Soaked some decomposing oak leaves for 36 hours in preboiled water with some yeast flakes. Stirred, put 1-2 ml into test tubes with 5 ml of malt beer (“Karamalz”, I just picked a random brand), filled up with equal amounts of 5 % vinegar and whisky (didn’t have any vodka at hand). Put a thin layer of neutral vegetable oil on top.

Should keep out the vast majority of bad microbes and provide a mostly oxygen free environment for yeast.

IIRC, I’ve also read on suigeneris brewing that oak leaf litter has a 50 - 80 % chance of catching bretanomyce, which I’d be thrilled to find.

  • Aarkon@discuss.tchncs.deOPEnglish
    3·
    1 month ago

    Thanks for the hint! I don’t see myself having time for an entire book anytime soon, but I’ll certainly put it on my list.

    The oak litter idea stems from more recent studies where IIRC they found that brettanomyce is rarely found on the skins of fruit, only in vineyards where they dump their pomace (?) below the actual tendrils, but in forest floors and most particularly in oak litter.
    If you’re interested, I posted a link to a video by suigeneris brewing where Bryan explains just the above somewhere here in the thread.

    • dumples@piefed.socialEnglish
      2·
      1 month ago

      I’m sure it’s going to work great. Wild yeasts are everywhere.

      I recommend that book because it’s all about brewing with things you forage using simple brewing methods. So you won’t find a recipe for a traditional “beer” but lots of things like lemon and mugwort “beer”. I got it this winter and can’t wait to try it out

        • dumples@piefed.socialEnglish
          2·
          1 month ago

          For sure. It’s not a traditional brewing at all using brown sugar with herbs instead of malt. I’m happy to share some results