Bracket

I'm a casual college basketball fan. I listen to enough sports talk radio to know a thing or two about college basketball. At least enough to fill out a tourney bracket.

I'm in a pool with a few friends. There's no money involved so the IRS can call off the dogs. Of the first 32 games, I got 26 right. Not bad, but not great. The good news is, of the teams I was wrong about, I didn't have any of them advancing to the next round anyways.

I picked Ohio State to win it all. Wow, what a gamble.

What I really hate about the NCAA tourney, is having to wait 4 days for the third round. You get this massive flurry of activity during the first four days. Then...NOTHING...until the following Thursday. Another flurry, and then nothing for about a week. I hate having to wait. I know, I'd probably complain if it all happened during one week. I guess I just need to deal with it.

32 uses of beer

So, you think beer is useless. You fool!!! Read this and learn.

Anything missing?

I've done #28 numerous times. Beer-can chicken. mmmmmmmm Fantastic!!!!

Now, back to my beer bubble bath....

Gibberellic acid follow-up

Someone who read my post on gibberellic acid and its relationship to brewing was nice enough to send me a copy of the Corey papers I mentioned (JACS 1978, p.8031 and 8034). Thanks.

I was struck by one of the statements made. In explaining why gibberellic acid was so hard to make they mentioned that "a singularly diabolical placement and density of functionality serves to thwart all but the most sophisticated of approaches." I love the use of the word "diabolical." It fits perfectly.

Without going into the details of the synthesis, rest assured the paper details sophisticated approaches.

Cream Stout

In a previous post, I implied that my cream stout recipe has been perfected. That is kind of true, but I continue to tweak it. That is what is fun about homebrewing. The constant experimentation.

But, I do have a recipe that really works. The result is just plain yummy. I have 5 gallons in a secondary right now. In a week I will bottle and in another week I will drink.

Here is the recipe:

4 lb. Mountmellick light malt syrup
2 lb Munton & Fison Dark DME
0.5 lb crystal malt
0.5 lb dextrin (Cara-pils)
0.5 lb roasted barley
1 oz. N. Brewer hop pellets (bittering)
1 oz. Stryian Goldings hop pellets (aroma)
1 lb lactose
Wyeast #1084 Irish Ale yeast

The grains were steeped in 1 gallon of water at 155°F for 30 minutes. Sparged with 0.5 gallons and added to the brew kettle. The malt extracts are added to the brew kettle and the volume is adjusted to 3 gallons. The wort is brought to a boil and the N. brewer hops are added. This is boiled for 45 minutes. The Styrian Goldings hops, lactose and some irish moss are added. This is boiled for another 15 minutes. Cool, dilute to 5 gallons, pitch yeast.... wait.

Tell me what you think.

Brewing chemistry: Part 1- Gibberellic acid

Gibberellic acid is a plant hormone that induces the formation of a number of key enzymes, and in a sense, it gets things started in the brewing process. So, I thought I would start with gibberellic acid.

Beer is made from the sugars in malted barley (along with a few other key ingredients). In brief, the malting process involves soaking the barley in water to induce germination. During germination cell walls are broken down and starch is released within the grain [there is a bunch of plant anatomy that I could get into, but I'm not really interested in that]. Enzymes are formed that will eventually be used by the brewer to break down the starch into maltose. At a certain point germination is stopped and the grain is kiln dried and/or roasted. This is now malted barley, and it is ready to be mashed. I will deal with mashing in another post.

I want to zero in on what causes the starch-hydrolyzing enzymes to form. As the barley is germinating, any free carbohydrates are consumed during respiration (i.e converted to pyruvate and then CO2). Once the carbohydrates are depleted, the starving barley grain turns to its starch reserves. Since starch doesn't just fall apart into glucose, enzymes are needed. When the free glucose gets low, a signal is sent to start forming enzymes (amylase) to break up starch. The "signal" that triggers the formation of these enzymes is the plant hormone, gibberellic acid (GA3).

The structure of GA₃ is:



This is a very interesting molecule. It was first synthesized by a fellow by the name of Elias James Corey in 1978. I'd love to write a bit about his synthesis, but thanks to very limited (and embarrassingly so) library access at my institution, I can't easily get the papers. Thanks to Peter J. Stang, I can at least see the first page of the 1978 communications [JACS, 1978, v.100, p.8031 and p. 8034]

GA₃ gets the germinating plant to form mRNA that codes for the formation of things like amylase and other starch hydrolyzing enzymes. How any of the gibberellins work is not well understood. What is known is that the cells in the aleurone layer of the barley seed contain a membrane-bound receptor for GA₃. When GA₃ binds, a Myb transcription regulator is produced. This Myb protein induces transcription of the amylase gene. The amylase is sent on a tour of duty to destroy starch, but a well trained maltster will stop the malting before this takes place. The amylase is going to be used during the mashing process by the brewer.

To be continued...

Brewing chemistry: Intro

I am an extract brewer. Not by choice, but by necessity. My 5 year goal is to take the plunge and move to all-grain brewing. My limitations right now are time, space and acclimating my patient and understanding wife to the realities of my hobby.

Extract versus all-grain: The difference between the two is the source of fermentable sugars. In all-grain brewing the sugars are extracted directly from malted barley in a process known as "mashing". In extract brewing, the sugars come in the form of an extract, either dry or liquid. The sugars are extracted from the grains and dried to a powder under vacuum (or thick syrup) in a glorious factory somewhere. A typical extract recipe calls for 5-6 pounds of dry malt extract. In all-grain brewing recipes typically require 5-15 pounds of barley.

All-grain brewing requires more specialized equipment and more time. Is it superior to extract brewing? Well, that depends on who you ask. The result for either is superb beer, but with all-grain brewing there is more control over the final character of the beer. I hope to get into all-grain brewing someday.

I started writing this post and realized there were so many tangents I wanted to go on, that the post would be too long, too cumbersome and probably confusing. So, I am going to write a serial. [One of my favorite books of all time is "The Count of Monte Cristo." It was written as a serial. According to a legend I may have made up in my mind, Dumas started writing it and due to its popularity, he kept adding chapter after chapter without knowing where everything was headed.]

For every entry I am going to pick one aspect of the brewing process and write about the Chemistry involved. Hopefully, it will become a list of interesting and useful tidbits of brewing chemistry.

I must warn you: I am NOT a brewing chemist. I am a chemist who brews. Brewing is a hobby and not my career. Therefore, don't expect me to know everything.

SPME...the endgame... finally!!

OK, I realize I've been talking about this for too long. On the 3 month anniversary of the 3rd day after I started this blog (depending on timezone), I am publishing some SPME GC/MS data. This is from an old post, but I am now publishing the computer generated results. First, here is the GC trace:



Second, here are the results...... WAIT JUST A FREAKIN' MINUTE. Before you blindly read and accept the results, I must tell you, these were picked out of an Agilent library based on comparison to MS fragmentation patterns. If Rosko and Derek have taught us anything, it's that computers cannot be trusted. They are very useful, but not infallible ("I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"). Regardless, let's blindly accept the data from the computer, shall we?

Here it is:


I've only picked a few of the big peaks. However, there are really no surprises. A lot of esters and higher alcohols. The SPME conditions have NOT been optimized. I have not experimented with any other fibers. I'm sure I could mess around with the conditions and find other interesting compounds.

I'd like to look for hop compounds and polyphenols (tannins). I know I'm not the first one to do this, so I'll keep looking for information related to this.

Until then, realize as you drink your beer: what a wonderful chemical concoction it is.