Thursday, December 20, 2007

Brewing Chemistry: Part 4- Iodide and starch

During the mashing of the grains, the amylase found in the barley is used to break down unfermentable starch into fermentable glucose. The goal is to break down as much of the starch as possible.

Starch comes in two different forms, amylose and amylopectin. They are both polymers of glucose. Amylose is a linear polymer, and amylopectin is a branched polymer. There is usually more amylopectin in a given sample starch, but it is the amylose that can be used to identify the mashing progress.
A common and simple test for the presence of starch is the iodine test. A solution of iodine (I2) and iodide (I-1 from something like potassium iodide, KI) is added to the sample. The iodine/iodide solution is reddish, but in the presence of amylose it turns dark blue (almost black).

First of all, iodine (I2) is not terribly soluble in water. The addition of iodide (I-1) makes it soluble by forming an I3-1 complex ion.

Amylose adopts a coiled or helix shape. When I3-1 is added it gets trapped in the coils of amylose. The iodine atoms trapped in the coils can be in the form of I3-1 or I5-1 or more iodine atoms (I'm not sure and I don't know if anyone is). The resulting interaction between the amylose and the iodide complex results in a shift of the light being absorbed by the iodide complex. This happens because there is transfer of charge to the starch molecule. This affects the energy spacing of the electrons in the iodine.

The result is a complex that does not absorb light in the blue region of the visible spectrum.

4 comments:

Enso said...

Eric

Is there a certain Iodine solution to use for this? Or is a cheap bottle of iodine from the health and beauty department of Walmart sufficient?

Also, do you know what is the pH of Lactic Acid?

Chemgeek said...

Yup, I just use the stuff from the pharmacy. I put the wort on a white plate and a few drops. It is obvious when there is still starch present.

As far as the lactic acid pH, it depends on the concentration

Enso said...

Thanks Eric

The Lactic Acid is the 88% stuff from LHBS.

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