Wild yeast from sugarcane

[Henque]

So i have been making rum with baker's yeast and wanted to try something new.
Have ordered yeast from abroad but am still waiting for it to arrive.
I am not patient though and i came up with a plan.
Visited the grocery store and bought a piece of sugarcane and two pounds of panela:


Made a wash of the panela and water, chopped the sugarcane in half and dumped it into the wash:


I put the bucket in my cupboard (its always 30 centigrade in there ) and let it simmer.
I was aware that this could be a hit or miss. Who knows how the sugarcane was stored/ handled. A lot of unwanted nasties could be living on it.

A day later i checked it out. Not much happening. I did notice a nice sugarcane smell.

Today (two days after start) i opened the fermenter and a strong whiff of alcohol and CO2 hit me in the face!
It does not smell spoiled or bad in any way, but it does have a deep sugarcane smell.

When the fermenting is done, i am gonna run it.
Possibly i want to keep this yeast. How should i do this?
Just leave some of the old wash in the fermenter and add new?

[Henque]

Next time i do an experiment i will use (pre written) protocols.
The ferment was done.
I was not really paying attention and i put both sugarcane yeast wash and normal yeast wash in the distiller .
Anyway i ran the resulting mix.
The result is a much more complicated rum.
The rum i make from bakers yeast is mellow, butterscotch, chocolate and honey like.
The rum i made with the sugarcane as yeast was (even though mixed with normal wash) very complex and aggressive smelling. Not aggressive in a bad way. Did not do a taste test yet.

I did use the dunder in my next batch. I also reserved some of the wash (that did no go into the distiller) to make my next batch along with normal bakers yeast.

I was very surprised how quickly the sugarcane yeast did the job though. I never expected this to even work. That is why i did not write a protocol for the latter part of this experiment. I thought i was just breeding some E.Coli or something else nasty.

Conclusion: it is not impossible to just chuck a piece of sugarcane into your wash and create alcohol.

[LWTCS]

Nice experiment

[S-Cackalacky]

You might also try splitting the sugarcane down the middle - length wise. Most of the goodies are in the core of the cane. Maybe even remove the core and give it a ride in the blender. I don't know about the outer fiberous part. It could be just making more methanol (fores) in the wash, but then it could also be adding to the complexity of flavor you were talking about.

Anyway, cool experiment.

[RevSpaminator]

This is definitely something to explore in more depth. I've heard that the strains of wild yeasts that accumulate on plants tend to be best suited for that plant's fermentation. This could be great for rum or other sugar based washes.

[Henque]

The insides do contain goodies, but mainly sugar. That was already accounted for in the form of panela.
The outside part is the 'dirty' part that collects bacteria and also the yeast that is was hoping for.
I also forgot to mention that a day after the fermenting started i took out the pieces of sugarcane.
I dont know how fast the methanol production would start from wood/ cellulose/ etc but i try to avoid methanol like the plague!

If i had a way to crush/ pulverize the sugarcane, i would have done it but it is a very tough plant.

The rum agricoles get inoculated from their own sugarcane. The cane gets crushed, the juices mingle with the outside parts of the cane and this way it gets the yeast it needs to ferment.

[Prairiepiss]

Sory I have to say this. Since my right eye twitches every time I see this thread title.

This thread would have been better titled. Wild yeast from sugarcane. Instead of sugarcane (as) yeast. That's a little misleading. And there are enough junk info out there telling people that not using yeast is better.

Just saying.

[MDH]

Weak strains dominate the ferment first. Only one in thousands of microbes is saccharomyces, but no matter what it well eventually take over once other microbes die off. Sometimes there is a lag time between these two events that will make the ferment seem like it is stuck, then boom, suddenly it will come to life.

[Henque]

Sory I have to say this. Since my right eye twitches every time I see this thread title.

This thread would have been better titled. Wild yeast from sugarcane. Instead of sugarcane (as) yeast. That's a little misleading. And there are enough junk info out there telling people that not using yeast is better.

Just saying.

I will see my future posts have better thread titles, Prairiepiss.... I cannot change it now(?)
Or maybe the moderator can?

[S-Cackalacky]

Sory I have to say this. Since my right eye twitches every time I see this thread title.

This thread would have been better titled. Wild yeast from sugarcane. Instead of sugarcane (as) yeast. That's a little misleading. And there are enough junk info out there telling people that not using yeast is better.

Just saying.

I will see my future posts have better thread titles, Prairiepiss.... I cannot change it now(?)
Or maybe the moderator can?

Done.

[S-Cackalacky]

The insides do contain goodies, but mainly sugar. That was already accounted for in the form of panela.
The outside part is the 'dirty' part that collects bacteria and also the yeast that is was hoping for.
I also forgot to mention that a day after the fermenting started i took out the pieces of sugarcane.
I dont know how fast the methanol production would start from wood/ cellulose/ etc but i try to avoid methanol like the plague!

If i had a way to crush/ pulverize the sugarcane, i would have done it but it is a very tough plant.

The rum agricoles get inoculated from their own sugarcane. The cane gets crushed, the juices mingle with the outside parts of the cane and this way it gets the yeast it needs to ferment.

It's the same sugar that's in the panela. Why wouldn't you want to use it? Did you not pay money for it?

[Henque]

Sory I have to say this. Since my right eye twitches every time I see this thread title.

This thread would have been better titled. Wild yeast from sugarcane. Instead of sugarcane (as) yeast. That's a little misleading. And there are enough junk info out there telling people that not using yeast is better.

Just saying.

I will see my future posts have better thread titles, Prairiepiss.... I cannot change it now(?)
Or maybe the moderator can?

Thanks!

The insides do contain goodies, but mainly sugar. That was already accounted for in the form of panela.
The outside part is the 'dirty' part that collects bacteria and also the yeast that is was hoping for.
I also forgot to mention that a day after the fermenting started i took out the pieces of sugarcane.
I dont know how fast the methanol production would start from wood/ cellulose/ etc but i try to avoid methanol like the plague!

If i had a way to crush/ pulverize the sugarcane, i would have done it but it is a very tough plant.

The rum agricoles get inoculated from their own sugarcane. The cane gets crushed, the juices mingle with the outside parts of the cane and this way it gets the yeast it needs to ferment.

It's the same sugar that's in the panela. Why wouldn't you want to use it? Did you not pay money for it?

No i want to use the yeast. Not the sugar.

[MDH]

It does work. I have done it before. Be careful about where you source your cane from. I noticed when I bought cane several times from a grower in southern China that there was a pediococcus damnosus infection every time, which means it's alive and well in that area of the world. One other time I purchased cane imported from the U.S. Virgin Islands. That one worked well and had pleasant strawberry pineapple notes.

Frankly if you can do it well, wild yeast is far superior in the resulting taste to domesticated, and it has far more aging potential.

[waster]

Welcome to the world of agricole rhum, ie rum made from fresh sugarcane juice instead of molasses. IMHO it's a totally different tipple. What's interesting about your experiment is that you both added flavor from sugar cane as well as from the wild yeast. I'm very curious about which of the two had the flavor impact (I would put money on the yeast). I would guess it would take more that one small node of cane to substantially affect the flavor if the yeast was kept constant (ie, whatever you normally use).

Thanks for the experiment. I was thinking about planting sugar cane for a privacy hedge anyway (waiting for some other slow-growing trees to do their jobs). Now I definitely have to try it.

[MDH]

Agricole and Cachaca are similar. I've noticed Cachaca to have much more grassy, planty flavor which leads me to believe they actually keep a large amount of crushed cane, or at least pulp from cane within the still as they run it.

I also would put money on Yeast. Try searching Google Scholar on Cachaca bacteria or yeast. It seems lactic acid fermentation occurs rapidly in Brazil where the ambient temperature is much warmer, hence why you will have so many of those "sour-cream" or slightly "popcorn butter" like notes on the nose.

[waster]

Thanks, MDH. I found this really helpful:

http://www.amountainofcrushedice.com/?p=16666" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Reading between the lines, I think the main difference is that Cachaca is single-pot-stilled (30-50ABV), while Agricole is double distilled (70 ABV).

[NZChris]

Thanks, MDH. I found this really helpful:

http://www.amountainofcrushedice.com/?p=16666" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Reading between the lines, I think the main difference is that Cachaca is single-pot-stilled (30-50ABV), while Agricole is double distilled (70 ABV).

"Cachaca is fermented in wooden or copper vats and then boiled down three times and the result is a sticky concentrate." Reading that line, I would say it was written by a non-distiller who garnered his information from wherever he could Google it.

[Prospekt]

I'd like to experiment with some wild yeasts as well. I wonder if yeast could be harvested off wheat chaff (harvested this season). Does anyone know if this would be a waste of time or not?
I think I'd play it safe though and inoculate small jars of mash to see if I can catch something good.