Wild yeast raspberry wheat?

[nathanthn]

My plan is to make a 1 gallon test batch of a basic low gravity wheat wort and add some fresh raspberries from a local farm stand in an attempt to get the wild yeast from the berries to perform the fermentation. I have read through the threads describing how to harvest wild yeast from apple skins and such, I figured this should work by the same mechanism...

Has anyone tried something like this? Any thoughts on how many berries to use for a 1gal batch? Since I'll have no idea about the yeast cell count, should I step up a starter? Is the strain of yeast that is used to living on fruit going to be predisposed to consuming more basic sugars and therefore have trouble with the more complex sugars found in wort?

Any thoughts/suggestions would be helpful, thanks.

 

[Thundercougarfalconbird]

I haven't liked the flavors that fruit gives off with its own yeast. I cultured some lacto off barley and really liked it, but my raw fruit experimentation has been mediocre.

 

[nathanthn]

So this experiment is probably not worth the effort then?

 

[Thundercougarfalconbird]

It would ferment I'm sure, I just worry about the nasties on the fruit. If you have spare berries just laying around go for it, you may be luckier than me and it'll be great.
I did a peach experiment that ended in rotten peaches and nothing worth drinking, so I prefer a more precise and reliable microbe to ferment for me. Like I said I've had great luck with culturing lacto off of barley, and of course the vials of bacteria are reliable, but the various organisms worked against me more than for me.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

You may have to commit a long time before the flavor gets somewhere you like. You may be fortunate enough to pick up some good stuff right away but by the same token you may get some WTF results. It may never improve or may take a year or two.

I cultured off a peach (I didn't add it direct to the wort) and definitely got some kind of fermenting yeast strain and brett but something, either bacteria or the yeast, produced an incredible amount of diacetyl. Even the brett couldn't scrub all of it away. After about 18 months some of the cake I saved got a little tart and a nice cherry/funky smell. I didn't find that out until I was tossing it out and smelled the jar as the cake slid down the drain. Fortunately I had some frozen that I'm culturing now.