Okay, I have to admit that this is one of those questions that’s the result of one of those strange lines of thought that occur at stupid o’clock in the morning. I think it started with the theory that you can ferment pretty much anything and that humans have done so but that probably doesn’t really matter. Daft though it is, it’s now stuck in my head for some bizarre reason and Google has failed me in my efforts to settle the matter since all the hits I get are dubious stuff involving ‘special’ mushrooms.
I think that you need some sort of carbohydrate to perform fermentation. What sort of carb content do mushrooms have?
I would say no, not to any significant degree. There seems to be only a very very small amount of sugar in most mushrooms.
@ kenobi 65: According to online nutritional data it’s pretty low, about 3g per 100g of mushrooms.
Fermenting mushrooms would be really ineffective due to the low carb content, and even if it were effective it would honestly taste like shit. Keep in mind that fermentation is a process of spoiling in hopes that enough good flavors are retained to compliment the alcohol made to produce a good drink. Sometimes, even if you choose delicious things to ferment (fruits, etc.), the end result could taste like crap based on a number of factors. I’ve had quite a few fermentation disasters that looked very promising at the start. I could not even imagine how bad fermented mushrooms would taste…
As for the strange Google hits, that sounds interesting and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to try this like most people, but [I just felt like putting out a theory for shroom drinks lol]…
To incorporate “special” mushrooms into an alcoholic beverage it is more effective to soak the psilocybe mushrooms in a jar of the alcoholic drink of your preference to extract the psychoactive chemicals in the mushroom. This should work as Psilocybin and Psilocin, the psychoactive chemicals, are soluble in water (both are alkaloids) and moderately soluble in ethanol. But this will still, almost guaranteed, taste like ass and no doubt it will go crazy. I am not liable for these ideas haha 
I’m sure you know now, but you should revise your theory by adding “…that you can ferment pretty much anything that contains carbs”
You can ferment mushrooms. I’m writing a book about it. All the chemicals in mushrooms need is sugar. Put the mushrooms in sugar water. Don’t listen to people who tell you tell you it will taste like crap. There is good in everything that lives. The only mushroom that tastes like butt fermented is Shiitake, and it wears off after a few months fermenting. Not much glory in that mushroom, after all though. French horn and morel give off negative chemicals too. Ciao
Um…not a chemist, but if you’re adding sugar and if fermentation is the process of turning carbohydrates (sugars, in this case) to alcohol, how are the mushrooms themselves being fermented?
Seems like you’re fermenting the sugar water and the mushrooms are simply being pickled (well, not pickled if there’s no brine but the equivalent process with sugar/alcohol water) and adding their flavors and chemicals to the resulting fermented mix. Kind of like the choice of wood affects how whiskeys mature.
Also, this thread is over a year old. There’s no need to revive it to answer a question that isn’t open anymore.
I think there might be a limited definition of the word ‘ferment’ abroad in this thread. Worcestershire Sauce (and other fish sauces), Soy sauce, Kimchi and even some types of Salami are all fermented products. In this broader sense, mushrooms can be (and are) fermented.
So maybe this thread is in fact still open…
I’d still disagree.
For soy sauce and kimchi, there’s still a fermentation process going on, though it’s not alcohol being produced. For those, sugars are still converted but into lactic acid, rather than alcohol.
Likewise, Worcestershire sauce starts with some sugars, which are necessary for a fermentation process.
Not sure about salami fermentation, but there’s almost certainly some sugars in there to play with.
For all those examples, there are at least carbohydrates involved in the chemical process.
By contrast, mushrooms don’t have much in the way of carbohydrates to ferment. If the sugar is a key ingredient, it’s not the mushrooms themselves being fermented. So, I’m still reasonably sure it’s the sugar water being fermented.
Well, no. As mentioned above, fermentation is not just for making alcoholic drinks. It’s also for preservation, as in the case of pickles, sauerkraut, kim chi, beans, hot peppers (see: Tabasco sauce), fish, sourdough, yogurt, etc. I imagine if mushrooms were fermentable, they’d be pretty awesome.
I’m not sure how mushrooms would ferment, given their low carb content, but there are a couple of lacto-fermented mushroom recipes if you google. Here’s one. I assume it’s mostly the other ingredients that are fermenting here.
It’s possible to ferment mushrooms without adding any sugars, but even in cases where sugars are added, if the mushrooms are also transformed by metabolic processes (say, into a liquid ketchup), then it’s true to say they’ve been fermented. Fermentation means more than just metabolism of sugars by yeast.
I can’t think of any food or beverage where fermentation does not involve the conversion of sugar/starch. Can you give an example?
Then I suppose it depends on your exact definition. We say grapes ferment to make wine, but it’s still only the sugars that are being used by the yeast. What difference does it makes whether the sugars were originally in the grapes or not? Of course since the sugar comes from the grapes it’s technically more true that grapes can ferment than that mushrooms can, but it’s still the same effect: the sugars become alcohol and carbon dioxide and the rest just hangs about in the mixture to give flavour, whether it be sugar-free grape mush or soggy mushrooms. I should point out that making wine involves adding sugar anyway, although of course the original fruit has a lot of sugar in it too.
It does sound like a bad idea though. Unless you use it to make something for cooking, maybe.
I’ve had that stuff. Ugh. That’s perhaps the only food I’ve ever eaten that I couldn’t get down more than two bites.
That’s fermented through the breakdown of glycogen, though. Isn’t that a polysaccharide/carb?
I just poked around for fermentation of N-Acetylglucosamine (the monomer of chitin, which is the structural carbohydrate in fungi IIRC) into something tasty, but didn’t come up with anything.
My mistake - I thought it was a bacterial fermentation of proteins and other components, which is at best a secondary process for this product.
In any case, the definition of fermentation, although it focuses on carbohydrates, is broader, and if you transform mushrooms by some sort of metabolic process into a different product, there’s really no sense in calling that anything but fermentation.
Insufferable biochemistry boffin here: fermentation of alcohol is an oxidative process that leads to ethanol. Other chemicals or proteins can be oxidized to create other products that add flavors to alcoholic beverages. Mushrooms seem to me to be pretty high on the oxidative scale and pretty low on the complexity scale. They are found on plants and on the ground, breaking them down into less complex, oxidized substances. Think about it: have you ever seen mold growing on mushrooms that you forgot about in the refrigerator? Me neither. They just dry up, at which point they become something exotic to add to Japanese/Chinese food you might be cooking.