Finding Yeast in the Wild

You can find yeast in the wild!? Who knew? Yes, you can and its everywhere. For example, you walk into the kitchen and look at your organic fruit, this may be a surprise, but this is one place you can find wild yeast. However, to make sure you capture the correct stuff as well as the correct amount; here is a brief guide through the different kinds of flora in which yeast can be found, for a guide on what to do when you find it check out our guide to Using the Probe Kit Blog.

Finding Yeast

Wild Yeast can be found in a variety of different areas, but how do we get this from fruit to fermentation? The key element that differentiates wild yeast from many different forms of yeast is the fermentation process. To capture wild yeast, we must trap some yeast in a vessel and ferment it. The Brettanomyces genus is commonly found in many different things, it can be captured from animals and plants, as well as different household areas. It is one of the most common forms of wild yeast used in industrial production.

Where to Look

To capture wild yeast, we first need to know what the best spots to look are. Most, if not all fruits have the potential to harness wild yeast spores, but some particularly good fruits to check for are ones with a white bloom, such as grapes and plums. Wild yeast can also be found in tree barks and saps, particularly in late spring and early summer. It’s pretty simple and easy to find wild yeast just by going on a bush walk, keep your eye out for rotting or overripe berries, unripe pinecones or decomposing leaves, and you’re in with a good chance of finding something that could yield as a starter.

We can see that there are a multitude of different ways that we can locate wild yeast, and that the potential of a starter can be found in most settings – we just need to know where to look. Finding your own wild yeast is a crucial step of the Wild Yeast Zoo project, so get out with your probe kits and do some yeast hunting!