Scientists make sourdough bread using yeast found in 5,000-year-old mummy

Scientists have baked a sourdough loaf of bread using yeast strains harvested from a 5,000-year-old mummy and now plan to see if they can use them to brew beer too. The yeast came from Ötzi the Iceman, a famous corpse remarkably preserved by being frozen in Alpine ice near the Italy-Austria border until he was discovered in 1991. Ötzi has been the subject of intense study since he was found and has shed much light on pre-historic European people and their way of life. Scientists have been recently studying the microorganisms preserved in and on Ötzi’s remains. One unexpected result of that work was that researchers extracted yeast and then used it to make sourdough bread. “Eventually, we obtained a completely normal dough that rose within 24 hours − basically just like with ordinary yeast. We made some really good dough with it,” microbiologist Mohamed Sarhan said in statements posted to the website of Eurac Research where he works for the Institute for Mummy Studies. “I’ve never baked bread before – and it showed. So the result definitely had room for improvement. But as I said, these were our very first experiments,” Sarhan added. Now, homemade beer could also be on the menu. “We want to pursue this further and involve specialized research teams from the food sector in the process. Bread is currently one of the obvious applications we’re considering; another is beer – we’ve already discussed this with experts from [German brewer] Weihenstephan,” he said. …