[Level: Advanced]

Our next interviewee has something to be envious about: a collection of micro-organisms isolated from fermented foods. At the University of Ljublana Neža Čadež works on using this collection for all kinds of new fermented foods. In Bolzano she presented the results of a project aimed at making gluten free beer from buckwheat, a grain that when used with a regular beer yeast doesn’t make for a very tasty beer. In the Slovenian mountains, the team isolated rare yeast strains from spontaneously fermented ciders and selected one that performed best on buckwheat. Then, they improved it so it better utilizes maltose, the sugar mainly found in wort. Hear what Neža has to say about how they managed to do so. Spoiler: don’t carelessly play with this at home, and always keep an eye out for proper pH values.

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