say you want to mash four tubbs put one pint of yeast to each after your Tubbs are Cooler so as to be able to bear your hand in then the yeast must be put in, it is a fact that the warmer you put in your Yeast the sooner your Beer will be ready for Stilling.

Mash one Bushel and a half in each Tubb if you have Rye to mix put corn in first & twenty Bushel of Corn make use of 24 Gallons of Scalding waterlet it stand covered up an hour then put in the malt after pouring in a small quantity of warm water from the Flakestand (?) on the top of the crust let it stand so for 20 minutes then stir it up and put in the rye meal let it stand then about one hour before you begin to stir then stir as much as possible and when you get it cool enough to bare your hand put in the yeast and in four days the beer will be ready

As you can see the method he uses for capturing yeast is very similar to what you describe. I would be very interested in knowing how your experiment turns out.

Mike Veach

I have been at the distillery all day and it is beginning to ferment, I am going to grow it and use some of it tommorow.

[bourbonv]

I look forward to hearing about your results. I know the big companies have their own yeast and they protect them constantly, but those yeast had to start somewhere as wild yeast. I would be interested in seeing if a local wild yeast makes good whiskey.

Mike Veach

[Rich Morgan]

I look forward to hearing about your results. I know the big companies have their own yeast and they protect them constantly, but those yeast had to start somewhere as wild yeast. I would be interested in seeing if a local wild yeast makes good whiskey.

Mike Veach

Mike,

While it is true that most the big distilleries have developed their own strains, and that these strains originated in the wild, they have been through a significant selection and culturing process. Involving countless generations of yeast propagation. I have worked in many distilleries over the years and of those using proprietary strains, most are all monotypic, that is containing only one species of yeast. Wild yeast inoculations as described above are typically polytypic and can contain over 50 different species. Most of these species are ineffectual and provide little input to the character of the final product but a number do.

The challenge with wild ferments is unpredictability, due to the seasonal aspects of yeast, different wild ferments will have a different profile as to the makeup of the different species, in each batch. What is interesting is that you can create a complex wild ferment characteristic, but with the predictability of cultured (selected) yeasts, by mixing a number of cultured yeast together in the fermentation, or at different stages. This practice is being widely used in the Australia Wine industry with great results. I know of 4 Scotch distilleries and 2 Bourbon distilleries that use this technique.

Whenever we say wild yeast, we really mean wild yeasts, as it can contain any number of species and strains.

An interesting subject nevertheless.

[bourbonv]

Rich,

Thanks for the information. I knew that there were many strands of wild yeast, but did not realise that it was quite that many. I always thought the count was closer to 10 or 12. It would still be interesting to experiment with this process.

I have seen many historical documents with mash bills and such and I am curious as to what this whiskey would taste like. Part of that taste would be from the local yeast. I know several people that can tell from smell alone whether the yeast is right or not, so I would imagine that the same skill could be used to tell if the wild yeast was right or not as well. I often wondered if the best distillers in the early 19th century were simply the one with the best sense of smell and could tell when something was not right.

Now here is another question - if you have some wild yeast and placed in some backset, would that help make it more like the ones used before by killing off some of the variants?

Mike Veach

[cowdery]

I learned just last night that Herradura Tequila uses wild yeast in much the same way as Belgian brewers. Herradura has been in the same location, in the same building, for 150 years. The distillery is surrounded by agave fields. After they cook the agave, they simply fill the fermenters with the juice and wait. They don't add any yeast but just allow the yeast living there in the atmosphere to do its thing. They don't get variable results because they've been doing fermentation there for so long that all of the yeast in the local atmosphere is "theirs." At least that's how I interpret it. They do about a 4-day fermentation, similar to most bourbon makers.

[Rich Morgan]

Now here is another question - if you have some wild yeast and placed in some back-set, would that help make it more like the ones used before by killing off some of the variants?

Mike Veach

If I understand your question correctly, the answer would be maybe . The problem with wild yeasts is that some exhibit 'Killer' or Allopathic tendencies, and some do not. Killer or Allopathic yeasts contain enzymes and bacteria (there is debate in this area still) that produce poisons that kill or retard the activity of other strains, but not themselves. This phenomena is very common in a lot simpler plants. It allows one organism to dominate another, even if its numbers are less.

The trick with wild ferments is the interdependence of these killer strains, their interaction behalves differently every time. Most killer activity occurs during occurs during the initial 'lag' or aerobic phase, and hence by the time the yeasts get down to doing the deed, its a very different makeup of strains.

This is why a cultured yeast (most are killer) will dominate any ferment even if there is a strong presence of wild yeasts (yes, the sheer number of the initial colony also helps).

As to your point about back-set, I am a bit confused. Back-set is not the ideal medium to culture up a strain, in fact it holds very little to support yeast growth. Normally in back-set you see bacterial growth before a yeast growth as most spoilage bacteria are strongly allopathic, and back-set usually has a dominance of proteins which the bacteria love. Some of the allopathic enzymes survive the distillation process, and again will inhibit the wild strains.

Old brewery's and distilleries that have reused the yeast trub (ie the Burton system) time and time again are effectively selecting out the stronger yeasts, that is, creating their own cultures. Even though these strain would have started as wild. There is extensive work being done in the UK beer industry to gene map and catalog all the wild and cultured yeasts, as some of the big breweries are noticing undesirable flavour shifts due to the long term mutation of the in-house strains due to the countless generations they have propagated. One brewery claims it has live culture that is over 450 years old. What they are really saying is that they have the great.g.g.g.g.g.g.g.g.g grandchild of something that lived 450 years ago. Typically the life span of a single yeast is 14 hours. 450 years = 246,000 generations !, thats a lot of mutation opportunity. What they are doing is DNA mapping samples from their museum bottles to see how bad it has got. This is naturally leading into the dangerous area of GMO yeasts.

[delaware_phoenix]

The technology exists today to take those old yeasts (even if they're dead) and bring them back to life. If their DNA hasn't degraded it's pretty easy to replicate. And yeast spp. have been extensively studied being one the first living organisms to have their DNA fully analyzed.

You're probably not far off from the time when you could call Lavalin or Wyeast etc. and order a custom made yeast for a reasonable fee. "Yes, a yeast with hints of orange and coriander and a delicate smoky undertone suitable to 14% abv in a sugar wash." The DNA sequencing capabilities are all there. It's just a matter of cost.