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Ok, this is an off the wall post, but...How is yeast gathered? Its a unicellular organism so you can grow it right? So how did ancient people go outside and gather something that they possibly didn't know about? Or maybe couldn't see! What do I do? Set a yeast trap?!

I have looked and looked but all I can find is that it will grow in a jar or something if you just let it sit at a relatively warm temperature.


Pat

You know what? I'm exactly in the same boat - I've been fascinated by this for some months now, and have not been able to find any proper practical information on the subject!!!

How the heck did they do it?!?

Considering yeast gatherring/growing has been going on before people started writing books (at least judging by the Old Testament where bread and wine are mentioned so often), you'de think there would be more information around on the "do-it-yourself" side of thigs... Maybe it's illegal nowadays? Who knows, apparently there are some dangerous types of yeast as well.

Strange and frustrating!

Yeah, me too!

I did find this: http://www.classofoods.com/page1_3.html

Yeasts can be found in nature mainly in habitats where substrates rich in sugars are present i.e. flower nectar, on all kind of fruits etc.

Unfortunately it doesn't go on to tell you how to identify and separate the yeast out from your nectar or fruit.

There has to be some practical "how to keep/grow yeast at home old skool style" knowledge out there somewhere - maybe I just haven't spent enough time googling for it.

The only old-time skill I've found out about and experimented with so far is sour dough, where you keep back a bit of your original dough and add it to your next dough mix. Results so far have been OK but not brilliant. Also, it isn't much good if you haven't got any yeast in the first place; not much use for brewing either

Unbuntu wrote:Ok, this is an off the wall post, but...How is yeast gathered? Its a unicellular organism so you can grow it right? So how did ancient people go outside and gather something that they possibly didn't know about? Or maybe couldn't see! What do I do? Set a yeast trap?!

I have looked and looked but all I can find is that it will grow in a jar or something if you just let it sit at a relatively warm temperature.


Pat

Yeasts occur in the wild as well as in bakeries and breweries! you will find yeasts growing on grape skins. Press the grapes for juice and you are likely to end up with some yeast in the juice. Keep the juice for a while and fermentation will start spontaneously. Commercial grape juice is heat treated to stop this happenning.

It is actually very difficult not to get yeast. It is on everything growing. It is part of the natural degrading system. Yeast is a fungus.

However if you want to grow it and be sure you only have yeast it is difficult.

In industry they take a few milligram of pure yeast that they ?bring to life? by putting it into nutrients. It multiplies and after a week it is 150 ton worth of yeast. It requires a clean environment, correct temperature, correct pH, clean water and air , sugar beet molasses, ammoniac, phosphoric acid, magnesium sulphate and the vitamin biotin. All in correct doses.

This process is impossible to do at home however if you want to make a alcoholic beverage the fruit or corn will have natural yeast on it and if you want to make bread the flour contains yeast naturally too.

By saving a bit of the bread dough from the last bread making session and adding it to the new dough the new dough will be full of yeast. The trick is to remember to save a bit for the next time.

If you have no saved bit of dough you can start off by making a ?acid dough?


Day 1

I dl boiled water cooled down to approx. 40 C
1 dl rye flour
Mix in a large glass or metal bowl (not plastic) and cover with cling film or lid.
Leave in warm room temperature or even in an airing cupboard if you are in England.

1 dl is 100 ml or a tenth of a litre.

Day 4
1 litre of boiled water cooled down to approx. 40 C
1 litre of rye flour
Add the flour to the 4-day-old mix and add the water.
Cover again and leave for 1 day.

Day 5
If the dough is bubbling and smelling acidly, it is ready. Portion the dough in approx. 1.5dl portions and store in the freezer.

This dough is ready to be used in bread making as yeast. This acid dough is nowadays used for its lovely flavour and longer lasting qualities it gives to the bread. Recipes today also combine the acid dough with a small amount of yeast.

1.5 dl acid dough is roughly equal to 50g fresh yeast or 12g dried. The amount of yeast in each dough is dependent on so many factors so one can never be certain.

Ripe elderberries are great for yeast, they will ferment immediately after picking, and of course, apples are famous for getting pigs drunk in orchards in Autumn.

As an extra to the above:

I used to do this, buy yeast, cut it into small cubes, say 1 oz each and freeze them. Then get a demi-john, several potatoes and some water. Cook the potatoes, mash them up and put them into the demi-john with the water and one or two cubes of yeast. Put some cotton wool in the top to stop flies and leave it. After a couple of days you have enough yeast in there to cover about a weeks worth of bread, simply tip out what you need, sieve out the spuds to put back in the demi-john and maybe top up with water after the third go. I could make yeast last ages like this. Now I just use it straight from frozen.

In John Yeomans' book Self-Reliance he has the following:

Mix fresh ground wheat flour with warm water, leave covered in a warm place overnight. Next day add any further ingredients and cook as normal, do not knead. Result is more like cake than bread but is good toasted.

aliwood wrote:In John Yeomans' book Self-Reliance he has the following:

I've see reference to John Yeoman's book. Is it any good?


Peter.

Alice,

Thanks
Very interesting.
By the way what is a "demi-john"?

Blue Peter wrote:

aliwood wrote:In John Yeomans' book Self-Reliance he has the following:

I've see reference to John Yeoman's book. Is it any good?


Peter.

It's excellent. It's full of really helpful ideas for thinking of alternative ways to do/get things, including:

Getting out of debt
Toolkit pioneering
Cutting energy costs
Cutting food bills
Making soap and shampoo
Eating more nutriously
Maximising food nutrition
Food co-ops
Hydroponics on the cheap
Wild food
Eating grass
Catching food
Medicine
Stores and provisions for emergencies

It's written in 1999, so there are references to Y2K, it's worth buying for the bibliography which lists some of THE books to get your hands on. It's one of the most essential books I have.[/quote]

sol, vind & vatten wrote: By the way what is a "demi-john"?

Maybe you can spell it demijohn too. It's what home brewers make wine in. You would normally put an airlock in the top to keep the air out. They hold about one gallon, roughly 4 litres.

Alice

Thanks.
Now I know.

skeptik wrote:Yeasts occur in the wild as well as in bakeries and breweries! you will find yeasts growing on grape skins. Press the grapes for juice and you are likely to end up with some yeast in the juice. Keep the juice for a while and fermentation will start spontaneously. Commercial grape juice is heat treated to stop this happenning.

I can attest to this. picked a load of grapes at my Mum-in-Law's. Heated and strained for juice. Took some aside for wine with added yeast, took some aside for grape jelly, took some aside for cordia, boiled that up with sugar and bottled it. What was left was startign to ferment, so I'm letting it.

Then last week I noticed that the *cordial* is also fermenting. I heat-treated it, darn it! So now I have two entirely natural fermentations going on. Come the apocalyps, I'll just add grapes toanythign I want to make wine of and let them do the rest.

Sourdough; yes, meaning to try that.

Maybe one could buy some fresh yeast from the baker and sustain it as a colony?