Subject: Re: Yeast: Re: Who came up with the idea...

From: [email-masked] (Julie Kangas)
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 18:31:11 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Herman Rubin) writes:
>In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Julie Kangas) writes:
>>In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Barry Shein) writes:
>
>			...................
>
>>I agree too :)  Like people keeping a small amount of bread from
>>the last baking for the next baking.  Without it, the bread may not
>>rise.  Or brewers using a small amount of finished beer to 
>>innoculate the new batch.  We know now that about yeast but that 
>>didn't stop people from using it in the past.  
>
>As I understand it, the rising of bread was discovered in Egypt in
>antiquity, and the use of a small amount to speed up the rising was
>known to do nothing more than that.  Similarly for fermentation; 
>even now, the regulations for some French wines require that no
>yeast other than what is found on the grapes can be used.

Add old dough or brew does speed up fermentation but it also
ensures that you'll have (at least close to) the same culture
as you did previously.  There really is more to it than just
speeding things up.  In brewing this is important as you need
to get the yeast going before obnoxious organisms (including
non-desirable yeast) take over.  In bread, if you have a good
yeast captured and it has adapted itself to the bread, you don't
want it to be taken over by 'hostiles'.  There is also no quarantee
that leaving the dough out will get you the same yeast you got
20 years ago.  Or it may be the same yeast, but your 20 year old
one is better adapted to bread baking.  Quite often people
report that freshly caught yeast cultures don't rise well
but over time they perform better and better.

About the wines:  can the makers use a portion of previously 
fermented put unbottled wine in the new batch?  If so, they're
getting a healthy portion of yeast.  Many beer brewers do this.
But one beer style , Lambic, is brewed using airborne 
yeast (that are found in one area only), but may also they help it along
with older beer.  (If you're interested, this is a truly bizarre
brew, more like a primordial soup than a beer.  There are several 
kinds of yeast and bacteria and various species gain dominance and 
then subside at different points in the fermentation.  The complete 
mechanisms are not known but the brewers know what works.  In addition 
to exposing the beer to air, they will add older beer to it at 
certain times.  They also are careful to use old oaken casks, 
which presumably contain lots of yeast spores of the proper kind.  
New casks don't work as well.  Of course, the yeast don't always 
cooperate and they end up with a weird tasting soup.)

Julie
DISCLAIMER:  All opinions here belong to my cat and no one else

---

From: [email-masked] (Jane Beckman)
Date: 7 Jan 93 19:54:37 GMT

>Many plants labelled as posionous, such as nightshade, were
>used as medicine (and posion) in the past.  I believe that
>digitalis was originally found in nightshade.  But it had
>to be synthesized because the amount of the drug varies
>from plant to plant and a small overdose is lethal.

It's from Foxglove.  And until recently, it was, indeed,
extracted from foxglove, under laboratory conditions.  The
antidote, by the way, to digitalis, comes from another
poisonous plant: blue monkshood (aconite).  

Folks are still experimenting with what mushrooms are edible.
If you read mushroom guides, they say things like "no reported
cases of poisoning, but edibility unknown" or "unpleasant
tasting, but no ill effects reported."  And the poisonous ones
are definitely noted because they killed someone, or made some 
folks deathly ill, etc., and that was recorded somewhere. 

--
  Jilara   [[email-masked]]

"Every now and then, a big rock falls out of the sky, and everyone has 
a *very bad* day."  --from the PBS "Dinosaurs" special.

---

From: [email-masked] (Thor Legvold)
Date: 14 Jan 93 15:05:36 GMT

[email-masked] (Jane Beckman) writes:
: Folks are still experimenting with what mushrooms are edible.
: If you read mushroom guides, they say things like "no reported
: cases of poisoning, but edibility unknown" or "unpleasant
: tasting, but no ill effects reported."  And the poisonous ones
: are definitely noted because they killed someone, or made some 
: folks deathly ill, etc., and that was recorded somewhere. 
: 
There are also many reports (here anyway) of toxins which accumulate
in the body, so that you may go several years eating a 'safe'
mushroom (or an 'unknown' one) and suddenly cross the limit...

Many are also allergic to mushrooms, and again it may not show up the
first time one eats them.  Nasty stuff - be sure to cook/fry them good. 

: --
:   Jilara   [[email-masked]]
: 
: "Every now and then, a big rock falls out of the sky, and everyone has 
: a *very bad* day."  --from the PBS "Dinosaurs" special.
Regards,
Thor