Boost fermentation with magnets?

[marosell]

Great oppotunity for a DIY progject. What do you think guys? Who's gonna be the first to try it out? Do you think this will be a better way to ferment?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070910100314.htm

 

[Buford]

We don't know what effect it has on the other chemicals yeast produce, though. Biofuel is one thing, since the alcohol is all that matters. Considering that a few degrees of temperature difference during fermentation can change the character of a beer I really wonder how this would affect it.

 

[Skrimpy]

Thats pretty cool. Ill see if I can scarf a copy of that paper to see how they did it. Ill paraphase it and post. If I posted the paper, I could get into trouble with the copyright but a paraphase...

 

[runhard]

If Skrimpy is unable get a copy of the article, the company I work for has e-access to hundreds of journals; I check tomorrow at work and see if this is on our list. Might make for interesting reading.

 

[Skrimpy]

Looks like there are a couple of abstracts in the database I can access but no full text publications. Let me look at the abstracts to see if the right one is there. I think I can post the full abstract without violating copyright and those engineer types on here can probably figure the rest out.

 

[Skrimpy]

Bah! Wrong abstracts! It sounds to me like they just have a magnetic field around the fermenter. I'm sure someone on this site can come up with some kind of design for the thing.

 

[clayof2day]

I'd also have to read the article because this just doesn't seem legit to me. Corn sugar is 100% fermrntable by brewers yeast, yes? The ammount of alcohol produced should therefore depend SOLELY on the ammount of sugar (in the case of 100% fermentability). Something has too be funky with the science or I'm missing something. I'll look an see if I can get the artcle through the U on Monday

 

[RichBrewer]

I'd also have to read the article because this just doesn't seem legit to me. Corn sugar is 100% fermrntable by brewers yeast, yes? The ammount of alcohol produced should therefore depend SOLELY on the ammount of sugar (in the case of 100% fermentability). Something has too be funky with the science or I'm missing something. I'll look an see if I can get the artcle through the U on Monday

I agree. I seriously doubt that there is 17 percent more sugars that are not fermented by yeast alone.
Even if this did work, would you want your beer's attenuation to be that much higher? Maybe if you are making hooch perhaps.

 

[Art Vandelay]

Looking over the paper, it would appear that the statement in the article linked above that "extremely low frequency magnetic waves boosted ethanol production by 17 percent" is misleading. The 17% gain is in, as the authors phrase it, "overall volumetric ethanol productivity," which is measured in g/L/hr. That is, the yeast are producing ethanol faster. So the article would have been correct if it said "boosted the RATE of ethanol production."

The yield in grams of ethanol per gram of consumed sugar was 0.427 for the control and 0.443 for the best-case 'magnetic' experiment, i.e. a 3.7% increase in ethanol yield.

In other words - I think clayof2day was right. Unless I'm misinterpreting something, this may accelerate fermentation by around 17%, but the final amount of ethanol is relatively unchanged. Maybe something Budweiser would be interested in, but certainly not worth the trouble for a homebrewer.

 

[Skrimpy]

Looking over the paper, it would appear that the statement in the article linked above that "extremely low frequency magnetic waves boosted ethanol production by 17 percent" is misleading. The 17% gain is in, as the authors phrase it, "overall volumetric ethanol productivity," which is measured in g/L/hr.

Nice catch.

 

[HenryHill]

Everyone knows that a magnetic field is only useful in increasing your gas mileage!

BUT, put the fermenter under a pyramid and let the 'Power Of The Pyramid' increase your ethanol production, and sharpen your razor blades. :rockin:

And doesn't everyone use a 'Tornado' to decrease the time it takes to siphon from the primary?