Pombe Brew

cousteauflyingteam said:

...Yeast called Schizosaccharomyces pombe...

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cousteauflyingteam said:

Has anyone every tried this type of African beer using a specific species of Yeast called Schizosaccharomyces pombe. If so does anyone have a good recipe to try? Much appreciated!!

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Schizosaccharomyces pombe, also called "fission yeast", is a species of yeast. It is used as a model organism in molecular and cell biology. It is a unicellular eukaryote, whose cells are rod-shaped. Cells typically measure 3 to 4 micrometres in diameter and 7 to 14 micrometres in length. Its genome, which is approximately 14.1 million base pairs, is estimated to contain 4,970 genes, possibly the fewest in any free-living eukaryote.

These cells maintain their shape by growing exclusively through the cell tips and divide by medial fission to produce two daughter cells of equal sizes, which makes them a powerful tool in cell cycle research.

Fission yeast was isolated in 1893 by Lindner from East African millet beer. The species name is derived from the Swahili word for beer (Pombe). It was first developed as an experimental model in the 1950s: by Urs Leupold for studying genetics[1][2], and by Murdoch Mitchison for studying the cell cycle[3][4].

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However, the species that we study is the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. The word pombe means beer in Swahili, and this yeast was originally isolated in millet beer from eastern Africa. It can be used to brew, although not really recommended. S. pombe and closely related species have been isolated from grape juice, kambucha tea, and arak. S. pombe particularly useful in the laboratory, where we use it as a model system for cell division. For an introduction to the use of model systems in biology, see this supplement from The Scientist. We have information about original characterization of S. pombe, and more detailed description of the derivation of the standard wild type isolate.

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he principal inebriant is a beer without hops, called pombe

In the late 1850's Richard Francis Burton traveled from Zanzibar to Lake Tanganyika and back, and then wrote The Lake Regions of Central Africa: A Picture of Exploration (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1860; reprinted by Dover Publications, and by Scholarly Press). In the "Village Life in East Africa" chapter he wrote about the traditional beer and wine.

In East Africa every man is his own maltster; and the "iwánzá" or public house of the village , is the common brewery. In some tribes, however, fermentation is the essential occupation of the women. The principal inebriant is a beer without hops, called pombe. This [beer] of the negro and negroid races dates from the age of Osiris: it is the buzah of Egypt and the farther East, and the merissa of the Upper Nile, the... xythum of the West, and the oala or boyaloa of the Kafirs and the South African races. The taste is somewhat like soured wort of the smallest description, but strangers, who at first dislike it exceedingly, are soon reconciled to it by the pleasurable sensations to which it gives rise. ... When made thick with the grounds or sediment of grain it is exceedingly nutritious. Many a gallon must be drunk by the veteran malt-worm before intoxication; and individuals of both sexes sometimes live almost entirely upon pombe. It is usually made as follows: half of the grain--holcus, panicum, or both mixed--intended for the brew is buried or soaked in water till it sprouts; it is then pounded and mixed with the other half, also reduced to flour, and sometimes with a little honey. The compound is boiled twice or thrice in huge pots, strained, when wanted clear, through a bag of matting, and allowed to ferment: after the third day it becomes as sour as vinegar. ... As these liquors consume a quantity of grain they are expensive; the large gourdful never fetches less than two khete or strings of beads, and strangers must often pay ten khete for the luxury.
...
The use of pombe is general throughout the country: the other inebriants are local. At the island and on the coast of Zanzibar, tembo, or toddy, in the West African dialects tombo, is drawn from the cocoa-tree; and in places a pernicious alcohol, called mvinyo, is extracted from it. The Wajiji and other races upon the Tanganyika Lake tap the Guinea-palm for a toddy, which, drawn grawn in unclean pots, soon becomes acid and acrid... "Máwá," or plantain-wine, is highly prized because it readily intoxicates. The fruit, when ripe, is peeled and hand-kneaded with coarse green grass, in a wide-mouthed earthen pot, till all the juice is extracted: the sweet must is then strained through a cornet of plantain-leaf into a clean gourd, which is but partially stopped. To hasten fermentation a handful of toasted or pounded grain is added: after standing for two days in a warm room the wine is ready for drinking.
(Chapter XVIII -- Village Life in East Africa)

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Commercially, S.pombe is also used as a fermenter of traditional East African millet beer and, to a lesser extent, wine. In fact, its species epithet is the Swahili word for beer. However, reviews of S. pombe beer have not been stellar, as it appears to hold a strong sulfur taste

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Pombe: beer made from plantains or bananas.

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