Capturing wild yeast for sourdough: Is this healthy yeast or contamination?
I'm trying to capture wild yeast to make my own sourdough bread. I put prunes, water and some sugar in a sterilized glass jar and aired it daily. After a few days I get a white, fuzzy layer. The smell is sweet and alcoholic. However I don't get any bubbles, only this layer. Do I mix it? Should I wait more?
Best Answer
That appears to be mold and you should get rid of it. I've seen similar methods online, but fruit, water, and sugar appears to be a method of making a starter for home-brewed alcohol rather than sourdough bread.
To make a sourdough starter using fruit, you should use flour and water and remove the fruit. The yeast are only present on the surface of the fruit, and so you only need to "rinse" the yeast off of the fruit. I've seen people shake their chosen fruit with the flour and then remove before adding water. Alternatively, I've seen the fruit soaked or stirred in the water before being removed, at which point flour is added.
Honestly though, you don't need to use fruit. Flour and water will with time and attention create a starter on their own.
Here's an article that shows the progress of an all-purpose flour based starter, a whole-wheat based starter, and a wild grape starter also based on all-purpose flour. They actually found that the whole-grain flour had an easier time attracting wild yeast than the grape starter.
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2016/09/24/wild-grape-sourdough-starter
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Is wild yeast healthy?
The benefits on natural yeast don't stop there. They break down harmful enzymes in grains, makes vitamins and minerals more easily available for digestion, converts dough into a nutritious food source that won't spike your body's defenses, and so much more you'll learn in her book.Can wild yeast make you sick?
While wild yeast is widespread but so are less benign microbes that can make you very sick.Is wild yeast the same as sourdough starter?
A wild yeast sourdough starter is flour and water left to ferment. The mixture absorbs the wild yeast and probiotic bacteria that is naturally in the air we all breath. After 6 to 12 days, the starter cultivates enough wild yeast that it will allow bread to rise without the addition of store-bought yeast.What is the difference between yeast and wild yeast?
The wild yeasts bakers talk about are 'wild' because they are in the air of the bakery and present on the grain. Commercial yeast, by contrast, is a single strain of yeast which was isolated because it proved to be a particularly excellent rising agent.How to capture wild yeast for bread (and WHY it works)
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