Mathematical Models for Brewing

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Krrazy

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Hi out there, I just wanted to poll the forum on something. I have a final project due in a few weeks for a masters-level systems engineering course in modeling and simulation and I'd love to find something homebrew-related that meets the requirements of the project.

The toughest ones are that it has to involve mathematical models that include at least two non-linear differential equations. In my project I'll have to build the model, run simulations changing various parameters, etc.

Has anyone ever come across any good brewing articles in any scientific journals or anything that really get a little deeper into the math behind brewing?

Just brainstorming, I'm thinking of things like temperature of mash and grain content yielding a final wort concentration, or something to do with fermentation...rate of change of yeast population vs fermentables vs temperature yielding alcohol.

I realize this isn't the typical HBT post, but I've been having a hard time finding any good literature out there on the internet on thought I'd turn to my friends here.

Thanks in advance if anyone knows of any good sources!
 
It would be great to see some better models of yeast population dynamics. This is a much harder problem than mash temperature dynamics, which are simulated quite well using relatively simple models

What kind of sources are you looking for? Brewing Science and Practice has a reasonable explanation of yeast metabolism and describes growth curves in generalities. Chris White's yeast book has some info on growth dynamics, though only as a very rough sketch.
 
The first thing that comes to mind is the kinetics of enzyme mediated reactions in the mash tun or during fermentation. Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelis–Menten_kinetics. Many of the biochemical reactions of brewing are (rightly or wrongly) assumed to follow Michaelis-Menten. The article shows how they derived their law from 4 non linear coupled equations. Perhaps there is something there for you.
 
A while ago I stumbled across this thesis (http://tumb1.biblio.tu-muenchen.de/publ/diss/ww/2002/kurz.html) which I've been meaning to read through in more detail some day when I'm really really bored.

The full model is probably way overkill for your class project, but you might be able to make some simplifying assumptions to reduce the system down to a handfull of variables. Of course, figuring out what sort of simplifications you can assume is probably almost as hard as coming up with the full model in the first place.
 
bdh said:
A while ago I stumbled across this thesis (http://tumb1.biblio.tu-muenchen.de/publ/diss/ww/2002/kurz.html) which I've been meaning to read through in more detail some day when I'm really really bored.

The full model is probably way overkill for your class project, but you might be able to make some simplifying assumptions to reduce the system down to a handfull of variables. Of course, figuring out what sort of simplifications you can assume is probably almost as hard as coming up with the full model in the first place.

Great find; thanks for posting it!
 
Kaiser: Check your schools library. You might be surprised on what you find.

The science Library here at FSU has a wide variety of brewing related books in its basement, so hey...its worth checking out.
Whites book Is very good, and If your school has it in their system I highly recommend checking it out.
 
I have actually searched through the PDFs on that university’s server many times. Looks like there is more in English stuff than in German and I missed this one.

As for access to papers, this frustrates me big time. I don’t have any affiliation with a school and my area of work doesn’t give me access to the papers I’m interested in. There used to be a time when you simply enter a papers title into Google and you find it somewhere to download it for free. Nowadays all I find are abstracts and pay for full-text.

Kai
 

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