Shubat (chal in Turkmenistan) is fermented camel milk from Kazakhstan and neighboring parts of Central Asia – a thin, tangy, slightly fizzy drink with a faint sweetness. It’s traditionally made by leaving fresh camel milk to ferment with a portion of the previous batch, and it’s an important part of Kazakh food culture (Bilal et al., 2024).
What’s in Shubat
Composition varies a lot with the camels, season and method. A 2024 review reported protein between 1.2% and 5.6%, vitamin C between 28 and 417 mg per litre, and calcium between 1.0 and 1.9 g per litre; the lactose is fermented away completely (Bilal et al., 2024). Shubat is fermented by a mixed community of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts – Lactobacillus helveticus and the lactose-fermenting yeast Kluyveromyces marxianus have both been isolated from it (Ospanova et al., 2026). The yeasts give it fizz and a little alcohol, which increases the longer it ferments.
Shubat has a strong reputation for health benefits in Central Asia, but the review notes that scientific evidence for those claims is only partial (Bilal et al., 2024).
Why Not Raw Camel Milk
Traditionally shubat is made from raw milk, but raw camel milk can carry Brucella: in a study of livestock-owning households in southern Jordan, drinking raw camel milk daily was associated with about twice the odds of brucellosis antibodies (Holloway et al., 2025). Raw milk in general can carry harmful bacteria, and fermentation doesn’t reliably make it safe (CDC). At home, use pasteurized camel milk with a starter.
Where to Get Camel Milk
Pasteurized camel milk is sold fresh or frozen in some Middle Eastern shops and online, and as powder. If you can’t find it, a kefir made from goat’s or cow’s milk is the closest everyday alternative – see our kefir guide.
Related Central Asian ferments: dried yogurt balls qurut, and Mongolian and Kazakh horse-milk kumis; for another fermented milk from a hot climate, see Kenya’s mursik.