yeasterday

It was all about the wild yeast collection yesterday. Little dude and I went foraging for elderberries to start another mead like the one from last year. We couldn't get many, so I'm starting small with a little over a gallon. Then, fearing that my sourdough starter is trying to die, I mixed up a fresh biga. I picked some grapes from my backyard, mashed them up, added a bit of water and bread flour and whisked it like mad. I feel like an urban yeast farmer.

hey, it's fuyu!

Tell me, what would you do if given a thousand pounds of ripe fuyus?
Inspired by last year's experiments with goo I took action.....

Take one box of the crazy-soft goo balls (between 24-36 fruit) and rip off and compost the stems and upper leaves. Toss the rest into an 8q pot and mash with a potato thingie. Chuck this into a big gauge colander and stir around with a spoon-like object. When most the pulp is through, remove most the skins and compost 'em. Pour the remaining mess into a clean 5 gallon bucket. Repeat this process 6 more times, adding a quart of orange blossom honey at the end. Stir thoroughly and you have something like this. I covered it with a nylon grain bag to keep the flies and monkeys out and took to stirring it every few hours.

By day two and a half, the froth had set in. It was getting on near that time to put this beast into a large vessel before it decides to go eat some sugar elsewhere. I got out a huge piece of glass for just such occasions, scrubbed it a bit and left it overnight to soak some more. The next morning I check on the yeastie beasties and they have shoved the nylon bag into a slight dome, stretching it some, causing it to hold tight to the bucket rim, thus keeping the foam from climbing out. I removed the bag at first sight and it released the cork a bit. A few quarts or so of foam blurbed on over the edge.

Safely behind glass, I could now judge the true character of these wild organisms. They were chewing up the persimmons pretty good, but the pulp still had the consistency of a runny flan. I added a gallon of tap water and swirled it around as well as one can when you find yourself agitating a 45 pound glass container with 5 gallons of orange snot in it. I gave it my best, then left it alone. Checking a few hours later, some separation had occurred and I finally felt like this experiment was leaning toward success.

Now, more than a week into it, I wonder if I should have made more. Maybe a lot more. Then I think, that's crazy! I couldn't post something about that, people would think I'm nuts!

Then my brew buddy gives me an update of the madness we have going in his backyard. He sends a link. So now, if you have any interest in what one might do with a mad amount of ripe persimmons........

Because, really, using seven boxes only puts a tiny dent in 170!

pressing cider

When these beauties hit the kitchen counter, the cider making season began. My neighbor Professor Evil gave me a grocery sack filled with apples. He called them "drops" from his boss who lives here in the east bay. Before I even saw what variety they were, my nose told me I was in familiar territory. I opened the bag and got hit with the smell of my childhood summers in Sebastopol: Gravensteins.

I immediately ate one. I whacked up a few and dehydrated them for snacks later. Then I gave the rest a pass through the juicer. With a yield near a quart and a half, I poured it into an empty glass milk jug. I added about 3/4 cup of blackberry blossom honey. Shaking vigorously to dissolve the bee love, I put it on the counter and began waiting for the magic to happen. The next day bubbles arrived.

With one little experiment up and running I began thinking about doing a bigger batch. It wasn't looking like Reedley was going to happen this year, so no free Granny Smiths to juice up. That's okay I thought, my friend P told me that "your apples" were looking good and ready any time I wanted to come over and pick.

At the next market my favorite peach farmer Carl asked me "hey, you have any use for hundreds of pounds of apples this year? Like for cider?"
Uhh, sure, like how many?
"Oh, at least 20 boxes, so about 400 pounds or so, but easily more if you think you could use them."
You talking like giving me the apples and I give you cider back?
"We could work it out that way......"
I was already considering renting a press. So, 34 boxes later, it looked like the best idea I'll have all year.

The press came apart somewhat and managed to fit into the back of my wagon. Over at B's (my pressing pal) house reassembled, it looked like something straight out of the middle ages but with an electrical cord at one end. Plug it in, start tossing the apples into the hopper on the upper right, and then keep them coming until the press basket below it is full of pulp. (Make sure to place the basket under it when actually performing this task.) Fold the mesh bag lining the basket over itself on top and insert the pressing plate (not easy to see but being used under the auger press on the left). Crank away and watch nearly a gallon per basket flow down and into your carefully positioned, non-breakable vessel.

The juice from this ancient technology was clear and pretty much pulp free. Five gallons into it and I was impressed. At 10 gallons I was considering a way to build one. Nearing 15 gallons and I wanted to go buy one. By 20 gallons I thought it the best invention since liquid soap. 25 gallons and I was convinced a genius designed it. 30 gallons and I was glad we ran out of glass carboys to fill before we ran out of apples.

Now, what did we do with 30 some odd gallons of cider? We decided to split up the fermenting task and each claimed responsibility for roughly half. Then we used different yeasts in different containers and let the microrganisms get to work. Three short weeks later and I have now completed the first racking of my portion. Rumor has it B is working on his. I bottled a sample of each of the three kinds I have going.

Now, I'd write more, but after sampling a touch while performing the aforementioned tasks, I'm feeling rather spent. Also, I'll have to wait a week or two and try the bottled samples before deciding on how to proceed. Still or sparkling? Blended or not? Only time can tell. I'll give a bottling update when it happens.

Go press some juice, would you?

wild beer at the track

Like, duh, I almost forgot. I still gotta talk about the wild beer(s) that I started with the fruity dregs of the wild winter mead. First mentioning it there, then procrastinating more, without thinking or trying to tease, I mentioned it again as being the "other gallon" during the sourdough blonde post. Sheesh, with only a few bottles left, I better talk fast, so, here goes:

So, picture us transported back in time to the fruity dregs of the mead. I poured a gallon of cooled wort into my carboy containing still actively fermenting fruit and whatever remained of the mead. I added an airlock, gave it some shaking to aerate the whole thing and sat back. By the next day it was a foamy beast, happily breeding millions and millions more of my friends. On day two I siphoned out the liquid component into another fermenting vessel and put the top back on. When I saw no more activity, I bottled it. Then, as you can see here, I gave it a try along with some of my first sauerkraut. The beer was super fruity, but also crisp and dry, with only a hint of sour. I immediately wished I'd brewed far more. Next time. The kraut? Crunchy still, with great flavor, but a tad salty. Needs some washing with fresh water. Enough though, let us get back to the beer, or more importantly, the yeast that makes it happen.

My sourdough starter is at least three years old. Surely, this is domesticated, but, at what point did it become so? For that matter at what point does anything become domesticated? I would still call this post-mead, fruity tasting beer wild, but what about after I culture the yeast from it and add it to another batch? Because I did just that. Then I brewed a much bigger beer in every sense. More hops, more malt, darker color, bigger batch, just to push the limits and see what this yeast could do. I figured that if it could ferment a 10% alcohol mead, then it could do a "big beer" (9%). I'm this yeast's biggest fan and cheerleader, we just scored big AND we were playing at home, again, so, what the hell, huh?

The "big" beer started fermenting like a champ. There was vigorous convection in the carboy and things were proceeding along better than expected. When it gave the first signs of slowing down I took a gravity reading to figure out how close to done we were. It smelled dee-lish, but, the reading only came up half-way there. Crap. I covered up the carboy and left the room to go scratch my head somewhere else. It hurt with the beginnings of thinking that I might have introduce another yeast if I couldn't revive this one. The wild yeast cheerleader in me felt ashamed. I consulted my brew buddy and he recommended I go get a cold one from the fridge before I think about it anymore. Solid brewing advice from someone I can always count on.

After a few days of wondering what the hell happened, I broke down and went to the home brew shop. I got enough ingredients for a gallon and a half batch, and with sunken shoulders bought a "professional" yeast to do the job. I figured I could get this beer going and then add my half done beer to it. The beers were similar enough that the overall blend would be alright. But wouldn't you know, the half-done beer had a mind of it's own. As I was boiling up my new batch, I noticed a few bubbles that weren't in it a few hours ago. Huh? New activity? I finished brewing batch 2, pitched my yeast, and checked on the naughty little yeast in batch 1 again. Yep, a little jet lagged perhaps, but certainly back on the job after a week of time off.

Weird things happen, and sometimes you just have to accept that despite their seeming oddity to your own familiarity, really are firmly planted within the realm of normal. Like here at racetrack. If rocks blowing across a muddy lake bed are within the bounds of normal, then why can't a yeast wake up when it senses competition? (And talk about weird, click on the picture and notice how the track in the foreground aims toward the rock in the distance and seems to have made a correction to avoid a collision!)

Anyway, to finish the story, the yeast pulled it's shit together and finished the job, all on it's own accord and sense of time. Then I stepped in and dry hopped the hell out of the two gallons or so, managing to bottle it in time to enjoy hauling out to one of my favoristist places, here at the track. In perfect conditions, with the last light casting long shadows across the playa, bringing out the finest of textures (despite the poor photography and severe lack of mega-pixels), we chose a table to enjoy the brew.

Wow! Big and red, a touch sweet and yet totally hoptastic, this beer is crazy! After a long day of hiking in single digit humidity conditions, it was more than enough to warm the tummy and get the brain contemplating the bigger questions in life:
What am I here for?
How do the rocks really blow across the mud?
How does a single cell organism, sense competition and alter its behavior?

Who knows. But I'll think of this view whenever I think of this brew.

wild winter mead

I have a love/hate relationship with persimmons. You see, I want to love them, but they are so easy to hate. They are a fruit that I have purchased maybe twice in my life, but somehow I end up with a box or two of them every year. Not wanting to see them wasted, I've tried some different means of preparation these past couple of years. I started with a korma. Satisfying yes. Duplicated, no. Then came the sorbet. Tasty indeed, but once again, have I made it another time? No. Let's see, how about that winter soup? Nope. Okay, maybe I'll make the souffle again, but I'm not guaranteeing anything. Anyway, my point is, I've tried and tried to use persimmons in new and fun ways, but ultimately have only succeeded in getting them off the counter. I ate them, but haven't really looked forward to doing it again. This winter, that changed.

I'm not going to go into too much detail here, because like all ferments, it involves a bit of hocus pocus, and sometimes a little witchcraft, and describing it in words won't suffice. Lets say, it starts right here though, with gooey, slimey, do I have to really touch that? textured fruit. Notice the whitish stuff on the skin. That's yeast right there. Smelling and possibly tasting each piece of fruit you are using, goop up about eight of these bad boys and stir it into about half a gallon of honey. Add about one gallon of tap water, mix well and cover with cheesecloth. Don't cook anything. Well, maybe the water, but thats it. Stir somewhat frequently (whenever you remember, which for me was about every hour of so) until the cauldron you have it in begins to froth.

In this case, by day three we were rocking. I liked the idea of this being a winter fruit mead, so expanded on the theme and added the juice of a few tangerines and the arils of a few pomegranates, along with some more water into a three gallon carboy. To this I added the stockpot's contents of bubbling brew and put on an airlock valve. A few weeks of magic later, the arils were looking all bleached out, the fruit pulp was nice and separated into distinct horizons on the top and bottom and the liquid looked fairly clear. I siphoned this off into another carboy and put the airlock back on.

After another month more of spontaneous alcohol formation, it was ready to bottle. Clear, big on the fruit, yet nearly totally dry, with a slight tinge of pinky orange and well over 10 percent alcohol, this is some potent stuff, though I'm surprised how smooth it is already. It never fermented at anywhere over 70 degrees during the course of magic involved and this likely helped. Well that, and apparently, persimmons have good yeast on them. Now, finally, I have something to do with these freaky fruit that I'll look forward to duplicating next year.

Really, like, I can't wait! Because the story goes deeper, and involves two beers now, both fermented with the wild yeast that started it all. But, unfortunately, I'll have to get to blabbing about that one later. I've got some wild winter mead to sample.