Chicha de Molle beer

If you are going for authentic you will need to gather old ladies with strong jaws and good teeth. I'm not sure if dentures are a good idea. I would recommend rehydrating the dried corn as well.

 

I believe Charlie Papazion said that the yeast was derived "from the feces of unweaned infants". Wonder what Dogfish used for their version?

 

Hahahahahaahah good one jerry

 

Any word on E. coli counts, lol.

 

I think this info was in The Homebrewer's Companion, but don't know where that book is right now.

 

The lowering of pH during fermentation should kill them - just like Lambic.

 

Yep. Page 78.

 

In my edition (copyright 1994) of Homebrewer’s Companion the index only indicates one entry for Chicha (pg. 375):

“Chicha – Corn beers of the South American high country. Corn is boiled, then “mashed” buy women who chew corn and spit the juice into a fermentation pot. Enzymes in saliva are similar to the enzymes in a mash, breaking down starch to sugar”.

Needless to say but there is no discussion of yeast in the above.

I have the book Ancient Brews Rediscovered and Re-created by Dr. Patrick McGovern and Chapter 8 is entitled Chicha: Chewing Our Way to Corn Beer. A fair portion of this chapter discusses how Dr. McGovern cooperated with Sam Calagione to re-create a Chicha at Dogfish Head Brewery. But there is also quite a bit of discussion about Dr. McGovern’s travels in South America drinking various sorts of Chicha beers. In his discussion on Peru he writes:

“The best yeasts are shared by the women of the village. By fermenting in the same maq’as jars over and over again, you could keep the same yeast humming along.”

I quickly scanned through the Chapter but I was not successful in determining what the origins of that yeast used to ferment Peruvian Chicha.

There is a recipe provided at the end of the chapter for a homebrew interpretation of Chicha and the yeast listed are: Lallemand Belle Saison, WLP566 Belgian Saison, or Wyeast 3711 French Saison. Maybe Saison yeasts are listed since Chicha beers should have low(er) final gravity values?

Cheers!

 

You must have a different edition from me. On pg. 78 of my book is a discussion of "Secondary Ions" and "Mineral Salts".

Cheers!

 

In the opening 2 paragraphs of the yeast chapter.

edit: 5-6 pages past the secondary ions discussion.

 

Thanks for the tip. Yup, on page 86 of my edition is does indeed discuss how Charlie heard from a "very dedicated researcher of indigenous..." that yeast is sourced from baby poop.

I was unsuccessful finding this earlier since the word "Chicha" was not used on page 86.

I will send an e-mail to Dr. Patrick McGovern to see whether he can corroborate this. If I hear back I will post what he has to say here.

I am off to a New Year's Party; bringing six different 'brands' of homebrew but none of those are Chicha.

Happy New Year's to you!

 

Dr. McGovern promptly responded to my e-mail query:

“I can’t say that I know the source of the Peruvian chicha yeast, and I am not the researcher Charlie refers to in his very strange (apocryphal?) origin story. Maybe, Alan Eames, another “Indiana Jones of beer” who worked in the Amazon? I’m not really sure why my brewing consultants went with a saison yeast. You might drop a line to Doug Griffith. Sam might also have some good suggestions.”

So, unfortunately no insight into what was the ‘original source’ of yeast for the Peruvian Chicha beers he consumed.

Cheers!

 

I would assume spontaneous fermentation or a sacred spoon that was permeated with yeast (a little like kveik in the old days) but I like Charlie's story better.

 

I want to start by saying that I'm fairly confident Papazian's theory is bullshit. For all his talents he has a very poor bullshit detector, or simply has low standards for what he will pass along as fact.

That having been said there is a curious coincidence here, which is that the STA1 gene, responsible for diastatic yeast, has been detected in exactly two places. First, as we know, in certain domesticated (never wild) yeast species such as saison yeasts. Second, in human feces in French Guiana. You can read about it here:

http://beer.suregork.com/?p=4068

And it stands to reason that diastatic yeast would be helpful in brewing chicha since the conversion of the starches was likely a hit or miss thing.

[Edited to add a quote from the blog post I linked to: "The link to ‘Beer 2’ was expected (the saison strains can be found from here), but the French Guiana link was definitely unexpected. The villagers produce and consume a traditional starch-rich beverage called cachiri, so maybe STA1 (allowing starch fermentation) has given the strains a fitness advantage there? Anyways, exploring that was outside the scope of this particular study, but it should definitely be clarified in the future."]

But again, I want to emphasize, this is just an interesting coincidence as far as I'm concerned. I very much doubt that people were using feces to ferment chicha.

Separately, very recently (like within the last 1-2 episodes) Denny and Drew discussed malted corn on their Experimental Brewing podcast. You can buy it from Sugar Creek malting in Indiana:

http://www.sugarcreekmalt.com/store/p46/BLOODY_BUTCHER_CORN_[MALTED]_.html

That's the way I would go if I were going to brew a chicha.

 

I was not aware of this podcast. Thanks!

 

Just to make it easy for everyone, here's a link:

https://www.experimentalbrew.com/podcast/brew-files-110-malted-corn-and-cream-ales

 

I missed the edit window, but I did a little googling and found a Wikipedia page mentioning cachiri, the starchy drink apparently consumed in the village in French Guiana where STA1 positive yeast have been detected. Here's the Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inga_edulis

And here's a quote from the page:

"In Colombia the arils are also used to prepare an alcoholic beverage called cachiri for a festival of the same name. The native women chew the arils and spit the mixture into a vat, where it is left to ferment."

 

I would guess that diastatic yeasts evolved in numerous places where sugar was in short supply, or there was an abundance of starch that other fungi were not taking advantage of. There are probably a lot of them out there if someone looks hard. How many of them could make a drinkable beverage is another matter...