strains for fermenting lactose to make ethanol?

[MattTimBell]

Hi all,

I originally posted this to the cheesemakers forum because it involves milk even though the question more directly concerns making an alcoholic beverage, but no one seemed to know the answer. My apologies in advance if this forum isn't the right one to post it in! It was simply the next place that occurred to me to go.

I've read on Wikipedia that there is a medieval Scottish recipe (inherited from the Norse) called Blaand, and further dabbling on the WWW indicates it was once-upon-a-time popular when home cheesemaking was common practice. It involved saving the whey from cheesemaking and making a wine-like drink from it. This guy (http://www.erringtoncheese.co.uk/pages/fallachan.php) is apparently making a modernized, high-quality, commercial version of the stuff, reportedly with a sherry-like quality.

My curiousity is: would anybody have a guess how this stuff would be made? I know that s. cerevisiae (brewers yeast) will most likely not do the trick, as it cannot metabolize lactose which I'm presuming is the primary sugar in whey. I know that the lactobacillus genus will ferment lactose, but it mostly(?) produces lactic acid, not ethanol, and I'm wanting Blaand, not watery yogurt!

Anybody have a suggestion for 1) what organism(s) could make this medieval drink and 2) where a homebrewer might obtain a culture of it?

Thanks!

 

[rockfish42]

Add lactase to break the lactose into simple sugars and use normal yeast.

 

[rockfish42]

Upon further research you could attempt to make this with whey from raw milk and hope it has the right mix of organisms to end up with something alcoholic.

 

[MattTimBell]

Rockfish, thanks. That gives me some idea. I don't have access to raw milk, but this does make me wonder if the fermentation process isn't of the form:

Some organism uses lactase to make simple sugars --> S. cerevisiae makes that into alcohol.

I'll poke around some more. Again, thanks.

 

[nomadbrewer33]

You've got me thinking. What does your recipe say? Is this made entirely from whey? The website you linked to makes it sound like this guy might be mixing the concoction with wine and bottling it. "Somewhere between wine and sherry" doesn't sound like fermented whey to me.

Most cheese yeasts are mixtures of strains of Lactococcus, Streptococcus and/or Lactobacillus, among other bacteria. A lot of cheese yeasts are proteolytic (break down proteins) or are known to produce diacetyl, so you want to figure out what your aiming before making your wine buttery and thin...or taste like cheese...unless that's what you want. You may be better with a White Labs or Wyeast sour culture that is intended for wine or beer.

 

[DannPM]

Fermented whey? (swallows and successfully suppresses vomit that almost made it to my mouth)

 

[MattTimBell]

nomad, also, thanks! The Wikipedia page on Blaand says it was made from whey and that cognate drinks persist in Scandanavia and Russia. I've yet to find out what the drink is called in those cultures. Your thought strikes a cord -- what if it is fermented by some superattenuative yeast like Brett L., or perhaps a symbiotic colony of Brett, Pedio, Lacto and maybe Sherry yeast (since he says it ends up tasting sherry like)? I know Brett can eat dextrins. Will it eat lactose, too? And, what about Sherry yeast? That strain I can get easily enough.....

One other thing: the cheesemaking people did end up replying to me, and they seem to think the thing to do is...to do nothing at all. Whey + demijohn + time == Blaand. I'm assuming in this instance that the whey was just held at some high enough temperature to encourage thermophilic organisms and otherwise hasn't been sterilized. I guess they're also using raw milk, as rockfish suggested. I've no idea how to get raw milk, though!

DannPM -- my first thought was similar, but I'm hopelessly drawn to weird foods. I think I might be able to resist this...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casu_marzu (maybe!) Otherwise, I'm hopeless

 

[rockfish42]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumis
Looks to be a cognate, as well as maybe kefir though the alcohol production is limited in both.

You'd also be looking for a heterofermentative bacteria that produces less lactic acid per glucose.