King of Yeasts

[lockwood1956]

How do you get that on the thread title ??

thats a feature added during the last upgrade, its a "tag" it can be added when you create a thread, a tag can also be added after the thread has been created (scroll down to bottom left you will see tags just above and to the left of the quick reply box)

[spritzer]

thats a feature added during the last upgrade, its a "tag" it can be added when you create a thread, a tag can also be added after the thread has been created (scroll down to bottom left you will see tags just above and to the left of the quick reply box)

Oh... ok...
So whats the "not going to finish" tag all about then ??

[Cellar_Rat]

Can't wait for the results - this is something I have wanted to do - but never got round to it.

Nice one!!

PS: happiness. LOL

[lockwood1956]

So whats the "not going to finish" tag all about then ??

Not a clue....i didn't add the tag

[koomber]

Oh... ok...
So whats the "not going to finish" tag all about then ??

I just have a slight habit of starting projects and not finishing them

I saw the 'tags' thing when I was putting up the thread and thought 'hmmm what seems appropriate'

In other news, all the yeasts are showing signs of life. Looking at foam and 'bpm' bubbles per minute

D47: 16 bpm with no sign of foam AT ALL. None.

K1-V116: 14bpm about 1cm of foam, all around the edges. The vast majority of the bottle is clear of foam.

GV1: 1bpm with no foam.

GV2: 4bpm there are a couple large bubbles on the surface but I wouldn't call it a foam

Bread Yeast: 6bpm and a nice foamy head. The bread got a double helping since I wasn't looking for a 'how does it ferment' but a 'how does it taste' so don't read to much into this.


Now, for the curious reader, there are some caveats:

1. The bottles uses different styles of airlocks. Each airlock will have a different pressure requirement to force a bubble of air through. This means whilst bpm is a good rough indicator, it shouldn't be regarded as an absolute.

2. The bottles are likely not sealed well. I've done my best with electrical tape to seal the lids and I've used silicone grease where the hole for the airlock has been drilled in. However it is still possible gas is escaping.


Improvements? CAUTION SCIENCY STUFF APPROACHING

Now, if I were going to go completely overboard (and assuming the missus was struck blind and bedridden, thus preventing her seeing what I would have to do to her kitchen) we could actually make this experiment tell us a great deal. A GREAT deal. I'll prepare a post on the subject cause I'm bored and it's Sunday.

[koomber]

The appliance of Science

If we collected the gas, using a system like below where the fermentation vessel replaces the butane cylinder, we could accurately measure the volume of gas produced. Since the behaviour of a gas is predictable, we can then work out the number of molecules of gas in the volume. Of course we’d need some other modifications (such as a magnetic stirrer to agitate the wine to ensure no CO2 was entrained in the liquid).

Since yeasts produce 1 molecule of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) for every molecule of alcohol, we can then work out the number of molecules of alcohol in the fermentation vessel. We can then work out the weight of alcohol in the fermentation vessel and then we can work out our %alcohol (by weight, to get by volume you would just work out the volume of alcohol).

This sounds good, but before you rush off to get bungs and tubes it's worth considering just how much gas will be given off.

For the purpose of this, we will assume that all sugar will be converted by the same route. Our theoretical wine has 1KG of sugar in it.
First of, we need to know about moles. Not the Animals of Farthing Wood kind of mole (trying to elicit the help of a woodland mole will only make it angry and they DO NOT FERMENT). Besides, they can't handle their drink.

The mole is essentially a ‘chemist’s bushel’. A mole is a specific number of atoms or molecules. How many? Roughly 6.0221415×1023 which is 602,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (give or take a couple zeros). Thats 602 SEXTILLION little atoms or molecules. (Really it's 602 Trillion, but I'll probably go completely spare if I have to dwell on why that is...)

1 Kg of sugar will contain roughly 5.5 Moles of glucose (that’s the posh name for household sugar). As yeast digests the sugar, it will convert the glucose into 2 molecules of alcohol and 2 molecules of CO2.

Our 1Kg of sugar will therefore become 11 moles of CO2. Remember when I said the behaviour of gas was predictable? What I mean is that at a given pressure and temperature an given gas will (Ideally) have a set volume for a mole of gas. At Room Temperature and Sea Level, this is about 22.5L).

So, our 1 gallon of Wine? Just produced something like 247.5 LITRES OF CO2 or roughly 55 Demijohns of gas. On a warm day this is almost as much hot air as All-grain brewers produce when discussing homemade mash tuns ( I kid, I’m just jealous of anyone who has the money/space for this stuff. I'll have to stick with the Kits).

On reflection, perhaps a Hydrometer is better….

[ukric]

Wow, that's a lot of techy stuff....

Will you be using any of that useful CO2 when racking?

Doing exactly what you suggested except syphoning the CO2 into a secondary so that when racked into said secondary minimises contact with air?

Thinking that could be useful with your bread yeast ferment.

[koomber]

Wow, that's a lot of techy stuff....

Will you be using any of that useful CO2 when racking?

Doing exactly what you suggested except syphoning the CO2 into a secondary so that when racked into said secondary minimises contact with air?

Thinking that could be useful with your bread yeast ferment.

It would be a bit tricky to do but, I suppose in theory you could run a tube from the primary to the secondry and (since you could roughly work out the volume per bubble through an airlock) you would be able to 'fill' the secondry with CO2 by timing.

I won't be doing that though it would be alot of work and would not be as effective as sulfite. CO2 is 'inert' to oxygen so if any oxygen got into our container there would still be oxygen. If you use sulfite though, not only do you displace the oxygen with sulfur dioxide (SO2) (ie your container is now oxygen free), but the SO2 will also react with any oxygen that gets into the container.

A similar principle is used in pipelines to prevent corrosion and inhbit bacterial growth. If they need to flood a line with water, they will add a biocide (to kill bugs) and an 'oxygen scavanger' to remove oxygen. No oxygen, no corrosion. Well, reduced corrosion at least...

[Cellar_Rat]

....
1. The bottles uses different styles of airlocks. Each airlock will have a different pressure requirement to force a bubble of air through. This means whilst bpm is a good rough indicator, it shouldn't be regarded as an absolute....

I am going out on a limb here, but surely atmospheric pressure - on the other side of the airlock is the same, so all will perform the same [pressure wise]??

[ukric]

Inert, but heavier is my understanding, so any oxygen in the container at the start would be pushed out as the CO2 fills and overflows the container, leaving you with a container full of CO2. Meh, just a thought

EDIT: also if 1 gallon produces that much CO2, and you'd only be racking to another 1 gallon secondary, then you wouldn't need to work out the volume per bubble as 1 gallon = 4.5 litres which would be filled several times over. Would only ever become an issue with secondaries closer to the amount of gas produced. *dreams of one day owning a secondary that big*

[koomber]

I am going out on a limb here, but surely atmospheric pressure - on the other side of the airlock is the same, so all will perform the same [pressure wise]??

The pressure is the same but the gas needs push the water out of the the way first. Depending on the shape of the airlock and how full it is, there will be slight differences in amount of water to push out.

Really this effect is going to be very small. Probably not even measureable, but I'm a very pedantic person for little details The missus hates it.

[Rich]

Better bottle have a diagram in how they use the co2 produced to minimise oxygen content when racking.It's in this leaflet from them here..


Nice experiment Koomber

[NorthernWiner]

Sounds like fun, the only thing I might expect at this point is that the bread yeast fermented wine would spoil very easily as I wouldn't expect it to reach 10% alc.

On another forum I frequent, a few people have mentioned having good luck making wine with bread yeast.

[lockwood1956]

Your hydrometer is your friend!!!


and a lot easier to work out

[spritzer]

I just have a slight habit of starting projects and not finishing them

I saw the 'tags' thing when I was putting up the thread and thought 'hmmm what seems appropriate'

Ahhh....ok, that makes sense

2. The bottles are likely not sealed well. I've done my best with electrical tape to seal the lids and I've used silicone grease where the hole for the airlock has been drilled in. However it is still possible gas is escaping.

Electrical tape ??

Silicone grease ??



What's wrong with vaseline ?

It is very versatile, ya know