6 replies to this topic

[BarelyBrews]

What was the OG of your wort? I would lean toward saving it for a starter, although an experiment could be in order.Good luck.

[jayb151]

Sounds pretty cool, but I'd like to point out that if you left it in your fridge and it hasn't started going south yet, it still doesn't prove your sanitization practices. If you left it out for a week at room temp, I would agree.I have heard of a guy filling up a bucket with wort and throwing it in the back of his pick up and driving around with it open. it turned into a pretty cool experiment, though I can't remember the results. Though I believe they were favorable. Maybe you can throw the wort into a wide, shallow pan and just see what happens in your house?

[ncbeerbrewer]

Yeah, after I posted that I thought it was pretty stupid, no wonder nothing started fermenting, wild lager yeast!! .....so I took the quart jar out of the fridge this morning and its been sitting on my kitchen counter. I'm thinking about leaving it outside overnight with a cheese cloth cover on it,like they did in the blog. The OG was 1.060 by way and its a smoked beer with home smoked 2-row. Kinda too big for a starter anyway.

I understand your interest to try for a wild yeast fermentation and thats cool no problem. You can still turn your 1.060 wort into a starter though. Dilute it down to under 1.040 and boil it for 10-15 minutes and you will be good to go. Depending on the volume you might need to add some dry extract if your OG is too low for the starter but its better than having to use extract for the entire starter. Just an idea but good luck and cheers if you go the wild fermentation route.

[ncbeerbrewer]

Just an update on my experiment: I left the quart jar on my kitchen counter top.I took it out of the fridge BUT I did not take out the airlock and bung....That was on Sunday. I looked at it tonight and it had some mold growing on the underside of the bung, but it did not start fermenting at all. In fact when I popped the airlock off it still smelled like unfermeted wort, exactly the way it smelled out of the kettle. Now, the only thing that puzzles me is why is there a mold growing inside this little quart sized bottle and why would that not hold true for a 6 gallon carboy while fermenting and sitting at the same temp? The only thing I can think of is the exhausting Co2 makes an awfull place to live if you are a mold spore. Any ideas?? If you are a mold spore, feel free to chime in also.

Two key components to mold growth is a moist environment and warmth. Your jar sitting on your countertop would have allowed both of these conditions. Its been 4 days at that environment and it encourages mold growth hence you saw what you did. You are right on the CO2 venting but mold does not take over in fermenting wort even at the same temp since the yeast can multiply and start fermenting taking hold of the environment first. Mold can grow anywhere, give it the right temp and time and it will take hold. I have had old mason jars of yeast sitting in my small yeast slurry fridge have mold grow on top of the liquid medium and on the cap as well and that was all while being kept cold. Think of this too your food stored in your fridge since its kept cold will have mold inhibited but given enough time those veggies and such will start to have mold growing on them. Hope that helps you out some.