How Not to Die of Botulism (2013)

Re:How Not to Die of Botulism (2013) by mrob on Saturday June 17, 2017 @12:39PM (#14576564)

Even if there was no risk of botulism, attempting to make alcohol from potatoes and wild microbes sounds like a bad idea in any case. Yeast can't ferment starch directly, so you'd need some other microbe to ferment it to sugars first. Eg. to make sake, rice is fermented by koji (Aspergillus oryzae) to sugars, and then yeast further ferments it to alcohol. You almost certainly have wild yeasts floating about nearby, but it's less likely that there's something that will convert the starch to sugars effectively. You could easily end up with chunks of rotting potato and no extra alcohol from them.

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Re:How Not to Die of Botulism (2013) by spott on Saturday June 17, 2017 @02:25PM (#14577041)

>Yeast can't ferment starch directly

This isn't really true. Saccharomyces cerevisiae can't generally ferment starch directly, but various forms of Brettanomyces can. Wild yeast and bacteria that can ferment starch are pretty common -- a turbid mash (which leaves a bunch of starches in the wort) is still used before putting the wort into a cool ship to be inoculated with wild yeast and then fermented in barrels.

Granted, a true wild sour usually takes a few months to a few years to ferment out all the starches and develop the flavors that are so interesting, but "Yeast can't ferment starch directly" is an oversimplification.

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Re:How Not to Die of Botulism (2013) by slackingoff2017 on Saturday June 17, 2017 @01:02PM (#14576663)

I think traditional moonshine recipes called for boiling potatoes first to convert starch to sugars. Also baking yeast is quite effective at fermentation and survives to fairly high alcohol levels.

For fun some years ago I made some moonshine using cornmeal and brown sugar. Built my own still too, fun stuff. Just gotta make sure everything is lead free and discard heads and tails.

I used a valved reflux still and kept temps within a couple degrees of ideal. Ran the result through carbon filters at the end. Couldn't tell the difference between my stuff and everclear

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Re:How Not to Die of Botulism (2013) by wazoox on Saturday June 17, 2017 @01:36PM (#14576812)

A readily available way to make sugar from starch is saliva. Chew your potato for a while, spit it into the jar, repeat. That's the traditional way to produce maize beer in Amazonia and elsewhere :)

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