Brewing beer... with mushrooms?

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http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...serid=10&md5=f53cd7f21e1fda75a3cfac08feb4ee22

According to this, common oyster mushroom mycelium can be used to ferment beverages, if treated like yeast.

ADH is an enzyme which functions in yeast and other alcoholic fermentation organisms to change acetaldehyde to ethanol via reduction. This restores NAD+ allowing fermentation to occur constantly.

So, who wants to make a test batch?
Oyster mushroom mycelium is readily available in sterile cultures. So that shouldn't be a problem.
 
Really interesting.

I don't know a whole lot about this sort of stuff but it doesn't really say that the end product is safe to consume. I'd be a little weary of the fermentation by-products.

But other than that, sounds like it could be a start to an awesome (or possibly horrible, who knows?) lot of new beers.
 
I've heard of people making sourdough starters for bread from mushrooms. I'm not sure if it's done like this, or if they're culturing wild yeast that is present on the mushrooms.
 
They're using edible mushroom mycelium to do the work. Mycelium is kinda like yeast, it can exist in aqueous environments, and it eventually turns into a mushroom through various life stages when certain conditions are met. Mycelium basically takes the place of yeast. Though it won't fruit while in wort, atleast to my knowledge, as CO2 inhibits fruiting.

It's not making a beer with mushrooms, but using a mushroom in lieu of yeast.

mycelium-on-leaf-litter-tif.jpg
 
I'll ask the guy in the Mushroom lab down the hall about this. I'm not a huge fan of Oyster mushrooms, but the Matsutake could be interesting. Maybe next time I brew, I could make a little extra wort and try it. I can probably get any mushroom spawn I want from down the hall.
 
Pleurotus ostreatus- the "white rot fungus"

I think I'll skip that one. Actually I'll skip them all, but the other two species are at least appetizing mushrooms!

Really, this is one of those things I'd be tempted to try just for the hell of it! I think the really interesting thing is the part about possible cancer fighting properties of the beer! Beer that's good for your body AND soul!
 
Hey, before Pastuer and yeast knowledge, Reinheitsgebot didn't know from yeast. Who knows what fermented each batch of beer?

I'm going to try it. I'll have to see if my bro up in Washington has any Matsutake left. He collected a pretty good haul of them last fall. I don't suppose the spores survive freezing do they?
 
raceskier said:
Hey, before Pastuer and yeast knowledge, Reinheitsgebot didn't know from yeast. Who knows what fermented each batch of beer?

I'm going to try it. I'll have to see if my bro up in Washington has any Matsutake left. He collected a pretty good haul of them last fall. I don't suppose the spores survive freezing do they?
Click to expand...
Spores aren't exactly the best way to grow fungus, it's kinda risky because you're competing against mold spores, which are more suited to randomly germinating and growing on things. I'd say get a good culture from a reputable web retailer.

As to the dude who's getting cultures, I'd be really interested in your results. I have some Pleurotus citrinopileatus cultures laying around, along with G. frondosa.
 
I checked with the guy down the hall (cultivated mushroom expert) and he hadn't heard of using edible mushroom mycelia in place of yeast to make alcohol. He is intrigued and we're both going to look around some more. I think we will try this in the lab. We'll probably start with an artificial liquid media, not wort. I'll have to find a quick and dirty way to measure actual alcohol production as opposed to loss of sugar. I'm sure the fungus will eat up the sugar, the question is, does it produce ethanol.

Then there's the question of taste.
 
Well, the mushrooms will produce ethanol and CO2 in the absence of O2. That's what the whole article is about.
Pyruvate has a CO2 cleaved off (the carboxyl group), then it's reduced by ADH using NADH, which transfers a hydrogen, replenishing NAD+, to acetyldehyde, changing the carbonyl group into hydroxyl group, thus forming ethanol.

Edit: Wow, I'm typing terrid today.

I'm guessing you'd work with either sterile wort (pressure cooker/autoclave fun) or broth.

The main disadvantage with this I see is the fact that you really wouldn't have the same genetic variability which is available to yeast, since new gametes are formed as spores. Though it's very viable to use the already colonized wort to inoculate a medium for the mycelium to finish their growth on, aka, fruit and produce mushrooms. I don't know much about genetics in mushrooms since I've only started studying bio, but it'd be great to hear someone's more educated opinion on the whole thing.
 
Just because it is published doesn't mean it's true! The work needs to be independently replicated. I'm not ready to just assume that if I do this anerobically, it will produce ethanol. I want to see for myself that ethanol is produced - especially due to the lack of corroborating scientific papers (which could just be because no one has tried yet) (I looked).

I'm not sure I understand your last paragraph. Yeast are a perfectly fine fungi and behave for the most part as such. The yeast when we brew are haploid and only have sex when a different mating type is present. The strains we buy and use are of a single mating type (could be either one though), and as such, no sex, just cell division. Now with Farmhouse/wild brews you may have some sex going on as you may end up with strains of different mating types. In this case the two different strains will fuse to make a diploid cell which then will undergo meiosos, and form 4 SPORES (in an ascus, just like morels do - they're both Ascomycetes). I don't see any disadvantage, there's plenty of genetic variability available in the fungi used it the quoted paper. You typically don't want genetic variability within a given batch (Farmhouse/wild brews excpeted). We use pure, single mating type cultures. Now for different beers, using different strains is good.

I did find a paper on using spent brewery grains for up to 50% of the matrix used to cultivate Oyster mushrooms
 
Hey mushrooms are at least edible, doesn't Budweiser use Apergillus, that's always what they're checking for on House to see what's killing a dude.
 
You ought to ferment some with some psychoactive mushrooms. That would be some potent brew indeed! You would probably only need a sip or two before the world starts to look just a little bit different.
 
pjj2ba said:
I'll ask the guy in the Mushroom lab down the hall about this. I'm not a huge fan of Oyster mushrooms, but the Matsutake could be interesting. Maybe next time I brew, I could make a little extra wort and try it. I can probably get any mushroom spawn I want from down the hall.
Click to expand...

Or you can come to my place from the spring to the fall and we be sure to get some Oyster. :D TERRIBLE year here for Matsutake!

As to the OP, Yeah I dunno, sounds interesting. I am a fan of strange things. It would be a pain though, and I am not sure of the benefit?
 
pjj2ba said:
I did find a paper on using spent brewery grains for up to 50% of the matrix used to cultivate Oyster mushrooms
Click to expand...

Yeah they grow on just about anything it seems. I get monthly emails from mushroomworld and have read articles where the medium is anything from banana leaves to sawdust to well, anything really :D.
 
Sure, under anearobic conditions you'll get ethanol...what we got here is one of them facultative anaerobes.

That doesn't mean it will taste good, though. You can make hooch a lot of ways.

By the way, ever had manchurian mushroom tea?
 
I wonder how much a difference each mushroom variety would impact a brew. I'd like to brew with Chanterelle.... mmmm..... My FAVORITE!!!
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( :off: SIDE NOTE: I know people who go out and pick them every year. Always get about a pound each year from the "rejects" the mushroom buyers don't want. Ohhh, just fried with butter and garlic they are the best thing in the world!!! Hope I don't hijack the thread but I just love chanterelles SOOO MUCH!!!!!!.... :D :off: )
 
pjj2ba said:
Just because it is published doesn't mean it's true! The work needs to be independently replicated. I'm not ready to just assume that if I do this anerobically, it will produce ethanol. I want to see for myself that ethanol is produced - especially due to the lack of corroborating scientific papers (which could just be because no one has tried yet) (I looked).

I'm not sure I understand your last paragraph. Yeast are a perfectly fine fungi and behave for the most part as such. The yeast when we brew are haploid and only have sex when a different mating type is present. The strains we buy and use are of a single mating type (could be either one though), and as such, no sex, just cell division. Now with Farmhouse/wild brews you may have some sex going on as you may end up with strains of different mating types. In this case the two different strains will fuse to make a diploid cell which then will undergo meiosos, and form 4 SPORES (in an ascus, just like morels do - they're both Ascomycetes). I don't see any disadvantage, there's plenty of genetic variability available in the fungi used it the quoted paper. You typically don't want genetic variability within a given batch (Farmhouse/wild brews excpeted). We use pure, single mating type cultures. Now for different beers, using different strains is good.

I did find a paper on using spent brewery grains for up to 50% of the matrix used to cultivate Oyster mushrooms
Click to expand...

I'm purely hypothesizing the creation of stronger, more suited strains for the job of fermentation. I wouldn't think that yeast, which is easy to breed, would have as much of a problem jumping that hurdle. Whereas mushrooms need to fruit before you have offspring with it's own set of genes. Sorry I didn't make that more clear.

I'm probably going to take a shot at this one too. I'll do some research in some analytical chem books on how exactly I'd test for EtOH, as you are doing, and then make some wort for it to ferment. I wonder what would go well with oysters... Stout?
 
I mean I don't like mushrooms per se, but I don't see why people are tripping out about things other than yeast performing "alcoholic respiration" or as we call it fermentation.

Its actually pretty common.. When simple organisms survive in an anaerobic condition alcoholic respiration is basically necessary.

I mean thats basically how it was explained in plant bio, which covers fungi and such.
 

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