Amouranth, the Kick streamer, is allegedly brewing beer with her vaginal yeast. It’s an obvious publicity stunt to squeeze more money from her impressionable and “thirsty” audience.
Gross-factor aside, is this even possible? Is it analogous to brewer’s yeast? Would this cause undesirable side effects or introduce undesirable compounds?
Okay, ew… but for what it’s worth brewers yeasts are very specific strains of yeast that have been bred for the purpose. One of the most important aspects of these brewers yeasts versus regular bakers yeasts or wild yeasts (like a sourdough starter) is that they can thrive in higher alcohol environments, allowing them to convert more sugar into alcohol (e.g., I think champagne yeasts can give you a higher ABV). Brewers yeast will also likely be more efficient and convert sugar to alcohol faster than wild strains (sourdough is also a much slower process than using bakers yeasts), which might have implications for food safety if the yeast cannot outcompete other nastier microbes. You can make alcohol with wild yeasts but it’s not as controlled of a process.
Also not all yeast strains convert sugar into alcohol, the strain in question in this case will only produce lactic acid.
I was wondering about that! I wasn’t sure what strain it was and didn’t really want to look it up, haha. Very good point, though!
Just to add technically I’m wrong, they’re using a Lactobacillus not a yeast.
Several drinks have “store barrel in cave/shed in specific region” as a manufacturing step, specifically because of the wild yeast in the area.
But only a small number, because making people violently sick is a poor business strategy.
And it was this aspect that I learned about just a few days prior that led me to question the whole thing. For the purposes of making what average people would consider beer, it seemed like you couldn’t just swap in whatever you wanted.
You definitely can use wild yeasts to make alcohol. It probably won’t work as well or as consistently, but I’m sure you can make some good stuff just by letting things ferment naturally. I bake a lot of sourdough and it’s very fiddly compared to commercial yeasts. You also technically can use bakers yeast for brewing, but I think it’s not ideal for various reasons, like the flavour can be different and I think it doesn’t clump together as much so it’s harder to remove.