Wine

[ecogeorge]

Two gallons of Elderflower started.
Didn't,t have any wine yeast so used a mixture of bread yeast and saved beer dregs from my other post on beer yeast.
Already starting to glug through air locks.

[Joeboy]

I used to grow Belgian beer yeast from the bottle and all grain brew with them. Had some decent beers from them. Duvel seems to spring to mind as does Rochefort. What's your recipe George?

[Adokforme]

Glad to learn of others wine making and brewing on here, an admirable pastime I've found especially in winter when opening a bottle of last summers harvest, be it Elderflower, blackberry or grape. Afraid no longer brew beer, something to do with having to get out of bed in the early hours due to volumes consumed.
We too have a batch of Elderflower fermenting nicely along with Rhubarb that's finished fermenting now plus sufficient growth now for a second batch to follow on. Blackberry blossom seems early this year so keeping fingers crossed for a good harvest of that for wine and fruit crumbles for next winter also.
I wonder how many others on here might be part time brewers/winemakers and brave enought to own up.

[Adokforme]

And this years Elderflower kicked off ten days earlier than any previously, guess it's down to the last months worth of fine mild weather as our PV generation figures support.
I wonder if Blackberry harvest will come in just as early?

[MikeNovack]

Didn't,t have any wine yeast so used a mixture of bread yeast and saved beer dregs from my other post on beer yeast.
Already starting to glug through air locks.

Bread yeasts that come fresh are like beer yeasts, aka "top yeasts"

For wine your really want wine yeast (bottom yeast). But useful to know, the "bread yeasts" that come as DRIED yeast are often actually a wine yeast (bottom yeast). They use those rather than drying actual bread yeast because this type of yeast wakes up faster from dormancy.

Or at least that way over here.

[AE-NMidlands]

Bread yeasts that come fresh are like beer yeasts, aka "top yeasts"

and are optimised for producing gas to blow up the bread asap. They may well be top-fermenters too, which would make sense as they are happy in an aerated medium, when all yeasts concentrate on magnifying their numbers and producing a bit of CO₂ rather than concentrating on alcohol production, which is what wine makers want!

[MikeNovack]

Bread yeasts that come fresh are like beer yeasts, aka "top yeasts"

and are optimised for producing gas to blow up the bread asap. They may well be top-fermenters too, which would make sense as they are happy in an aerated medium, when all yeasts concentrate on magnifying their numbers and producing a bit of CO₂ rather than concentrating on alcohol production, which is what wine makers want!

Well, they ALL produce the same CO₂ to C₂H₅OH ratio (in breaking down C₆H₁₂O₆). The top fermenters like regular bread yeast are faster. The bottom fermenters can tolerate living in higher concentrations of their own wastes (the alcohol). But when you want dried yeast stable in packets for a long time, what is most important is how fast they wake up from dormancy. You want to dump into warm water and have working away in minutes/hours not overnight.

[AE-NMidlands]

Bread yeasts that come fresh are like beer yeasts, aka "top yeasts"

and are optimised for producing gas to blow up the bread asap. They may well be top-fermenters too, which would make sense as they are happy in an aerated medium, when all yeasts concentrate on magnifying their numbers and producing a bit of CO₂ rather than concentrating on alcohol production, which is what wine makers want!

Well, they ALL produce the same CO₂ to C₂H₅OH ratio (in breaking down C₆H₁₂O₆). The top fermenters like regular bread yeast are faster. The bottom fermenters can tolerate living in higher concentrations of their own wastes (the alcohol). But when you want dried yeast stable in packets for a long time, what is most important is how fast they wake up from dormancy. You want to dump into warm water and have working away in minutes/hours not overnight.

my home brewing books said the opposite, that wine yeasts were / had been selected to maximise alcohol, bread yeasts gas, but what do I know?
If monocots and dicots can use different enzyme pathways and selectively concentrate different carbon isotopes, why shouldn't different yeast strains vary the alcohol to CO₂ proportions?
I guess the simple chemical arithmetic might not seem to add up, but I'm happy to accept that nature is cleverer than us.

The other thing not said yet is that in frothing (if you put undissolved sugar into a fermenting must - and presumably in fast fermentations) the gas blowing off will drive alcohol off with it... Brewers don't seem to worry about that, unlike winemakers...

p.s. I meant to say that we can get dried bread, beer and wine yeasts all of which seem to perform as we would want, so they are presumably not selected just for their speed of reactivation.

[Joeboy]

Two gallons of Elderflower started.
Didn't,t have any wine yeast so used a mixture of bread yeast and saved beer dregs from my other post on beer yeast.
Already starting to glug through air locks.

Nice one George. I remember the sound of the airlock well!

I built and ran a 100ltr all grain gravity set up for a few years. Had my fave yeast cultures mostly grown from Belgian beers samples which I'd clean and pass onwards. Also had a sideline gear set up in wild beers with Brett C wild cherry being the pinnacle of my craft. All great fun!

P.S for any beer makers, white labs yeasts are excellent but pricey. First step with one should be to grow it and split into 5 tubes. I used to hit up my wort with a 1ltr yeast bomb on around about an 80ltr batch. Took off like a rocket.

[MikeNovack]

Well, they ALL produce the same CO₂ to C₂H₅OH ratio (in breaking down C₆H₁₂O₆).

C₆H₁₂O₆ =>2(C₂H₅OH) +2(CO₂)
If you like, YOU try to find some other result such that the number of C, H, and O atoms are the same on both sides of the chemical equation. Note however that yeasts are not obligatory anaerobes. If Oxygen is present they can also oxidize glucose all the way to CO₂ and H₂O. Top yeasts might have access to Oxygen.

. I meant to say that we can get dried bread, beer and wine yeasts all of which seem to perform as we would want, so they are presumably not selected just for their speed of reactivation.

But what types are your dried bread yeasts? (packaged dry yest sold for baking). The ones sold HERE are actually wine/bottom yeasts.

Please don't twist what I said. Of course can dry all types so you can buy dried cultures (to get a specific strain). But it the overall experience of people doing baking that yeast sellers are going by. Would a true bread yeast do better if you waited long enough? (or got it going in advance). Sure. But the typical experience is "I tear open the packet and pour into warm water. Add four to make a batter, maybe a touch of sugar. As soon as I see any acton, add flur to make dough. Set aside to rise." So the seller of dried yeast wants one that minimizes that time. The seller is NOT choosing yeast varieties based on the small percentage of users who would "wake up" the yeast the day before.