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?
Without any additional research beyond my homebrewing experience, it’s possible but very unlikely - almost everything would be against you. Brewing is a pretty fragile process and whilst homebrewing with wild yeast is possible, its a struggle to keep it alive long enough for it to reproduce to sufficient quantities to do it’s thing. And that’s if it can even get the alcohol content high enough and you don’t get any bacterial or mold contamination.
I understand that fungi can and do swap genes, so I wonder if they’ll try to create a brewer’s and vaginal yeast hybrid.
They can, to an extent, if you had lots time and a staffed lab. Crossbreeding yeast strains is kind of tough as most of the ones used in industrial fermentation (ie the stable, commonly used ones) don’t breed well with others and when they do crossbreed, the resulting new strain is often infertile itself. It’s possible, but difficult, unreliable and the resources required put it well beyond the scope of people who don’t own a brewing company.
That’s fascinating!
Amouranth just apparently dropped $17mil on some fruit farms, so money isn’t a problem for her, but who knows if she would go to the trouble, since it sounds pretty error-prone.
I told myself I wouldn’t do it but I did the research: turns out there’s one company who claims to brew with “donor” yeast and that’s the company she’s talking about partnering with. As far as I can tell from everything I’ve found reporting on them these claims are unverified so everything below should be taken with a large amount of skepticism.
Their websites are pretty sparse with information (and unsurprisingly creepily neckbeardy) but looking at what’s available and been reported I’ve been able to piece together what I think is happening. They talk around it and try to couch it in scientific jargon, it sounds like they’re using it to produce lactic acid only, so no alcohol, which is then sterilised and filtered to death before being used as an additive.
All in all it seems that the steps they describe between “donor” and beer that would result in no actual yeasts from the “donor” in the beer at any point, or even any yeasts cultivated from the originals - Which would seem to be the ultimate intent, probably for food safety law complaince. And this all assumes that they aren’t just lieing about it.
They talk around it and try to couch it in scientific jargon, it sounds like they’re using it to produce lactic acid only, so no alcohol, which is then sterilised and filtered to death before being used as an additive.
Seems like a lot of work to make sour beer, but I have no doubt these will sell out in no time regardless, due to the provenance.
And this all assumes that they aren’t just lieing about it.
And I had to ask, because it sounds a lot like a recipe for snake oil.
Also just to add I did more reading and technically they’re using a Lactobacillus which is a bacteria and not a yeast. Which makes more sense as that’s what’s responsible for yeast infections, just to add to the yuck factor.
I wonder, if someone were to explain the actual science behind it, if people would still want to buy it? Because this is not sounding any better.
You can make beer with any kind of yeast. You can make good beer with only certain yeast.
The kind of yeast in question can’t produce alcohol as far as I can tell, only lactic acid. Edit: Lactobacillus not yeast
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.
You can make alcohol with wild yeasts but it’s not as controlled of a process.
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.
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…
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.
I think its like peppers, they’re all the same specie but we’ve bred strains for different purposes, so you’ve got the whole range from bell peppers, to habaneroa, to shishitos.
It might work, I know there’s types of beer based on wild yeasts, but it probably takes special care and is going to take more effort to get the flavor your want from it.
I just learned about this whole God forsaken idea from this post, and it’s disgusting. However, one thing I know for certain is that the type of people who would buy vaginal yeast brewed beer(typing that almost made me gag) ain’t buying it for how it tastes.
This is a completely reasonable hypothesis.
Also, sorry I spoiled the illusion that “Gamer Girl Bathwater” was the most egregious thing the parasocial relationship industry has come up with.
Yes, wild yeast and spontaneous fermentation are things in the beer and wine world. Yes her beer is possible. Also it will be possibly very bad. Or fine.
You could totally make a sourdough by rubbing your butt cheeks in the starter every day and I don’t think your friends would notice.
Its funny, because 200 years ago there were no commercial good products. To make beer you basically had to let it sit out for a couple days until enough wild yeast colonized your food. This is also true of kimchi, saurkraut and a bunch of other ancient foods.