The Yeast Project

Note - to prevent contamination with other than my one strain all goods in this experiment are being cleaned with potassium metabisulphate solutions.
Note - The honey used throughout this will be clover honey from full circle foods.
28/10/92             One large (3 kilo honey bucket) of weak honey/water solution placed on the back porch overnight.
29/10/92             Contents split to 6 glass containers and left alone
6/11/92             Each container opened and tested by smell.  Those not completely unpalatable (3) were racked and left alone.  All 6 had begun to mold.  This has been my first experience with mold and honey which should be incompatible.  I believe this to show that all of my cultures had more than the one working variety of yeast.  Of the             three that were kept one is very reminiscent (in smell) of bread yeast.  All three were cleaned of mold at the racking.
15/11/92             Three very different colours are now obvious and only one of the cultures shows any sign of mold.  A second racking with a volume expansion and feeding is now in order.  At this point the yeasts will be lettered (A, B, C) and referred to in that manner.
17/12/92             As the cultures were showing some bacterial scum still (although still no molding) a sample was drawn out of the centre of each liquid and added to a honey/water mix.
NOTE: Due to a changing residences and furnace problems ALL of my cultures died out over the month of December.  Thus the yeast project was "Closed" for the duration.  The project is now "Open" again.
20/9/93             New cultures of Wine art 1118 (Champagne) and 1116 (White wine) yeasts begun with dandelion honey (country bulk).  Designate these yeasts type #1 (white wine) and type #2 (champagne).
NOTE: It is much harder than I first thought to keep mead yeast going.  It requires a weekly feeding and cleaning which frankly I often forget.  At this time (8/11/94) I have had my yeasts die out a couple of times and re-started them from a new champagne yeast.  I will keep attempting to culture them as I feel the idea is definately worth pursuing.