Can raisins be used as a yeast starter?

Turbo Cider with a difference, will this work?
/ andyshomebrewkitchen

[@zoeedwards2942]

Brilliant, who knew!

[@AndysHomebrewKitchen]

I certainly didn't.

[@pattheplanter]

Ivy is the traditional sign of taverns selling wine in Olde England since before the 15th century, for those who could not read. Ivy was sacred to Bacchus in Ancient Rome. I once put a cut piece of ivy branch in a jar to catch the abundant sap just to see how much it produced. I forgot about it for a day or two. When I opened the jar it went whoosh as the pressure equalised and the sap fizzed up. It stank of alcohol. I think wild yeast from the surface of ivy branches may have been used to start ferments but it was probably pretty rank. I don't drink or would have experimented with that.

[@AndysHomebrewKitchen]

I've seen people doing that, don't think I'm going to go that far 👍

[@eddavanleemputten9232]

As there are also wild yeast cells floating around in the air, if there are no via le wild yeast cells on the raisins, you might still get fermentation started. Chances are however, that there is viable yeast cells on those raisins if they haven’t been treated. Still, there is no way of knowing with certainty. If I’m not mistaken your sanitiser isn’t designed to kill yeast. If it’s a no-rinse sanitiser that’s designed for brewing it certainly isn’t. If there are yeast cells on your hands, knife, or cutting board you might have transferred them to your primary culturing medium (raisins + water + sugar). It might be wild yeast. It might be yeast cells from your many brews. A few drops of spilled mead or wine soaking in your cutting board can theoretically be sufficient. At the end of the day the question remains: “does it really matter all that much?” The experiment in itself shows you can start a fermentation using raisins. Those raisins picked up yeast SOMEWHERE and started a culture. That culture started fermenting your apple juice. Thanks for publishing this video. It was a good watch. Now I’m curious to find out if that cider you ended up with was tasty!

[@AndysHomebrewKitchen]

Thank you. I can say that it is indeed tasty as I'm drinking it this evening, and that I am glad for 👍

[@StoneyardVineyards]

Nice job cheers ,bet it will taste fine .

[@AndysHomebrewKitchen]

It certainly does, thank you

[@pfbilyeu8105]

I've seen this before on Turbo Cider for all. Someone said to use the old dried up crusty ones that have the white funk on them!!! Seriously, that's what I was told!😂

[@AndysHomebrewKitchen]

It was a post there that got my back up, so I had to try it, hence the video. Wouldn't want to use those raisins though for anything, lol.

[@jamessimpson1709]

Interesting. I wonder what the maximum amount of alcohol would be before the raisin yeast die and if it's possible to make a wine from it.

[@AndysHomebrewKitchen]

I hadn't thought of that, maybe another experiment with a hydrometer this time 👍

[@zoeedwards2942]

​@AndysHomebrewKitchen be interesting to know the hydrometer readings

[@AndysHomebrewKitchen]

Will have to get the hydrometer out of retirement 🤣

[@kb2vca]

Over here in the US we can find raisins that are covered in yeast and raisins that are covered in oil. The raisins covered in yeast can produce a great starter and I can attest to the fact that you can use enough of the raisins to make a wine using the raisins and the indigenous yeast on the raisins. If memory serves me well, I used about 1.5 kg of raisins and about 2 lbs of sugar. No access to my notes, but it finished dry and at about 12% ABV. It was, a raisin wine, if yer knows what I mean. Nothing to write home about by way of flavor. Still have about 4 bottles aging with the hope that time might pull out some more flavors. But all that said, scientifically speaking, since you handled the raisins with your hands, you really have no good way of knowing whether you inoculated the raisins with the yeast cells in your hands OR the yeast was indigenous to the raisins or even if the yeast was in the cider and the cider all along. Science demands controlled groups and demands that you do everything to minimize the number of possible variables (read possible explanations).

[@AndysHomebrewKitchen]

Thank you for your comments, raisins are a great substitute for grapes or grape concentrate. My hands are very clean after using the VWP cleaning stuff and I am not a scientist. The point of the video was to see it not work, I have publicly apologised to the original poster on the Facebook group, turbo ciders 4 all. 👍