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No worries man, I can see how it might have been unclear. :mug: Honestly, I have no idea. I was just about to post about an interesting turn of events related to that question here.

@passedpawn - I debated on this, but ended up aerating both the control and the experimental batches. @Warthaug - Interesting discussion, but this has gotten more detail-driven than is germane to this context. I'll admit that I remain skeptical about your explanations in significant part...

Hmm...now I'm more confused. If you put "myth" in quotes because you don't think it's a myth, why are you saying that the myth-in-quotes isn't true? In any case, I'm not sure I follow why gene knock-out experiments or other available acetyl-CoA sinks should undermine the notion that ester...

Considering that this is what I said originally, I think what's confusing (at least to me) is that it's not clear exactly what you're objecting to.

It's not quite a myth. The purpose of esters in metabolism is still poorly understood, but Briggs speculates that they serve as a way for yeast to regulate acetyl-CoA to free CoA ratios in the environment. This is tied in to population growth because (as you point out) acetyl-CoA is used up...

This is a fascinating possibility, and one I hadn't really thought of since I'm not really a cider maker. To answer your question, I have absolutely no idea. One thing I've been wondering is why yeast immobilized on the surface of the beads don't spawn off a generation of children that then...

Calcium alginate is very permeable, and that's why it's used extensively in biotech for implants, etc. The trouble is that without some kind of agitation to drive the permeation, you're stuck with slowslow brownian motion. I suspect that's my limiting factor here.

The crazy shapes sound fun, but to be honest I don't think it's a practical road to go down. Anything other than a sphere will require a significantly more complicated production process. Any diameter of "snake" will be significantly harder to produce than beads of the same diameter, and the...

Nope! No problem I can see. It might even help with ester development, as (I believe) CO2 saturation inhibits Acetyl CoA production in some important way that I've read about but don't fully understand. If you can keep things more evenly distributed, that might help. I've heard smart people...

I don't imagine it would make a difference for lagers, at least as I understand it. The top versus bottom thing is a consequence of a bunch of different factors, but I've never seen anything to suggest that it's necessary. I'm very skeptical that this will produce quality results. My reasoning...

Yep. That's what I've done.

Certainly...I like the color idea. Assuming these things keep for reasonably long periods of time and reasonably high numbers of batches (and I consider that a very big assumption at this point), it'd be nice to see beads of all different colors sitting in your fridge. Just to clarify...

There's two things here, though, right? Though I was complaining that the beads were working slowly a few posts ago, the reality is that I'm 2/3rds through fermentation in about sixty hours. If there's a time savings to be had here, it's going to be not from fermentation speed but clearing...

You'd be losing a lot of surface area this way, which is trouble for diffusion rates. This stuff's actually pretty easy to work with. Dripping the beads into the calcium solution only takes a couple of minutes really, and I'll be able to fish the beads back out with not much more than a strainer...

Right, that's why I estimated a fermentation-final cell count and used that as my bead pitching rate. In approximate terms, there should be about the same number of cells in each batch now. If there's no impact on flavor, I'd seriously consider using these regularly. The beer is completely...

Monday morning update: The beads are fermenting, but man-oh-man are they slow! The comparison here with the control fermentation is interesting. The beads started fermenting very quickly. I pitched them on Friday night right before I went to bed, and they were already moving by the time I got...

Maybe it's the same for yeast! Trying to reproduce and failing keeps you healthy; actually budding off a little clone, on the other hand, leaves you scarred and closer to death. :)

The yeast will definitely die at some point. Whether that happens after many batches or just a few, however, is still a very open question. But, properly handled, yeast can stay alive for quite some time. The fact that they're not reproducing actually means they'll stay healthy a lot longer.

No, it's just break material. Because of the way the jar's shaped, the picture makes it look like there's a lot more than there actually is. Even still, I wish I had been able to better separate it. I don't have the equipment to properly chill and siphon small batches like this. I put some...

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BLPNHLW/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 Buy the food-grade stuff; there are several different companies selling it. I just picked this one randomly. If anybody gets really into this, a $25 pound should last a long, long time.