Catching wild yeast!! a How-to by Valduare

[Valduare]

bump so other's can view the guide

[raymilosh]

i have killed my sourdough starters in the past. I think it is because i fed it once a week, but never left it out to warm up and wake up and eat the flour. thanx for filling in the missing piece.

btw, a neighbor of mine makes mead by mixing water, honey, spices and leaving it open to the air for a few days to pick up naturally occurring yeast.

same goes for sourkraut...cabbage and any other vegetables you want, chopped and "punched down" into a crock or glass jar until the liquid covers them, then weighted down with a plate and left out. It gets more sour with time, but basically you just leave it out (under a cloth to exclude "macrofermenters") then go in and get some whenever you want.

[Ozark-Dew]

Can I keep a lid on the bucket? or will the yeast not find their way in? Can I keep a lid over, just not snapped down? There is so much dust in the air here, I hate to keep anything uncovered.

[Valduare]

you can put a damp cloth over it wich is what i did for the first week and half till i was redy to put it in the fridge. then i used a lid

[lilyrose]

Fantastic thread! Thanks Valduare!

[BCR]

The issue of WineMaker that came in the mail today covers using wild yeast for wine very thoroughly. Its more complicated than it seems. You might check it out online.

I find I like predictability in my beer making so use bought yeast I can count on. Otherwise it is easy to get skunky off-flavors imo.

[Valduare]

aye one thing to know is there are sevral strainds of yeast in all area's so if you do culture a bad strain then you can start over and hope to catch a different one. but realise that it is going to smell bad but give it time it is just in its reacting stage and it will mellow out with time. and start smelling more "yeastie" once you have a yeast pet that you like. you can send friends part of it and they can make bread with it or they can continue to feed it. and generate there own over time it will take on the locality of where they live.

[turtlehead]

Valduare,
What a helpful post! I enjoy your posts immensely. Your English is superb and you seem to have a good sense of humor. Keep posting

[Valduare]

thank you very much i will too! i shall drum up another guide soon possibly

[gobug]

Last night I was watching Emeril. He showed a NY deli that has used a rye flour yeast for nearly a hundred years now. They didn't give the do-it-yourself detail as you have, but it caught my attention and reminded me of this post. Emeril was bragging about how great the bread was from this family maintained yeast.

[Valduare]

once you guys have your yeastie pets try a recipe one loaf with your new pet and one loaf with "traditional" storebought yeast..... nice differences