The secret to better beer could lie in cell signaling networks

MIT Technology Review ^ | 10/25/19

[cloudmountain]

Making beer isn't so easy.
When we lived overseas there was an Aussie woman who made GREAT beer.
She had the touch.

[Billthedrill]

Huge topic. The control of chaperones has implications for anti-mutagenic applications such as cancer research. I’ve said it many times before: beer will save humanity!

[max americana]

“I’ve said it many times before: beer will save humanity!”

Have you seen the History of Beer’ on History channel? Without beer, there would be no America. The American Revolution was “fermented” in colonial beer halls where colonials either troll Brit soldiers or have meetings in them on how to screw the limeys..

[LibWhacker]

I love it. It's gonna be glorious!

[null and void]

The obvious solution (pun intended) is to take the repitching sample out before the final ethanol concentration is reached.

It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to recognize that a 0.07% solution has got to be less stressful than a Seven-Per-Cent Solution.

(See what I did there?)

[Mariner]

” I’ve said it many times before: beer will save humanity!”

Thank you for saying that...many times.

[Truthoverpower]

I made beer for 15 years back when I started when I was 17 I taught six people to brew beer that started major breweries and made millions at it

all my beers were 12 to 15% alcohol because I simply took the ingredients and doubled them

my ex-wife made me quit about 2001 and the funny thing is I really only like IPAs now whereas back then I used to brew Stout porters and barley wines

The amazing thing is you’re allowed to own all of the beer bring equipment and bring your own beer at age 16 I found that out when I was at Berkeley and I was only 17

I was a pretty famous camper there at my co-op in Berkeley in the 1980s with my super Duper beers

there was really only Sierra Nevada’s back then

[Mariner]

“It doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to recognize that a 0.07% solution has got to be less stressful than a Seven-Per-Cent Solution. “

That’s how the cultures are made for home brewers.

The yeast actually grows to its greatest extent over about 48hrs. Once it saturates the brew, conversion to alcohol starts.

Taking a sample somewhere between 24 and 48hrs would provide a robust density of robust yeast.

[Wonder Warthog]

Seems to me that every couple of beer batches, they need to do a few “yeast generations” without forcing the yeast organisms to generate alcohol. Give’em a chance to “rest up” so to speak.

[null and void]

Ah! I guessed another one right!

[Fester Chugabrew]

Happy with Hamm’s here. Looking for Blatz.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Anchor Steam predates Sierra Nevada by a HUGE number of years.

[MRadtke]

Quite so. True for cocaine AND alcohol...

[StAnDeliver]

"At the heart of this process is yeast, a single-celled fungus that does all the heavy lifting for brewers. It is so important that beer makers have learned to collect the yeast from the fermented liquid and reuse it in the next round. This trick, called “serial repitching,” saves both time and money."

There is a bakery here that has a thriving 150-year-old yeast colony that they brought from Germany, and they make the singular best donuts and bread you have ever tasted.

[cloudmountain]

I made beer for 15 years back when I started when I was 17 I taught six people to brew beer that started major breweries and made millions at it
all my beers were 12 to 15% alcohol because I simply took the ingredients and doubled them
my ex-wife made me quit about 2001 and the funny thing is I really only like IPAs now whereas back then I used to brew Stout porters and barley wines
Your wife made you quit?!
What a shame.

The amazing thing is you’re allowed to own all of the beer bring equipment and bring your own beer at age 16 I found that out when I was at Berkeley and I was only 17
I was a pretty famous camper there at my co-op in Berkeley in the 1980s with my super Duper beers
there was really only Sierra Nevada’s back then
What is a "Sierra Nevada"?

.

.

Glug! Glug!

[StAnDeliver]

"They say that ethanol itself may be responsible for the change, because in high concentrations it creates a kind of stress for yeast cells that changes the way their molecular machinery works. And they say a better understanding of this process could help make beer better for all of us."

This is also interesting because I remember a study of resveratrol - which was going to make us all live forever about 5 years ago - concluded that the highest commercially-available resveratrol-laden vino was some Finger Lakes red (was it a Pinot?) that the grape strain had consistently undergone the most stress from both climate maxima and pathogens (mold, etc.); and yet always flourished year-to-year.

[StAnDeliver]

"all my beers were 12 to 15% alcohol because I simply took the ingredients and doubled them"

If you could remember how to do that, I wonder if a brewery could use that as a starting point for creating the currently commercially-popular flavored beers, rather than utilizing a shitty, plain malt base.

[neverevergiveup]

This is fairly predictable, but raises interesting questions about how alcohol could be affecting human beings. Anything that substantially alters cellular metabolism can eventually cause epigenetic changes that alter gene expression - and thus alter biology. Alcohol has lots of effects on metabolism - and it would not be surprising in the least that chronic recurrent alcohol exposure could alter epigenetic programming.

[Keyhopper]

Making beer is easy, storing it is the problem.