hist-brewing: ancient ale

[John P. Looney]

On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 9:53 AM, Merryn Dineley <merryn at dineley.com> wrote:
>
> On a recent demonstration, where we mashed using hot rocks in a wooden
> tub, again, the mash had begun to ferment by the morning.
> Merryn


 I'm still nervous about the random wild strains of yeast that could end up
in the mix. I assume that if you had "random wild yeast" in a 22C wort,
that Saccharomyces cerevisiae will do best over a few days. So, the first
brew might not be great due to pollution
with Brettanomyces, Zygosaccharomyces or Candida. But as time goes on, the
yeasts in the tub - or the hazel stick - would be mostly friendly ones.

 I'm going to see can I find a friend or two who work in biotech labs, and
see could they identify yeast strains based off small samples of wort left
in different forests. It'd be interesting.

John

-- 
triad 238: Trí luchra ata mesa: luchra tuinde, luchra mná bóithe, luchra
confoléimnige.
Three worst smiles: the smile of a wave, the smile of a lewd woman, thegrin
of a dog ready to leap.