[Sca-cooks] brewing

[Susan Fox]

Ever leave a bottle in the fridge too long?  About like that.

Corporate products like "Ocean Spray" juice "cocktails" are full of high fructose corn syrup and pasteurized so natural yeasts are not a factor.  You would be better off formulating your own fruit ferments.  

On the other hand... Leave apples, straight off the tree, no big-company wax to make the peel shiny, in a barrel long enough and you get scrumpy cider.  Yum.

Brewers have bred different strains of yeast over the centuries for different purposes.  Whilst bread yeast is good for making lots of bubbles, the yeasts for brewing is better for producing the other waste product, alcohol.  The various different brewing yeasts are designed for different purposes;  beer, wine, champagne, etc.

DO NOT use "brewers yeast" that is sold as a nutritional supplement;  it is full of B vitamins but it is "killed" so it won't make bubbles and alcohol in your tummy.  Probably just as well.

Selene Colfox, Caid


-----Original Message-----
>From: Ian Kusz <sprucebranch at gmail.com>
>Sent: Jun 21, 2008 2:57 AM
>To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
>Subject: [Sca-cooks] brewing
>
>Okay, this question is a little silly, but I'm curious.
>
>>From what I can ascertain, brewers use a special yeast, which is more
>delicate, and provides a finer taste.
>
>But....what if you had a fruit beverage....(something like Ocean Spray,
>which is chock-full of sugars, or a fruit cocktail with pure sugar in it)
>and let it ferment from yeast in the air?  Would the resultant...uh...mess
>be safe to administer to humans?  And what would it be called?
>
>Obviously, out-gassing is a concern, so you'd have to open the bottle, from
>time to time.  Or you'd get exploded plastic.
>
>And how would it taste?  But the most important, would it be something that
>would make people sick?
>
>-- 
>Ian of Oertha