Hi C-H's, Mark Ellis wrote: >He said the important thing to consider is that as long as they weren't heat >treated or washed heavily with any chemical, you would gain a great number >of naturally occurring yeast of differing species that reside on the skin, >like is seen with grapes. Correct. My mash was made "straight from the garden". >He also said that we only really need to worry about listeria which >apparently can adapt to almost any environment. That's good news, and one reason for using extreme environments. >of the yeasts, we would almost certainly be dealing with varieties of >Candida and perhaps even obscure strains of sacchoromyces(sp). Saccharomyces sp. will not tolerate salt concentrations in the 15-20% range as far as I am aware. >All in all, basically he said we need to all run different mashing protocols >and ferment out to the level that we seek, then take a sample to you local >path lab for analysis to see what bacteria/mold/yeast exist happily in that >instance. I think I am confident enough to go ahead with it the way it is. It worked OK last year, and I'm not quite dead yet! >Oh, he also said we would be better off doing a lactic acid ferment as far >as fermentation efficiency goes? I am sure he is correct as far as speed is concerned, but what about flavor? Thanks for the info. Regards, Cameron.