The Sím residency has allowed me time to further my experiments with Icelandic Obvara mixtures and íslenskur Fagradalsleir, through the
creation of a small body of work towards a future publication documenting Obvara mixtures around the world.
Wild yeast capture & culture:
Conduct your experiments in either the Sour Dough Starter method or the Beer Brewer’s method. In Iceland, I tried both methods. There are many kits (and instructions) on the market for capturing wild yeast, one such kit is available here, http://www.the-odin.com/homebrew-yeast-capture-kit/ A PCR machine is not required for
this process unless of course, you want to identify the particular yeast strains captured!
Beer Brewer’s Method (simplified):
Sterilized Petri dishes
YPD agar medium
nitrile gloves
Wild clover and Thyme or Wild parsley flowers were picked and touched gently onto the agar in separate plates. Over a two week period, the plates were kept in a dark, warm place (or incubate around 30c if you own an incubator) to allow the yeast, bacteria to grow. Out of 6 plates, 2 were viable, the other plates grew mould/penicillin and who knows what!
I am fairly certain one the yeasts I captured/grew belonged to Brettanomyces. Using a loop yeast was taken from the plates and placed into the Icelandic honey and warm glacier water mix. Once the yeast rose a bit I then added flour, more water and covered the bowl with a clean, damp cloth and placed it near a radiator.
Over the next week, the yeast continued to grow on the plates.. and thrive. Granted, the recording might also be of the agar, whatever bacteria and moulds are hanging out with the yeast.. etc. ;)
