Collecting wild yeast from rose hips?

My neighbor has a rose bush that leans over my driveway and snags me when I'm getting in and out of my car sometimes. Today, I noticed that there are some rose hips still on it from last year, and while they were a little dried out, they were actually remarkably well-preserved for having weathered the winter.

So, as I've been on the lookout for sources of wild yeast lately, I decided this was a promising possibility. I got a ziploc bag and carefully picked a half-dozen of them, without touching them to anything other than the inside of the bag. Then, I boiled some DME and yeast nutrient, creating a low-gravity starter wort (about 1.020-.025). I split it into two halves (about 600ml each), and dropped three rose hips into each. If I see any yeast activity in the next week or so, I'll streak an agar plate and see if I can isolate any promising yeast colonies.

Has anyone ever heard of collecting yeast from rose hips?

P.S. I only picked them from the part of the bush that leans over my driveway, for those of you who may wish to reprimand me for stealing from the neighbor's bush. With all the thorn pricks that bush has given me, I say it's only fair.

Rose bush deserved it. After you brew with that yeast, be sure to give your neighbor one and tell him where the yeast came from. I personally havent heard of someone culturing yeast from a rose hip, but on brewmasters, Sam Calagione harvested wild yeast from africa or egypt (somewhere over there) and had good results

I have been doing alot of reading on wild yeast also and trying to find a good source of wild yeast. From what I have read, low bush cranberries are I good source of wild yeast. They used to get the sour dough starts from them. I was planning on washing the low bush cranberries in a DME starter.

I think pretty much all fruit skins have some yeast on them that will convert sugar to alcohol, the real issue is isolating that yeast without also getting all sorts of other bacteria/mold/yeasts. I'll be trying to collect yeast from various fruit all spring, summer, and fall this year, with the hopes that I'll have at least a few promising strains in time for some interesting brewing experiments over the winter months.

As far as the rose hips go, I'll be streaking some of each of my samples on agar this evening. Both were showing signs of something going on when I left home this morning, either yeast or bacteria, and I'll see if I can spot the yeast once it's been plated. I'll probably let the wort ferment out with each one also, and wash the slurry and try to streak that again, in case these initial plates are duds.

I did streak two plates (one from each half), so here's to hoping something comes of that. Check out the gunk forming around the rose hips (click for full resolution):



Smells wonderfully fruity and pleasantly sour, but not really very yeasty yet. You can see in the above picture that the other half (just to the left) has a slightly more krausen-y looking thing going on.

Nice Tek. You ever do mycology? Fruiting Fungus'?

I got yeast from Rose's hips once.

Wouldn't dare try to make beer with that tho'.

djsethall said:

Nice Tek. You ever do mycology? Fruiting Fungus'?

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I have to admit I'm not really sure what you're talking about, but if you're asking whether I've ever grown mushrooms, the answer is no.

GilaMinumBeer said:

I got yeast from Rose's hips once.

Wouldn't dare try to make beer with that tho'.

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I must be slow on the uptake this morning, took reading that twice to pick up on your meaning.

GilaMinumBeer said:

I got yeast from Rose's hips once.

Wouldn't dare try to make beer with that tho'.

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eww

Quick update on the rose hips project -- just re-plated the most promising looking colony on either of the two plates. Both plates were showing some mold growing, but one had a stronger yeast population and some colonies that seemed completely free of mold. The one I went with is the circular colony to the middle-right in this picture:



The other plate shows the pinkish-white mold a little better. As you can see, there isn't as strong a yeast presence on this plate, so I didn't select anything from this plate:



Next up, if that colony does well on the new plate (which I've sealed with electrical tape this time), it's into a small starter on the stir plate.

Awesome, I am going to try this with an apricot tree in my back yard and make an apricot Belgium sour or something I haven’t thought of yet.

I had not thought about using the petri dishes to see what is growing! Thanks, where did you buy that stuff at?

GodsStepBrother said:

I had not thought about using the petri dishes to see what is growing! Thanks, where did you buy that stuff at?

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I bought pre-made sabouraud dextrose agar plates (which inhibit bacterial growth and are good for yeast) from here:

http://www.labsupplyoutlaws.com/pro...Essentials/Sabouraud-Dextrose-Agar-Plates.htm

In retrospect, it's probably a lot cheaper to just make your own agar plates using hopped wort and dried agar, which I'll be doing when my current batch of 20 plates is used up. I'm on the market for a used pressure cooker or canner, if anyone in the DC area has an old one they're looking to upgrade from!

Only other thing you need are some inoculating loops (e.g., http://www.labsupplyoutlaws.com/products/Lab-Essentials/Inoculating-Loops/Inoculating-Loop.htm) and a flame source (I use my gas stove).

There are some good tutorials online for streaking agar, in case you've never done that before, so I won't try to explain that here.

The second plate was apparently a success, as there was no mold, and the yeast all looked to have the same color and growth pattern. Here's a shot shortly before I scooped out some yeast and put it into a 1.020 gravity 100ml starter (plus yeast nutrient):



About 6 hours after pitching it into the starter (on a stir plate), I saw definite yeast activity, so I added another 500ml of wort at 1.031. I'll let that finish this week, then cold crash and decant for pitching into a 1 gallon test batch next weekend.

what ended up happening with this? I would really like to know how this turned out for you?

Here was my final post about it: http://beer.winnphillips.com/show.cgi?entry=161

I still have a jar of the slurry from the krausen sample, but I doubt I'll use it for anything.

And this shows the posts in between the last one here and the last one on my own site: http://beer.winnphillips.com/show.cgi?log=115

Hi Everyone: I just got a stack of Sabouraud-Dextrose plates and a nice microscope. Is there a good site describing some of the routine procedures to capture and isolate yeasts?

I was able to capture, on an open vessel of sugar water, three different-looking things: a sort of gray mucous mass, some bubbly structures reminiscent of krausen (but not permeated with hops particles) and the liquid had turned a little turbid. Overall it smelled really good - sort of like a toasted bagel. I guess I should get a swab of some sort (bent glass rod?? - thinking easy to sanitize, here...) and sample those three things onto 3 different parts of an agar plate? Then into the fridge or leave at room temperature? They do have a "spoilage" date so I'm not sure how to handle the inoculated plates.

Thanks!

winnph said:

I bought pre-made sabouraud dextrose agar plates (which inhibit bacterial growth and are good for yeast) from here:

http://www.labsupplyoutlaws.com/pro...Essentials/Sabouraud-Dextrose-Agar-Plates.htm

In retrospect, it's probably a lot cheaper to just make your own agar plates using hopped wort and dried agar, which I'll be doing when my current batch of 20 plates is used up. I'm on the market for a used pressure cooker or canner, if anyone in the DC area has an old one they're looking to upgrade from!

Only other thing you need are some inoculating loops (e.g., http://www.labsupplyoutlaws.com/products/Lab-Essentials/Inoculating-Loops/Inoculating-Loop.htm) and a flame source (I use my gas stove).

There are some good tutorials online for streaking agar, in case you've never done that before, so I won't try to explain that here.

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Ahhh... a un-bent paper clip is easy to sanitize! Does anyone ever just expose their agar to the air? It took several days to develop anything in my dilute sugar water - I would think the agar would dry out. Fleming's discovery of penicillin was supposedly on an exposed agar plate...

I just got a shipment of Bromocresol green to add to my agar plates