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Fermented milk from Sakha Republic

Kymys (Yakut koumiss)кымыс

Kymys is the Sakha (Yakut) name for koumiss, fermented mare's milk, the national drink of Yakutia. A stronger form is called köönnüü kymys or köiüürgen, and there are named variants such as kymys with melted butter.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Kymys itself. Its own sources do not record how it is made, so the steps and scenes below are those of Koumiss / qymyz, the closest documented fermented milk ferment, shown as a guide to the method, not as a record of Kymys.

Short entryFermented milk

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo source gives a Yakut recipe or amounts.
Mare milkThe milk all koumiss is made from[codex243]

Total time across the steps of Koumiss / qymyz: 28 h – 3.2 days

Start
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What changes: Starting material: raw mare milk, milked in summer

Step 1 of 5 · steps of Koumiss / qymyz
Milk the mares
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Yeasts

Output: raw mare milk, July to October.

Flavour
sweet while fresh (Rubruck)
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

raw milk flora

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

Kymys is the Sakha (Yakut) name for koumiss, fermented mare's milk, the national drink of Yakutia. A stronger form is called köönnüü kymys or köiüürgen, and there are named variants such as kymys with melted butter. Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Kluyveromyces marxianus, the specific starter Codex gives for kumys does most of the fermenting.

What makes this one different

Kymys is the Yakut form of koumiss, with its own names, a stronger köönnüü form and variants such as kymys with melted butter.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Köönnüü kymys / köiüürgen (strong kymys)A stronger kymys (ru.wikipedia, Yakut cuisine).
  • Arylaakh kymysKymys with melted butter (Danilov 2019, Yakut dairy names).

Safety

Codex sets minimum acidity (0.7 % lactic acid), ethanol (0.5 % vol) and live-culture counts (starter 10⁷ cfu/g, yeasts 10⁴ cfu/g) for kumys in general.

History and sources

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

Ethnographer V. L. Seroshevsky (1896) wrote that milk food held first place in the Yakut diet (cited by Danilov 2019). Danilov collected 173 Yakut base words for dairy products.

  1. [codex243] Codex Alimentarius, Standard for Fermented Milks CXS 243-2003 (revised 2008, 2010), sections 2.1 and 3.3 (kumys in general)spec
  2. [msu] Danilov I.A. 2019, Номинации молочных продуктов (Yakut dairy product names), Lomonosov-2019 conference abstract, North-Eastern Federal Universityarchive
  3. [wp-ru] ru.wikipedia, Якутская кухня (names only)wiki