So I skipped all the play by play for this one so far. If you’re interested, you can see what I wrote on Instagram.
I am very excited about this try though. I’ve never had a batch spontaneously ferment on me before, so this is a whole new experience for me. I’m not sure what caused it, but I think it may have been the candy cap mushrooms. I made a tea with them to use as the water base and some wild yeast may have survived and thrived.
The initial ferment was good but it started to slow down over the last few days so I added in some DAP and that has done the trick. The foam is pretty bubbly and thin compared to a sake yeast, but it is getting some good fermentation action. I’ll be interested to see what it is like when I pull a sample on Saturday.
The odor fluctuates between heavy smoke and smokey maple which is interesting. I’m pretty sure I’ll add some more candy caps to the secondary ferment, but I’m not totally sure I’ll add some of the bourbon barrel wood chips in. I don’t know if I want any more smoke/char flavor in the mix. We’ll see though.