As I mentioned in my State of the Blog post, I’ve decided to embark on a project that involves wild yeast isolated from sour ales. In short, the idea is to isolate different strains of wild yeast scientifically, and use them for a batch of homebrew. The nexus of this idea came from reading Wild Brews and Yeast. Wild Brews is a fascinating book which takes the reader on the history of Belgian ales (including sour ales) and how to brew them on a commercial or homebrew scale. Yeast, by Jamil Zainasheff and Chris White, gives a detailed synopsis on everything related to yeast. I want to combine what I’ve learned from these two books and utilize the equipment and reagents in my lab to better understand wild yeast and bacteria. In a nod to the scientific method and grant writing, I will propose a hypothesis and some aims of this project:
Hypothesis: Wild yeast and bacteria from commercial examples will be isolated and grown in the laboratory for use in homebrewing.
Aim 1: Isolate and separate different wild yeast and bacteria from varying commercial examples. This includes different species of Brettanomyces, Pedioccocus,Lactobacillus, Enterobacteria, and Acetobacter. Different growth media (known and unknown) will be used or developed to isolate each strain.
Aim 2: After successfully isolating different strains, they will be grown individually or combined in different ratios to ferment wort. Force fermentation will be characterized for the best rate of fermentation and cell growth. Small scale fermentations will be analyzed and taste-tested for optimal flavor compounds that each strain produces. Also, commercial dregs (which includes all of the individual strains I will attempt to isolate) will be grown in the lab as starters for forced fermentations. This aim will probably be the most difficult since the techniques for growing different strains are not well characterized. In the end, starters from the dregs may prove the most successful.
Aim 3: Once different strains or commercial dregs are isolated and scaled up in the lab they will be used to ferment a 5 gallon batch of homebrew.
It’s a shame there is no real funding or financial interest out there (at least none that I could find) to do whole genome sequencing and subsequent computational analyses on wild yeasts and common commercial yeast isolates from different beers. It might prove interesting from both biological (what genomic changes are responsible for given flavor profiles) and historical standpoints (might illuminate interesting insights into the history and geographic spread of the brewing craft). I have the know how, and probably even the time, but no money or current access to a genome sequencing facility.
Carl,
I agree completely. It would be fascinating do to 454 sequencing on specific markers between different strains of Brett found in commercial examples. But it is true, very little (none) funding is available for this purpose. Whole genome sequencing might not even be necessary if studies were done to find specific markers that differentiate strains. That is just a simple PCR reaction away in my opinion. As for funding, one might approach commercial entities (i.e. White labs) and they might be already doing projects such as you mention. I currently have the know how and *maybe* money, but absolutely no time. My HIV research project takes up most of my time and I will talk about it in a future post.
As per one might expect from whole genome sequencing from a commercial bottle, I think there might be a large amount genetic variability. Most of that will come from the different Brett strains found in the bottle but also mutation garnered from the fermentation and aging process. I would be curious to see genetic variability of Brett B from lets say a bottle of Supplication compared to Brett B from a Belgian Flanders ale.
In general, the funding situation for science is very scary. NIH dodged a bullet this year, but the axe might come down next year or the year after that. This is unfortunate because I’m planning on applying for my own lab and my success is dependent on the availability of R01 grants.
All the best and thanks for the comment,
Jason
What different commercial beers are you thinking of?
I have a pretty decent collection of wild yeast going and would be happy to donate to the cause. I am very interested in the different Brett strains in commercial bottles. Plus it would be nice to know what type of Lactobacillus are in ccommercial beers.
I assume you have read Chad Y’s Brett Paper. It is a good start to looking into Brett strains and describes how to plate them pretty well.
http://www.brettanomycesproject.com/
I also have a copy of the paper if you are interested.
Looking forward to your research.
Hi Jeff!
Thanks for posting. I am very familiar with Chad’s work and I plan on citing him in my next post since I’m going to talk about materials and media for culturing wild yeast. The only problem is alot of the data that is published online is a bit limited and out of context to my goals. While his work was a dissertation, my experiments will basically be just to improve my knowledge of wild yeast/bugs and use them to ferment a batch of homebrew. Who knows where this will take me. If you have his full paper of course I would love to read it but I think I’m going to contact him first.
One the most important things I garnered from his work is that there are some many different strains present in bottle dregs, known and unknown. They also change over time as you culture them. This may be difficult for me to contend with, but we shall see.
I started a few experiments already and have some cultures plated out. I will post in the future, but so far I took dregs from a bottle of Supplication and Temptation from Russian River. I have a few more sours in my cellar, but donating in the name of research could be cool! I will let you know.
What I really need, and I’ll touch on this in the future is controls. I need pure strains of Brett B/C/L, etc… to compare what I’m culturing out.
J
Pingback: Wild Yeast Project: Commercial Dregs | Brew Science
Pingback: Wild Yeast Project: Plating yeast from a Lambic | Brew Science – Homebrewing Blog
Hey, it’s great to see “scientific” interest in brewing. I really enjoyed your post about wild yeasts. Are you a grad student, or do you get your own equipment? Have you seen episode 5 of Brew Master (a discovery channel show – a must see)? You might be able to find it on that popular video streaming site. That show details how it was possible to cultivate wild yeast from egypt as part of the ancient brew project. In that show, a simple petri dish with media placed in the open air aver night was sufficient to capture enough yeast for cultivating.
Anyway, I don’t want to be a downer, but I don’t think your hypothesis is a hypothesis at all. It’s more like a methodology.
A more appropriate hypothesis would be “It is possible to cultivate viable brewing (alcohol tolerant) yeast from the the local environment at [...insert your location here...]“.
You might need a microscope…
Hi Owen,
I’m a post-doctoral fellow in an HIV research lab at Columbia University.
Actually, I’ll have to disagree with you on the hypothesis. In this case a scientific hypothesis, which I am trying to make, is more about simplicity and the ability to be tested. My hypothesis implies that there IS or IS NOT wild yeast or bacteria in commercial bottles that I can isolate. You’re suggestion of location with local environment is not really necessary for my purposes (its a bottle). Also, I wanted to make the post more enjoyable and easier to read for followers of the blog as opposed to technical jargon.
As for the show you mentioned I’ll have to check it out. If you check out my later posts I’ve used petri dishes and selective media to isolate strains.
Ok, sorry, I misunderstood the goal of your project. I thought you were interested in culturing wild yeast (i.e. not from a bottle) as well as bottle yeast. These Belgian brews are something, aren’t they? It sounds like a big project since not only will the strains affect the flavour, but the ratios will as well.
That show I mentioned follows the founder (Sam Calagione) of DogFish Head Brewery as he ventures to Egypt to recreate the first ancient beer recipe. Its pretty interesting, although Sam’s enthusiasm can get ripe sometimes, It’s great to see someone so enthusiastic about beer. His head brewer is from Belgium, I think. They sent the wild yeast they collected from Egypt to a lab in Belgium (they don’t say which) for testing (they don’t say what tests).
I’m actually interested in what a New York lambic would taste like. As opposed to say, a Caifornia lambic, a BC lambic, or a Niagara lambic. I would think that the local yeast populations from each region would affect the taste of the beer in unique ways. If you think of the french and their wines, they are adamant that the soil plays a greater role in determining the taste of the wine than the grape. Thus, the term “terroir” refers to the unique qualities that the land gives the wine. Imagine if we developed a “terroir” map for lambic brews. Maybe there already is one that I don’t know about. I suppose if I spent a lifetime on it I could create one, eh?
You know you hit on something interesting with the ratios. In particular, different kinetic growth rates between different strains. For my purposes this isn’t so much of a problem since I’m isolating single celled organisms. At first I plan testing individual strains but combinations of strains is very interesting. The ability of bacteria for example to out compete wild yeast is high. Could also be vice versa depending on innoculation rates. Also, metabolic byproducts produced by one organism can affect metabolic profile of another. These are questions that can only be answered with serious research. Unfortunately, this is a side project/hobby of mine and I don’t have the time to do hardcore biochemistry.
As for terroir – I completely agree with you. My parents happen to live in Long Island wine country on the north fork where there is about 20 vineyards. At some point I want to isolate wild yeast from grapes grown near me.
However I must point out that if I do that the resultant beer will not be a lambic since it will be inoculated with lab grown strains. If I could move my homebrewing equipment to my folks and then do spontaneous fermentation then that could be interesting.
All good comments and thanks for posting Owen!
J
Pingback: Wild Yeast Project: Success! | Brew Science – Homebrewing Blog
I am currently reading a book about Dogfish Head where it is mentioned how they sampled a native yeast from Egypt for their Ta Henket brew. It got me thinking what flavors are floating around in my part of the world, Phoenix, AZ. Where would a wild yeast be found in greater concentrations than ambient air? Do they feed off of sugars in fruits or flowers?
Great question, and yes yeast can be found basically everywhere. I’m not sure about the dry environment in Arizona, but I bet you can find yeast on any plant that produces some sort of sugar, be that nectar or fruit. Could be fun to experiment with. Take whatever you find and out into some sterile water to bring the yeast (and bacteria) off the plant. The add it to wort in a serial dilution in a way that allows you to isolate single cells.
Cheers,
J
I will give it a try in the spring.
As far as grant funding for your projects, have you considered trying a unconventional source like Dogfish Head or New Belgium? Those bigger breweries might support some research on the subject.
Unfortunately (depending on how you look at it), I work in a Retrovirus lab doing HIV work. The projects I show on this blog are strictly “hobby”-like in function and definitely are not supported by funding. As it is this is all I can do with the project or I’ll be using other funding money meant for HIV work. Having said that though, you have a good idea. Though I don’t think my PI would enjoy me working on beer project…
Maybe if I had an independent lab…
J
My brother and I got a grant for a study related to our hobby. We explore caves and we got a grant from the National Speleological Society for an air quality study within select caves. It was only a thousand or two dollars, but it helped buy draeger tubes and a digital air quality meter. The only stipulation was we furnish them with our finals results in a report. Results were in our study area CO2 levels were typical higher in the winter months, up to lethal levels. Maybe a brewery would do it in exchange for an isolated strain.
Yeah but the issue becomes using Columbia University space for that money. It won’t work out since the space I am using also has multi-million dollar grants that support the work. There will be a conflict of interest.
Nice pics in the caves BTW!!