Wild Yeast Culture Experiments - Separating the Bugs

Over the past few months (or in one case, years), I have gathered commercial cultures of several yeasts and bacteria. The goal for this batch of microbes is to grow and maintain the individual cultures separately. I will use a fair amount of each culture in this year's lambic-esque brew, but I will also keep the individual cultures going for other experiments (berliner weisse and a brett-spiked saison, among others).

I love to collect sour beer dregs from commercial breweries, so I added a bit of the starter wort to a few freshly-consumed bottles. If these bottle cultures are successful, they will start off a fresh mixed culture.

Somewhat of a primer of what's to come, the cultures in this post are part of a set of experiments I started over a year ago. I am currently experimenting with several methods of maintaining mixed wild cultures, and hope to post results in the coming months!

Starter "Brewday": 01/08/13

Per Yeast text: 1g DME for every 10 mL H20

Made 8.5L starter with 850g of Briess Light Dry Malt Extract. Added 1/4 tsp Wyeast yeast nutrient.

Cooled to 80F. Poured into sanitized growlers and left on front porch until 65F.

Pitched following yeast (containers described, just in case labels fall off):


3.5L (1-gallon, clear growler) - 1056 starter
Note: this yeast is just for my next brewday

2L (Sun King growler) - Lacto starter

1L (traveling growler) - Brett Clausenii starter

1L (Flat12 growler) - Pedio starter

Note: As you can see from the picture, I got this Pedio starter for a bargain! I bought it last year, already out of date. The manufacture date on the package is March 2011 (Wyeast recommends using within 6 months), so I am not sure if this culture will yield any viable bugs.

1L (3WM growler) - Sherry Flor starter

~ 0.5L (from over-filled growler) - Split between two 750mL bottles