NATIONAL HOMEBREW CONFERENCE 2014

GRAND RAPIDS, MI USA

BOOTLEG BREW

SCIENCE

capture culture contribute

] • IMBED VIDEO HERE

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• jmello@bootlegbiology.com

• Twitter/Instagram: @bootlegbiology

• FB: facebook.com/bootlegbiology

• Jeff Mello

• Chief Yeast Wrangler at Bootleg Biology LLC

• Homebrewer

• Yeast Geek

• Pseudo Scientist

• From Seattle > DC/Arlington > Nashville, TN

WHO AM I? Contact

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WHAT IS BOOTLEG BIOLOGY? • Open-source yeast (and wild bugs) project

• Goal: Create the most diverse library of microbes for the creation of fermented foods and beverages

• All microbes captured only from “bootleg” sources…

• Backyard’s, kombucha, yogurt, honey, fruit, bottle dregs, and whatever else we can get our hands on

• Bootleg Biology is the first organization to pioneer the collection and cultivation of official yeast strains for specific postal codes as part of the Local Yeast Project, beginning with the original S. Arlingtonesis (22204)

• Enthusiasts across the globe contribute yeast or house cultures to the project, with the shared goal of enriching everyone’s access to diverse & local microbes

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INDEPENDENT

• We are brewers, we like doing things our way

• No one/corp can tell us what to like or how something should be made

LOCAL

• Fresh

• Food belongs to a specific place and has a local character

• Made by our family, friends and neighbors: craft brewers, local farmers

CREATIVE

• Food should be unique and have a personality

• Prepared by someone who cares

RESPECT FOR THE PAST

• Preserving cultural legacy

• Honoring traditions

EDUCATION & LEARNING

WHY BE BOOTLEG? OUR

ETHOS:

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LOCAL YEAST PROJECT The French call it “terroir”, we call it the Local Yeast Project.

• If you want to make a beer truly local, you’ve got to have a local yeast

• Every city and region across the globe is chock full of wild yeast ready and willing to make a lunch out of your barley sugar

• The characteristics of local yeast strains will impart a taste and aroma unlike any other, creating beer styles that are totally unique to the sourced region

Bootleg Biology already has 40+ local strains with more in the pipeline:

• States: AZ, CO, KS, KY, LA, NC, TN, TX, VA, WA

• Countries: Bulgaria, Italy, Portugal, England, Ireland, Costa Rica, United Kingdom, (Antarctica?)

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EXPERIMENTERS • Perrin Brewing (MI)

• Modern Times (CA)

• Libertine Pub (CA)

• Highland Park Brewery (CA)

• Natty Greene’s (NC)

• Forrest & Main (PA)

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PART 1

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

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Saison du

Backyard Demo beer for showing off the clean

flavors possible with isolated wild

yeast strains

Simple grain bill: mostly pilsner malt,

small amounts of wheat malt,

caravienne and candi syrup

Fermented solely with original Bootleg

Biology backyard yeast strain,

S. arlingtonesis

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tools of the trade capture yeast

create agar plates streak plates isolate yeast

DIYeast:

How to Wrangle Yeast

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TOOLS OF THE TRADE

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CAPTURE: THREE METHODS

Wild Yeast Starter Jar: Tricky but romantic

Fruit & Flora: Easier

Sterile Cotton Swabs: Easiest

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WILD YEAST STARTER JAR Day 1:

• Fill jar w/pre-boiled 1.040 gravity, slightly-hopped, acidified wort

• Cover w/cheesecloth/lid and set outside overnight

Day 2:

• 12-24 hrs later, bring inside, cover w/foil or pour in growler w/air lock

• Leave in warm, dark place

Next 2-4 weeks:

• Watch for/verify signs of fermentation

• Wort must fully ferment before proceeding

• Toss jars w/abnormal colored liquid/non-mold masses

• Refrigerate for a few days to force yeast to flocculate

Sensory Evaluation:

• Scrape off any mold

• Smell good? OK!

• Use pipette to remove sample

from below surface

• Taste?: It’ll be bitter or sour

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FRUIT & FLORA • Hand-pick wild or backyard fruit/flora

• Don’t use fruit already on ground

• Pick the ripest or decomposing fruit

• Flowers: look for pollen or nectar (like honeysuckle)

• If travelling, put in empty test tube

• At home, insert fruit/flora into test tube w/ 1.010-1.020 gravity wort (ideally sterile)

• Shake it up a couple times a day!

• Rest in warm, dark place for roughly 2 weeks

• Yeast sediment will form at bottom

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STERILE COTTON SWABS • Rub sterile swab on any surface with wild yeast

• Large fruit, plants with dusting (that dust on grapes/plums is yeast!)

• Foedres/barrels, yeast rich brewing environments

• Place swab sample in empty test tube for storage

• Once back home, treat swab like fruit (e.g. dunk in wort, shake, rest)

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Yeast & Bug Porn Quiz #1

- BOOTLEG INTERLUDE -

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WHICH OF THESE IS

BRETTANOMYCES…ON AGAR?

1 2 3

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ALL OF THEM

YOU’RE ALL WINNERS!

AND THE ANSWER IS…

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REMAINING STEPS MUST OCCUR IN

DRAFT-FREE AREA

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WHAT IS A

“DRAFT-FREE AREA”? • Any enclosed space with solid, non-porous surfaces:

• Ideal: Cabinets, Closets, Closed Rooms without open vents

• Better than nothing: Card board box on its side

• Don’t forget to disinfect all surfaces:

• Ideal: Lysol (quats/alcohol), rubbing alcohol

• Better than nothing: Star San

• Bonus: Room with HEPA filtered air

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CREATING AGAR PLATES • Recipe: 300ml low-grav wort/5g agar/dash yeast nutrient

• Boil until evenly mixed

• Let pot cool for ~5 minutes, but not long enough for liquid to set

• Pour liquid evenly into petri dish bottoms

• Set in draft-free area with lids off until agar cools and has set (solid enough to stick to plate, gelatin-like)

• Once cooled, put lids back on and turn upside down

• Cut 1/2 inch length strips of ParaFilm

• Remove paper side, and stretch over edge where lid and agar-filled bottom meet

• Always keep agar plates upside down to prevent contamination

• Place upside-down dishes inside a re-sealable bag in the refrigerator until ready to use

• Some plates will mold!

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STREAKING VIDEO

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STREAK PLATES Prepare:

• Grab agar plate from fridge, remove ParaFilm

• Unbend paper clip

• Sterilize end under flame until it gets red hot (hold with clothespin if you can’t take the heat)

• Let cool for roughly a minute

Streak:

• Dip sterilized end of paper clip into liquid containing yeast

• Flip agar plate over and remove lid

• Drag p.c. lightly from edge to edge of agar plate 3 times

• Sterilize paper clip, let cool

• Drag 3 lines again but crossing over end of previous lines; sterilize

• Repeat 2 more times until 4 sets of lines are drawn

Store:

• Put lid back on plate. Turn upside down (agar side up)

• Incubate in dark area until large, distinct round, whiteish colonies appear (2 days, week, longer)

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Tip: Practice w/pure brewer’s

yeast before trying with wild yeast cultures

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4 3

ISOLATING YEAST • Snag a new plate from the fridge and remove ParaFilm

• Grab your previously streaked plate. It should be a cornucopia of microbes (including mold). This is ok!

• Sterilize the paper clip under a flame

• Look for medium-sized, white to off-white, nicely round, individual colonies

• Pick up a small amount from one colony w/paper clip

• Restreak new plate (continue restreaking plates until you have one where all the colonies growing have the same shape and size)

• Select one colony from uniform plate using sterile p.c., dunk into vial with 10ml of sterilized low-gravity wort (1.020 or less)

• Congrats! You now have the world’s smallest yeast starter

• Build up to pitchable quantity (10ml to 100ml to 1L) and toss into a test batch of homebrew or bank for later use

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Shameless plug alert.

YOU HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE.

NOW WHAT?

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BACKYARD YEAST

WRANGLING TOOL KIT

Everything the experimental

homebrewer needs to capture wild

bugs, create agar plates, and isolate

wild yeast!

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INCLUDED IN THE KIT

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For each new viable local isolated strain provided to Bootleg Biology, you get:

• One-to-one exchange of any culture Bootleg Biology offers with free shipping

• If you have a wild culture and don’t want to try isolating, send it to us, and if we isolate a viable strain we’ll send one back to you

• Recognition as the Wrangler of your strain(s) on the Big Board, with a link to your preferred web presence (Blog, Instagram, Twitter, etc)

• One time 25% discount on Bootleg Biology merch and swag

• 2 of our homebrew Contributors have gone on to start their own breweries

CONTRIBUTE & BECOME A

PART OF BOOTLEG BIOLOGY

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Yeast & Bug Porn Quiz #2

- BOOTLEG INTERLUDE -

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WHICH IS LACTOBACILLUS…

UNDER MAGNIFICATION?

1 2

3

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#2! AND THE ANSWER IS…

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PART 2

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

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Berliner Bear Take on a Berlinerweisse with added stout grain bill

Pilsner/wheat malt base mashed, drained into carboy

Soured with Lactobacillus isolated from my homemade kimchi for 48 hours at ~40C/105F

Racked into kettle, dark grains steeped 10 minutes, wort boiled for 20 min w/ small amount of hops

Fermented out with S. arlingtonesis

3.2 pH, 3% ABV

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F A Q BOOTLEG BREW SCIENCE

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WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE

BETWEEN STERILE & SANITARY?

• Sterile = Absence of microbial life, not exposed to the naked air.

• Commonly achieved through wet heat (autoclave/pressure cooker) or flame (bunsen burner/gas range).

Boiling does not produce sterile conditions

• Sanitary = Acceptable number of microbes or inhibition of growth. Does not mean the absence of life.

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HOW DO I

STERILIZE AT HOME? • Pressure cooker = bootleg brewer’s best friend

• To greatly increase chances of isolating and maintaining pure cultures, anything that comes in contact with yeast culture should be sterilized (starter flask, stir bar, test tubes)

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HOW DO I KNOW

WHAT I’VE ISOLATED? • Microbe Portrait Gallery on bootlegbiology.com

• Pictures of Brewer’s Yeast, Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus

• Growth on agar, under magnification (yeast 800X, bacteria 2000X)

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HOW DO I KNOW I’M

WORKING WITH A PURE

CULTURE? • Microscopes are essential in knowing if your culture is pure

• That being said, just double-check your work:

• Streak plates, restreak plates and streak them again

• Keep streaking until you see uniform colony morphology on a plate

• Sterilize equipment and use aseptic technique

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MORE YEAST

WRANGLING INFO • bootlegbiology.com/diy – you saw that coming

• Eureka Brewing – eurekabrewing.wordpress.com

• BKYeast – bkyeast.wordpress.com

• Sui Generis – suigenerisbrewing.blogspot.ca

• Brew Science – www.sciencebrewer.com

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SOME THINGS IN LIFE

REALLY ARE FREE

• First 100 people to like us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter and come by the GRiST booth (#27) at Club Night

• Free Training Loop & Agar Plate: Do your first test streaking on us before investing in kit or full setup

@bootlegbiology 43

Q & A Time.

THANK YOU!

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