Wild Yeast - Saving, Breeding

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eprigge

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Hi,

I am finishing a batch of wine using grapes I allowed to ferment in their own wild yeast. It took about a week before they asserted themselves. The aroma and taste is quite good! The fermentation is slowing down, I'd guess it's in it's final active day, tastes pretty dry.

My question is how can I save the yeast that I've managed to pick up? How can I breed/save the yeast that I have here? Seems like it should be simple but I'm sure it's not.

Thanks,
Eric
 
Eric,

Good question! I have been researching this and not finding much info. Once I stumble on something, I will share with you. I will be watching your thread.
 
I know its as easy as this, take a small sugar water sample.
Shake the grapes over the sample. Wait till it start bubling and that means you captured some.

The not so easy part did you only get yeast to start growing?
 
I know its as easy as this, take a small sugar water sample.
Shake the grapes over the sample. Wait till it start bubling and that means you captured some.

The not so easy part did you only get yeast to start growing?

Well, THAT and keeping it in stasis until you use it! What we use I believe is freeze-dried.
 
I would assume it works just like my sourdough (yeast) starter. You have some flour and every week or two you split it make some bread with half and add more flour for the yeast to live on.

Just a guess for your wild yeast.

Take a cup or two of your wine and mix it 1 to 1 ratio with sugar water, or even better grape juice. Every week or two, split it. With one half use it as a starter for another batch of wine, mix the other half with more grape juice. repeat to infinity and beyond.

It would most likely be pretty hard to make a powder like comes in the foil packets but what do I know :>
 
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Now Now ... Wine yeast can be bought @ $1.00 and UNDER. Why be so cheap? To me its a waste of time. Now saving BEER yeast is another story.
 
Now Now ... Wine yeast can be bought @ $1.00 and UNDER. Why be so cheap? To me its a waste of time. Now saving BEER yeast is another story.

I KNOW, Tom...but for us puritans..we've got to tweek everything!
 
right on to tom and non-grapenut and thats the point, now some beer yeast runs upwards of 4.00. If it were same fore wine we would have to spend more time and lots of conversations on how to recycle and store these little critters. Not to say experimenting aint fun. Heck one day they might try to take our little critters away.
 
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right on to tom and non-grapenut and thats the point, now some beer yeast runs upwards of 4.00. If it were same fore wine we would have to spend more time and lots of conversations on how to recycle and store these little critters. Not to say experimenting aint fun. Heck one day they might try to take our little critters away.
$4.00? liquid Beer yeast is in the $7-8.00 range locally
 
Now Now ... Wine yeast can be bought @ $1.00 and UNDER. Why be so cheap? To me its a waste of time. Now saving BEER yeast is another story.

Well, it's not a matter of being cheap (although I am), I wanted to see if it would be viable / taste good. Since it is, I thought it'd be neat to save what I picked up.

What I did was to take the dregs after fermentation stopped and mixed it with a molasses/sugar/water mixture and it started back up quickly. I froze that stew and will try it again later. I'm sure freezing will kill some yeast but I expect most will survive. We'll see.

Makes me think of how things were done in the old days when people had to maintain their own yeast lines.
 
Yea Tom My local guy runs 6.00 on allmost all liquide yeast he is chaeper on everything I have seen anywhere else. Rebel Brewers.... But by time you pay for shipping you might as well drive buy and pick it up. I fell bad for people who dont have someone close by to buy brew suplies. Shipping fees are getting out of hand. If I bought grain and had it shipped it would cost more than the grain for LHBS to get it to me.
 
When I order something from my supplier, I’ll always tag on some yeast because of shipping costs. My local winery (very close) has yeast in their store, but only one kind.
 
Could you take 50mls of fermenting must at 1 week into fermentation to add as the starter yeast to the next must you are going to ferment, assuming you have a constant line of batches to ferment?

Would be "better" than activating fresh yeast every time in a starter bottle one would assume....
 
Well I am far away from an expert about this, but I do know if you take some of the slurry from a wine and throw it into your skeeter p must it takes right off. You can save the slurry for a couple of months before you use it, just put it in the reefer. Others have said they have had good luck freezing it. I seem to remember another post about this that said you will have good luck with the second wine off of a yeast and maybe the third, but then it can start picking up some unwanted flavors and such. I do not know this first hand but I do not think I have made this up, although this is possible. Take it for what it is worth. Arne.
 
One thing to keep in mind to is that mutations occur as the yeast continues to multiply. I know that when brewers make beer, they don't get an infinite number of batches (although they do re-use it), after a certain number of generations the yeast start to get a little funky and change. Good luck though! Hopefully it will be worth the effort. :)
 

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