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Fermented milk from Turkmenistan

Chal (Turkmen fermented camel milk)çal

Chal is a sour, lightly fizzy camel-milk drink of the Turkmen. Camel milk is soured in a skin bag or jar with some older chal, and fresh milk is added each day for 3 to 4 days. The lactic bacteria and yeasts leave about 1.1 % alcohol and a little carbon dioxide.

Fully documentedFermented milk4 days – 5 days

Recipe

Chal (Turkmen fermented camel milk), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Upyernoz on Flickr, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
No fixed amounts recordedA skin bag or ceramic jar of about 30 kg capacity (FAO, Yagil 1982). The end product should be 3 to 5 times the volume of the chal first put in. No other amounts are given.
Camel milk[fao-yagil]
Previously soured milk (old chal), as starterThe new milk is mixed with it, then fresh milk is added each day for 3–4 days[fao-yagil]
Starterbackslop, semi-continuous over 3–4 days; industrial: L. casei + S. thermophilus + lactose-fermenting yeasts (Torula spp. in older work)

Total time across the recorded steps: 4 days – 5 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countLactobacilliYeastsMilk sugarLactic acid

What changes: Camel milk sours with some older soured milk in a skin bag

Step 1 of 4
Sour camel milk with previously soured milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactobacilli
Yeasts
L. casei

Output: young chal.

Flavour
sour
Texture
thin
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

lactobacilli, streptococci and yeasts from the old chal

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Chal is a sour, lightly fizzy camel-milk drink of the Turkmen. Camel milk is soured in a skin bag or jar with some older chal, and fresh milk is added each day for 3 to 4 days. The lactic bacteria and yeasts leave about 1.1 % alcohol and a little carbon dioxide. Made in 4 steps over 4 days – 5 days. The longest step, add fresh milk daily for 3–4 days, takes 3–4 days (Yagil R. 1982). Lactobacilli, streptococci and yeast and Lacticaseibacillus casei, Streptococcus thermophilus and lactose-fermenting yeasts do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step3–4 daysReported[fao-yagil]Add fresh milk daily for 3–4 days
Temperature20–25 °CReported[fao-yagil]Industrial alternative with pure cultures

What makes this one different

Chal is a continuous batch. Fresh camel milk is topped up every day for 3 to 4 days into the same skin bag, so the drink grows to 3 to 5 times the first volume. It is camel milk with yeast, so it carries some alcohol and gas, unlike a plain soured milk.

Related ferments

Variants

  • AgaranFermented cream skimmed off chal.

Safety

The traditional method adds fresh camel milk to the souring milk for 3 to 4 days, and the source describes no heating of that milk. The WHO says raw or undercooked animal products, including milk, carry a risk of infection from a variety of pathogens, and that people at greater risk of severe MERS should avoid drinking raw camel milk. For the industrial method, the FAO text says holder pasteurisation of the milk did not harm it, while 85 °C for 5 min gave a bad flavour.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

History
The sources we found do not record its history.
  1. [fao-yagil] Yagil R. 1982, Camels and camel milk, FAO Animal Production and Health Paper 26, Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, chapter 4 (milk products); cites Grigor'yants 1954, Kiselev 1956 and Kuliev 1959book
  2. [bilal2024] Bilal Z., Akhmetsadykova S., Baubekova A., Tormo H., Faye B., Konuspayeva G. 2024, The Main Features and Microbiota Diversity of Fermented Camel Milk, Foods 13(13):1985, doi:10.3390/foods13131985paper
  3. [wp] en.wikipedia, Chal (citing Yagil 1982 FAO Camels and Camel Milk; Khazanov 1994; Kuliev 1959)wiki
  4. [who-mers] World Health Organization, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), fact sheetgov