{"id":658,"date":"2013-04-10T20:12:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-10T20:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/suigenerisbrewing.com\/index.php\/2013\/04\/10\/old-school-identification-of-wild-yeasts-bacteria\/"},"modified":"2017-09-15T19:03:56","modified_gmt":"2017-09-15T19:03:56","slug":"old-school-identification-of-wild-yeasts-bacteria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/suigenerisbrewing.com\/index.php\/2013\/04\/10\/old-school-identification-of-wild-yeasts-bacteria\/","title":{"rendered":"Old School Identification of Wild Yeasts & Bacteria"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of the wild yeast project<\/a>, I need to be able to identify the yeasts that we are purifying. \u00a0I’ve run the numbers and have decided to take the high tech route, as I have access to the equipment, and in the long-run, its actually cheaper than the conventional route. \u00a0That said, the conventional route is worth thinking about, and a recent opportunity has arisen to show an example of this method. \u00a0The high tech method will be outlined in a post in (hopefully) a few weeks.<\/p>\n

The first thing we need is info on the yeasts we are looking for. \u00a0The good news is that there is a lot of info on the various taxa (groups) of yeasts & fungi. \u00a0The bad news is that much of it is in expensive textbooks that can only be found in university libraries. \u00a0None-the-less, some of this info can be found in free sources.<\/p>\n

The key things we need are:<\/p>\n

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  1. An idea of which species we may find, given the source of the yeast and what we are growing them in (i.e. beer), and<\/li>\n
  2. An idea of the structure & biochemistry of our potential strains.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    This long article will outline how we go about identifying yeast, including an example of identifying a yeast using nothing more than a photo & a bit of detective work. \u00a0A legend (for those who don’t want to crawl through the whole thing) is the first thing below the fold…<\/div>\n
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    <\/a><\/p>\n

    A Short Primer on Taxonomy<\/h4>\n
    Before I begin I need to give a brief biology lesson, in case you forgot your high school science class. \u00a0All species of life on earth arose from a common\u00a0ancestor\u00a0that lived ~4 billion years ago. \u00a0Since then, all life on earth has been diverging to form the various groups of organisms we see around us. \u00a0Because this\u00a0occurred\u00a0via evolution – i.e. the accumulation of changes over time – a very specific pattern of inheritance occurs, where species that separated recently are more similar to each other than species that separated longer ago. \u00a0For example, you are much more similar to a chimpanzee (95%,\u00a0last common\u00a0ancestor\u00a0was ~6 million years ago<\/a>) than you are to brewing yeast (~30%,\u00a0last common\u00a0ancestor 900\u00a0million\u00a0to 1.5 billion years ago<\/a>).<\/div>\n
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    By\u00a0analysing\u00a0similarities\u00a0– either structural similarities, or even better, genetic\u00a0similarities –\u00a0we can group species based on how similar they are to each other. \u00a0This is the science of taxonomy<\/a>, and is an important part of identifying wild yeasts & bacteria. The closest related set of\u00a0organisms\u00a0are called a species<\/a>. \u00a0As common as the term is, defining what a species is scientifically, has been difficult. \u00a0All humans are one species (despite differences such as race), but we are not the same species as chimpanzees (as much as people sometimes act like apes). \u00a0The next level ‘up’ is a genus<\/a> – a grouping of similar species. \u00a0The scientific names of species – e.g. ale yeast’s name of Saccharomyces cerevisiae<\/i> – are literally the genus (Saccharomyces<\/i>) followed by the species (cerevisiae<\/i>). \u00a0As we group more and more\u00a0dissimilar\u00a0species we move upwards though our taxonmetric classifications: Species > Genus > Family > \u00a0Order > Class > Phylum > Kingdom > Domain. \u00a0For ale yeast, this breaks down to:<\/div>\n
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