I figured somebody would bring that up. Interesting stuff, which settlers hit on making when leavening with yeast wasn’t practical.
Clostridium perfringens as a leavening agent gives you pause, but appears to be perfectly safe, as noted in that article:
You make the stuff by doing exactly what you are not supposed to do to food - you let it sit out at a very warm temperature. Clostridium tolerates heat better than many other microorganisms and you are providing a nice competition free environment - under those conditions it breeds at a fantastic rate.
It’s also notable that the gas emitted by Clostridium is hydrogen, rather than carbon dioxide. The rising bread isn’t a fire hazard either - the concentration of hydrogen doesn’t get high enough. There are some research projects on using Clostridium to produce hydrogen for fuel from biomass, though.
Yes, but it’s not nearly matzoh or communion wafer thin. It’s made to be sturdy, so it can be carried by a soldier’s pack and not break with rough handling. The recipe I use calls for half an inch thick, which is essentially impossible to break without a tool of some sort (or soaking). And forget about biting a piece off.
My dad used to make his own wine, using a recipe handed down from his own father, who came over from “the old country.” He added no yeast at all; he just crushed the grapes using a hand-cranked device and let them sit in a whiskey barrel for about a week. They always fermented. His explanation was that there was wild yeast on the grapes.
That’s correct. That’s how my friend makes it, but there is an element of risk to it, if the wrong yeasts/bacteria win out. He’s had one year’s batch get completely contaminated (from several hundred dollars worth of grapes.) Took much longer than a week, though. We wouldn’t even bottle it until at least nine months later, although he uses large aluminum fermenters then racks into glass carboys and jugs. Cider is also traditionally made this way, but cultured yeasts give predictability to the process.
Which also explains dandelion wine. For years, I wondered how you made wine from dandelions. As a young child, I knew that wine was made from grapes and that yeasts turned the sugars in the grapes into alcohol. I had eaten grapes and knew they were sweet. I tried eating the dandelion greens, which are not sweet. In fact, they are pretty much the opposite of sweet. Later, someone told me that you only used the flowers to make dandelion wine. So, I tried eating the flowers. Not as unsweet as the greens, but still not sweet by any means.
I finally figured it out. The flowers do have some nectar, as evidenced by the behavior of bees. Not enough for me to taste, but enough to hold the interest of the wild yeasts. The dandelions in dandelion wine not a source of the sugar, they’re the source of the yeast!
Oh, he didn’t bottle it after a week either. After the week in the upright barrels, when it stopped foaming, he would drain the liquid out and put it in a horizontal barrel. The solids would get put in a cast iron press and squeezed to get more liquid, which also went into the horizontal barrel, which then got sealed up. It would sit in the barrel until at least springtime, when he would tap it and drink it. He only bottled what was still in the barrel (if any) when he needed the barrel to make the next autumn’s batch of wine.
As far as the “element of risk” goes, yes, he was always vigilant to taste it before putting it in the horizontal barrel, but as far as I know he never lost a batch.
Yeasts are incredibly abundant on flowers and fruits - I’ve fermented cider from pressed apples without adding any yeast starter - it starts showing visible signs of fermentation within hours of pressing and you can drink it at any point between the start when it’s apple juice and the finish, when it’s dry cider.
Elderflowers also are a good source of natural yeasts - the flowers steeped in sweetened water, then strained out, will cause the liquid to ferment quite vigorously (I’ve done this several times - bottling it once fermentation is underway so that the process forces CO2 into solution and produces a sparkling, mildly alcoholic ‘bubbly’ drink)
Back completely on topic, I have also captured wild yeasts and made bread from them - it’s actually very easy - here’s a documented account of one such attempt:
Some people add raisins to their sourdough starter to make use of the yeasts on the grape skins, but I have always found that just flour and water, left alone for a day or two, will start fermenting from the yeasts either already in the flour, or blowing around in the air.
Yeah, pretty similar method here: A week in some barrels (though plastic for him), through the wooden/iron press (beast of a thing that is!), into the tank (sorry, I meant stainless steel, not aluminum) instead of a wooden barrel. I think he would sometimes oak it with wood chunks, depending on the style. Amazing how delicious that wine could be (except for his one bad year).
It really depends on the apples. A number of years ago, I made some absurd amount of cider from fresh apples from my friend’s tree (40 gallons maybe?) using various yeasts, and I left one five gallon batch to naturally ferment. It took about two weeks in the glass carboy before it showed signs of bubbling. I thought it was just going to go bad. Instead, patience paid off – it was the best batch of the bunch.
Catholics take communion on Good Friday, but it is from the host consecrated the day before and reserved in the Altar of Repose. Same with the Holy Saturday morning Mass but Holy Saturday after sunset is the vigil of Easter.
That’s the source of the recipe I referenced above. I used a pasta machine instead of a mallet or car. I’ve made about half a dozen recipes from that book. No millers in onion sauce yet.
But still delicious! About the same time that my Jewish friends will be eating their unleavened bread, I’ll be living almost exclusively on dandelion salad, for about a week straight.
Not always, though. These bricks are a staple in Newfoundland. (It’s hard to get a good sense of scale from that picture, but the things are a little smaller than an adult’s fist.)
Obviously, they’re meant to be soaked before use, but if you’ve got a good set of teeth, gnawing on them is possible. (I used to enjoy them dry as a kid.)
I guess you’re right - I always make my cider from a mix of varieties including some like russets where I suspect the rough skin is a better substrate for yeasts - I also tend to use feral/hedgerow apples for their tannic content, so I expect I’m getting the maximum capture of yeasts (as well as the biggest risk of infection by something else - I have had a couple of small batches go ‘ropey’ from bacterial activity)
