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Maintaining an Apple yeast water

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

Maintaining an Apple yeast water

I have discovered something that’s been a really helpful tip and want to pass it along. I had followed a topic posted here about YW and they suggested a tiny amount of Fruit Fresh used in canning and freezing fruits to prevent browning . It contains Ascorbic Acid or Vit C. I never got around to buying any as it was crazy expensive for what it is. I also never bought any Vit C . 

So fast forward and I froze a lot of sliced local peaches and used a small amount of fresh lemon juice and sugar as a slurry to coat the slices. It’s worked beautifully! 


A couple days   ago after finding my AYW not staying fresh anymore in spite of using Granny Smith apple and fresh orange peel laid over the surface I had an “ ah ha” moment! Lemon juice! I added a 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice to the  240 cc of  fresh filtered water poured over the  slightly aged diced apples that had been removed from my current batch of YW  but weren’t yet ready to be replaced . 

The result was nothing short of amazing. I put the jar in the M/W with door ajar to keep the light on. I came back a couple hours later and not only was there fizzy sound effects but slight foam on top! And the fragrance was lovely apple.

I immediately drained it off to use in the porridge bread. I then reused the same apples again added more fresh water 1/2 tsp lemon juice and Voila ! A few hours and fresh fizzy water again with beautiful fragrance . I refrigerated it and took it out this morning to warm it up to room temp. Still lovely and I drained it off for a poolish which is happily rising . I’ve added more water to the same used apples which are still lovely . I didn’t add anymore lemon . Will see how it’s doing by tomorrow as stored. 

 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

I will have to try this once I make a new YW.

Thanks for sharing.

Best,

Ian

justkeepswimming's picture
justkeepswimming

Wonderful!! My YW is snoozing in the fridge at the moment, but when we get back from a little getaway it will be overdue for a feed. I'll plan to add a bit of lemon juice to the process. 

Thanks for the tip! 

Mary 

Abe's picture
Abe

Once the yeast water has been made why not keep it going using plain sugar water? 

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

I have found that the apples have plenty of sweetness and I actually ruined one batch by putting honey in it. So I leave off the sugar. I don't know enough about the yeasts to know if they would be happy with only sweetener. I guess that since we feed SD with flour and water that provides enough new yeasts from the flour . If you only fed it water it would weaken. Does that sound logical ? I know you have to eventually get new yogurt to feed the culture you can't just give it milk and expect it to grow. 

I am WAY out of my knowledge base LOL !  Carry on hopefully someone with real info can answer. c

tpassin's picture
tpassin

With yogurt there are usually several kinds of bacteria and they don't all thrive under that same conditions. Some want higher temperatures, IIUC, for example.  When you propagate by backslopping time after time, you start losing the ones that aren't happy at your fermenting temperatures.

That's as far as my knowledge goes.

JonJ's picture
JonJ

I've fed mine malt extract syrup and it worked fine. 

However, I find feeding it unsulphated raisins to be the easiest and least "icky".

-Jon

Davey1's picture
Davey1

Yeast doesn't care - as long as it's available - sugar that is. That's the "go to" food. If it turns to sugars - eventually it gets eaten. Enjoy!

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

My Chemist husband said. So there you go. No need to keep adding fruit! Saves a lot of effort and some money . Will give it a go. 

Abe's picture
Abe

It'll start getting alcoholic. Just enough to keep it alive and happy otherwise store in the fridge and build pre-ferments from that. That was my impression... once the fruit yeasts are alive and kicking then any sugar will do and it'll propagate indefinitely as long as it's kept fed. Plus, it will be a lot easier. 

https://www.vinolab.hr/calculator/gravity-density-sugar-conversions-en19

You can use this calculator to convert g/l for sugar alcohol conversion. 10g/L makes 0.5% ABV. 20g/L = 1% ABV. 

Without knowing how much is too much i'd give an educated guess that keeping it an ABV potential of a weak beer (60g/L = a potential of 3.02% ABV) should be fine. It was common, at one time, to use beer to make bread. 

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

I don’t know why in ALL the reading I’ve done for over 10 years about YW no one has ever mentioned skipping the fruit after the initial yeast build. Just feed the present yeast no need to keep supplementing with new. 

Another duh moment. Glad I started the thread. 🙏

Abe's picture
Abe

The collective knowledge, questions and ideas. You have helped mw a lot with YW in the past. Now my off the cuff idea (it just dawned on me because! of your question - so, thank you) has helped you. 

Without your question I wouldn't have thought about. Why didn't it occur to me in the past? Sometimes it is something someone says that nudges one in the right direction. 

Thank you for this thread. Create a yeast water then just maintain it with sugar. Simple. 

Another thought just occurred to me. Use this method once you have created a yeast water that you like! With the results you're looking for. This will mean you have isolated a variety of yeast that makes good bread. The sugar will just propagate those particular yeast whereas adding new fruit might alter the yeast water.  

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

Thank you terrific insight. I guess I’ve been fortunate all these many years with countless pounds of apples! I’ll just give it a go and report back. Shouldn’t take too long as I use my YW very often as a flavoring/ rising/ texture option in pretty much every SD bake. I add it as just part of the liquid and I also sometimes  make a levain with it usually 240g YW and 240g flour of choice. Then my SD levain as well. This all goes into a 2200g total batch of dough yielding 2 large boules. If I’m not making a SD bread I just make the YW levain .I realize I’ve called it a poolish which it isn’t as there’s no commercial yeast. 

Abe's picture
Abe

I've delved a little into making wine so I guess the knowledge from that end of the fermentation process helps too. 

Now you can use all those lovely apples for apple pie :)

Damn. Now i'm craving apple pie. 

JonJ's picture
JonJ

Great tip, will have to give the lemon juice a go, thanks!

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

That’s definitely made a huge difference. So if not using fruit anymore then it’s probably not necessary to add the lemon. Maybe Abe can weigh in on thoughts about that. c

Abe's picture
Abe

I'm thinking why not a little lemon juice? Can't harm in any way. After all the fruit added some acidity which it now lacks. Acidity is good for brewing for two reasons. A bit of acidity helps the yeast and keeping it below a pH of 4.6 prevents botulism. Although I can't see it being a problem with just sugar water but then again i'm not a chemist. Ask your husband to weigh in on that. Yeast also loves oxygen! So you can either keep it going in a bottle where you can give it a good shake, which will also dissolve the sugar, when refreshing (just at the beginning when being refreshed - not during the ferment) that will help the yeast be healthy. 

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

pH was likely important. Thank you for clarifying the topic and adding much needed perspective. I’ll run this past my resident Chemist and and he used to brew beer as well. Will post back when I have more facts. Thank you! 

Abe's picture
Abe

And come up with a good formula and method it would be great to see write up. 

I'd be interested to hear what your husband says when it comes to sugar water fermentation, pH level and safety (when it comes to things like botulism). 

Your hubby is a chemist and used to brew beer. A perfect partner for your bread baking.

Looking forward! 

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

Thank you Abe for adding to this thread. Will post back when I have some more input . c