Free Online Beer Chemistry Course

Signed up today! Thanks for the link!

Wow sweet

How flippen killer is this! A free online class that you can take and if your not following the bio or organic chemistry aspect of it there is still a BOATLOAD you can take from it. I am signing up too!

That is a killer link man! I wonder how many "online" students they are going to allow or if its just open to everyone that logs in.

Cheers
Jay

Torn between my love of beer and chemistry (I tend to geek out talking about molecules), and my utter hatred for all things OU. Hook'em.

Signed up (username Arrheinous). We should organize some kind of class discussion thread around here.

The problem with online classes is that signing up for them is easy. Sticking with them gets difficult especially if you don't have to do it and you're doing it alone.

Arrheinous said:

Signed up (username Arrheinous). We should organize some kind of class discussion thread around here.

The problem with online classes is that signing up for them is easy. Sticking with them gets difficult especially if you don't have to do it and you're doing it alone.

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Agreed and great idea

This is AWESOME. BorealBrewer is on the virtual campus! I would like to participate in the HBT online study group, too.

My Dad's a chemist, and a winemaker. I did okay in intro chem and organic, and have the Old Man on speed dial if I get in over my head...

OP - thank-you for sharing this with everyone!

2014-Jan-13 is circled on the calender!!!

Signed up - mattd2. See you guys back at school

Signed up tonight! dave.hunter5

Oooh signed up!

@zachssoojdm See ya next year

Boo! Doesn't look like they support mobile devices yet. I am mostly connected through a tablet or phone these days. Now where did I last use that laptop long ago?

Probably way over my head; but I'll sign up. My wife is taking optomotry courses online so I'll have to show her up.

Gonna give this a shot. Just signed up!

Thanks for the heads up! Signed up.

Very interesting.
All signed up!

Like some of those other courses too

Neato In!

Signed up. Should be interesting

Saw the thread and thought I would join in.

I am teaching "Chemistry of Beer" at OU on Janux. I am glad there is some much interest in the course. Thank you.

The course does have a Organic Chemistry prerequisite. A fundamental understanding a chemistry and organic structure and reactivity will be very helpful. The course will be very focused on a few specific topics related to brewing. We will be including content on the basic Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry concept.

One of the major contributor to success in a course is a student motivation and interest level. I am sure that most of you have spent hours learning the brewing craft and may know a great deal about the chemistry than you realize. The course will be expanding and deepening this knowledge.

The course has been fun to create. It will be fun to take.

See you in class!

Thanks for giving more details!

mmorvant said:

The course does have a Organic Chemistry prerequisite. A fundamental understanding a chemistry and organic structure and reactivity will be very helpful. The course will be very focused on a few specific topics related to brewing. We will be including content on the basic Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry concept.

See you in class!

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Thank you very much for posting - I am really looking forward to this course! Since it seems like many of us do not have the chemistry background suggested (or have taken the classes long ago), are there any specific topics, journal papers, or articles we could read to garner some relevant knowledge beforehand?

Thanks again!

I signed up ... been a long while since I took chemistry in college, so I'll probably try the Organic Chemistry classes at Khan Academy as a refresher.

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/organic-chemistry

Rango said:

Thank you very much for posting - I am really looking forward to this course! Since it seems like many of us do not have the chemistry background suggested (or have taken the classes long ago), are there any specific topics, journal papers, or articles we could read to garner some relevant knowledge beforehand?

Thanks again!

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From the description of the course, and it being an upper level Organo Chem class, I am betting its going to be pretty rough. Especially for those of us who haven't taken a course in years or *cough* decades...or even at all. There was a Chem 1 class they offered on the same site for free, but don't know if you can get in that class now or not. This is the first offering like this for this course. So, we shall see. If all of the Chem nerds on here help out the Chem turds we should be fine. I am pretty pumped on the turn out this has received. Should be interesting. :rockin: I have been trying to dig up my old Chem books and see if I can at least glance over it. Its inevitable the Chemistry will be over my head, but I'll give it the old college try.

mmorvant said:

Saw the thread and thought I would join in.

I am teaching "Chemistry of Beer" at OU on Janux. I am glad there is some much interest in the course. Thank you.

The course does have a Organic Chemistry prerequisite. A fundamental understanding a chemistry and organic structure and reactivity will be very helpful. The course will be very focused on a few specific topics related to brewing. We will be including content on the basic Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry concept.

One of the major contributor to success in a course is a student motivation and interest level. I am sure that most of you have spent hours learning the brewing craft and may know a great deal about the chemistry than you realize. The course will be expanding and deepening this knowledge.

The course has been fun to create. It will be fun to take.

See you in class!

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Welcome to the forum Dr. Morvant! And thanks for offering this course on such a huge platform. It will be very well and very widely received!

One thing that amazes me about homebrewers is the level of biochemical and microbiological knowledge that many of them have gained.

It's been 30 years since my O-Chem classes. I'm looking forward to yours...

Signed up! I am pretty excited about this. It is so cool that it's an open class and the knowledge will come without costing an arm and leg (like all other tuition)

I certainly don't want to say anything that contradicts the instructor as he's the one structuring the course but brewing is about biochemistry which builds, of course, on organic chemistry but only a small part of it. I think that if one understands the relationships between acids, aldehydes, ketones and alcohols and a few other bits at that level i.e. the beginning stuff he can probably handle or at least appreciate much of the biochemistry of brewing.

I'm speaking from my own experience. I wanted very much to understand some of the biochem of brewing and, in discussing this with a colleauge who had studied biochem, expressed the fear that I would never be able to understand any of it because all my chemistry had been a freshman level (inorganic) course in engine school. He said not to worry, I wouldn't need to know that much organic and gave me a biochem book (Lennigner) with a bookmark at the pages where fermentation was discussed. He was right.

Thus to those who are wondering how to prep, my suggestion would be to pick up a biochem book, look up EMP (Embden, Meyerhoff, Parnass) or glycolysis in the index or, easier still, look at the Wikipedia article at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycolysis

Don't expect to understand everything there after one, or even multiple, reading(s) but if you can get to the point where you can follow the argument you will probably be OK.

Quite correct. There is a good deal of biochemistry. In fact, one of the biochemistry faculty members will be guest lecturing on the biochemistry content.

I'm in as well, pmh076. Time to dust off some notebooks

I'm in, seanrm42. Looks like it should be good with all the HBT crowd.

This is going to be really fun.

ejluttmann said:

I signed up ... been a long while since I took chemistry in college, so I'll probably try the Organic Chemistry classes at Khan Academy as a refresher.

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/organic-chemistry

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Thanks for the link, eljuttmann! This looks good!

I'm In. I cant wait for the day when I can just casually use the term Phosphofructokinase, a enzyme that is important in regulating the process of fermentation, by which one molecule of the simple sugar glucose is broken down to two molecules of pyruvic acid. The enzyme, one of a class called transferases, catalyzes one of several specific reactions involved in this breakdown—the formation of fructose-1,6-diphosphate and adenosine diphosphate (ADP) from fructose-6-phosphate and adenosine triphosphate (ATP); its activity is sensitive to the ATP/ADP ratio in the cell.

geer537 said:

This is going to be really fun.

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It's been a LONG time since I've considered studying organic chemistry "fun".

Like, um, never.

This WILL be fun and I'm looking forward to it for sure!

Current list of usernames taking(or teaching) the class (Add yourself if you're new or i missed it)

Professor- mmorvant (HBT)

students
HBT Username- Class Username:
brokebucket- grebe
1fast636- hophead636
Arrheinous- Arrheinous
mattd2- mattd2
DaveHunter5- dave.hunter5
zachssoojdm- zachssoojdm
hedbutter- pmh076
MorrisBrewingCo- seanrm42

This looks fairly legit, count me in. I bought this book called Brew Chem 101 the other week and it's a great review of the whole process, and what to avoid and how to avoid it. I'm a senior and have my Organic out of the way. I'm excited!

I have no chemistry background but I figure it is free, so I will sit in and try not to get lost. But even if I do get lost I am sure I will leave the class with a better understanding of the science than when I went in.
Cheers

hedbutter said:

Current list of usernames taking(or teaching) the class (Add yourself if you're new or i missed it) Professor- mmorvant (HBT) students HBT Username- Class Username: brokebucket- grebe 1fast636- hophead636 Arrheinous- Arrheinous mattd2- mattd2 DaveHunter5- dave.hunter5 zachssoojdm- zachssoojdm hedbutter- pmh076 MorrisBrewingCo- seanrm42

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kadijk-kadijk

Chuckd76 will meet you on the quad. In January. For streaking.

Had some technical issues origionally, but I'm in.

OakPond - OakPond

I signed up for that Computer Programming class as well. Looks interesting.

Chuckd76 said:

Chuckd76 will meet you on the quad. In January. For streaking.

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Everyone is streaking! Hey, can we stop at KFC?