Wild Yeast for Baking

Some time back I made a post with a link to a Mother Earth News article on Wild Yeast. I've found another article and this one is even better. How did folks make bread before packaged yeast? They used a starter and you can too. Here is what it takes and how it works:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/233

Great link Rick!

Good info, as usual. Thanks.

the trouble with wild yeasts sources is the predominance of contamination in cultures which can spoil bread, which is why starter cultures take somewhat careful maintaining. some contaminations are beneficial, such as the bacterium that sours sourdough.

I remember seeing a documentary years ago about mountain men. They would seek out wild grapes and careful wipe the white yeast from the outside of the grapes to use in their starters. Actually, that's about all I remember of the documentary. I think that was the first time I heard about wild yeast so it sort of stuck in my mind.

most strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae used in baking since antiquity are believed to originate from grape specific cultures. they are some of the only yeasts that are almost incapable of diploid reproduction [binary fusion]. they seem to have lost this ability almost entirely.

I saw a program on the Food Network, "Good Eats", where a sour dough starter that had been perpetuated from the original that was over a hundred years old.

Thanks Rick, another good link. Sense I started participating in this forum you have provided me with more useful links than I would have ever gathered on my own. Your an asset to the forum.

In the days of Alaskan Road Houses which were accessed by foot, dog sled, or horse. The road house cooks kept their sourdough starter on the back of the wood cook stove, well in the winter the bush pilots would land and quickly drain their engine oil, and put it on the back of the cook stove also. There were peed'off cooks who got up at 4:AM only to find their clean kitchen violated by some pilot who landed after they went to bed. Or the guest who went to the kitchen for coffee, and thought, man this stuff tastes like motor oil.

A great place from which to culture yeast is unfiltered beer. This rules out Bud/Miller/Coors. But, if there is a local micro-brewery in your area, many will sell growlers of their beer which can be easily propagated into a yeast starter culture. Some brewers may even be willing to simply siphon off a quart of active yeast from their fermenters.

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