Mad Scienctific Expermients

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Raffie

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 11, 2006
Messages
286
Reaction score
0
Well for a while now I have known about the effects of music on living things like plants and animlas and people too.
So wondering if anyone has tried putting on a raido with music like clasical music or easy listening near the primary fermentor and see it there is any reaction with the yeast or flavor. Proably not but still interesting.

Other one I was thinking was wrapping a thin copper wire around fermentor till you had like a 3-6" wide strip and running a very light current throught it while it ferments.

Any thought on these 2 ideas and would we see a result or nothing at all?
 
Nothing at all.

Can you propose some biological method whereby some effect might be transmitted to the yeast?
 
In addition to those ideas I would put my fermenter under a pyrimad shaped covering, that should really do something.

But seriously, I am always up for trying new ways of doing things but I would never spend my time on those experiments. I would expect nothing. But hey, if you want to try it go for it.
 
I bet if you rock some ACDC really loud next to a pale ale, it'll turn into a barleywine.

My roomate loves jazz and I did notice a distinct jazz flavor in my last batch. :ban:
 
So wondering if anyone has tried putting on a raido with music like clasical music or easy listening near the primary fermentor and see it there is any reaction with the yeast or flavor.
Seems like they'd fall asleep. Maybe try Dream Theater.;)

EDIT: or at least give 'em some Coltrane.
 
Talking to the fermenting beer helps too.

Also, my carboys wear tinfoil hats, which serves as an airlock as well as protection from alien mind control rays.
 
On a serious note though; I think you would have a hard time determining if the music or current had anything to do with a change unless you had some really, really consistent beers to measure against and I think that would be difficult. If you produced a bad beer how would you know if your experiment had caused it? If it came out better how would you know if it came out better because of something you did, something different in the ingredients? There are so many variables to consider it would take a lot of controlled research to really know.
 
They had proved classical music does make plants healthier and grow better, I am wondering it it would make happy yeast and in return ferment the beer out better and at a higher %.
 
I think it would be neat to wrap the carboy in magnetic wire and pass some DC through it. Decent magnetic field passing through the carboy and "aligning" the yeast. :D Probably wouldn't do anything but would be fun!!


I have seriously considered exposing a clear bottle or two of a light beer to white LED's. I have a ton and would like to see how much time is needed to skunk. I know someone here uses sunlight for skunking (BierMuncher?? perhaps).

That way I could control the skunkage to a desirable level.
 
Mythbusters showed that hardcore heavy metal had more of an impact on plant growth than classical. It would be an interesting experiment, you would have to find a way to get the music/current through the fermenter into the beer as well as find a way to make incredibly consistent beer.
 
"Talking to the fermenting beer helps too"

I do that all the time, along with giving it hugs.

I mostly give my yeasties a little pep talk right before pitching. "ok little guys, I've made a nice yummy wort all ready for you, now you've got some work to do, I'm counting on you to stay focused on the task at hand and not let me down, right? Have fun in there!"
 
Mythbusters showed that hardcore heavy metal had more of an impact on plant growth than classical. It would be an interesting experiment, you would have to find a way to get the music/current through the fermenter into the beer as well as find a way to make incredibly consistent beer.

The problem with all the music experiments is that they all reach different results. One of the criteria for an experiment to conform to the scientific method is that it must be repeatable.
 
I would really try the current idea. Start low and slowly increase the current and maybe in a flash of light your wort will turn into a bunny.
 
I think have 5+ fermentors with the same kind of beer that are know how they turn out. Not a complex beer, just a simple one.
 
Well for a while now I have known about the effects of music on living things like plants and animlas and people too.
So wondering if anyone has tried putting on a raido with music like clasical music or easy listening near the primary fermentor and see it there is any reaction with the yeast or flavor. Proably not but still interesting.

Other one I was thinking was wrapping a thin copper wire around fermentor till you had like a 3-6" wide strip and running a very light current throught it while it ferments.

Any thought on these 2 ideas and would we see a result or nothing at all?

How about this experiment. You take some of that stuff you are smoking and put that in your fermenter. ;)

Kidding aside, that makes me wonder if anyone has ever brewed with marijuana. :D
 
How about this experiment. You take some of that stuff you are smoking and put that in your fermenter. ;)

Kidding aside, that makes me wonder if anyone has ever brewed with marijuana. :D

There is a rather large thread about it floating around here somewhere....;)
 
Mythbusters showed that hardcore heavy metal had more of an impact on plant growth than classical. It would be an interesting experiment, you would have to find a way to get the music/current through the fermenter into the beer as well as find a way to make incredibly consistent beer.

Oh man that experiment was so f##ked up. As a plant scientist, I can tell you that even getting plants to grow exactly the same in fancy $50K growth chambers is really a pain. Only as a last resort will I conduct an experiment with plants grown in two separate of these high falootin' chambers. Their little greenhouses couldn't even have come close to keeping the conditions the same in each. Plants are very sensitive to their environment. People really underestimate this. A difference of only 3 degrees F can have a very large impact on growth. And they grew peas......peas of all plants! A plant that prefers cool temperatures, and they choose to grow them on a hot rooftop????!!!!!!!. I can almost guarantee that the differences they saw were temperature related
 
if the implication is that the plants or yeast hear the music and it makes them happy, then it would take a LOT to convince me that this is the case. occam's razor and such (i know, we scientists are so closed minded).

if the implication is that vibration at audible frequencies somehow promotes yeast or plant growth, that's a thought i'd be willing to entertain.

but as was mentioned, the benchmark of scientific validity is not the opinion of scientists, it's the extent to which the theory is experimentally verifiable and repeatable.

so if you find it interesting, by all means experiment. if your data support your assumption, and you get the same results three times in a row i'll see if i can repeat it on my system. deal?
 
Oh man that experiment was so f##ked up. As a plant scientist, I can tell you that even getting plants to grow exactly the same in fancy $50K growth chambers is really a pain. Only as a last resort will I conduct an experiment with plants grown in two separate of these high falootin' chambers. Their little greenhouses couldn't even have come close to keeping the conditions the same in each. Plants are very sensitive to their environment. People really underestimate this. A difference of only 3 degrees F can have a very large impact on growth. And they grew peas......peas of all plants! A plant that prefers cool temperatures, and they choose to grow them on a hot rooftop????!!!!!!!. I can almost guarantee that the differences they saw were temperature related

Hey, I have a stack of hay in my barn and I observed rats coming out of it. I conclude hay stack create rats.

They have a fairly decent grasp of mechanics and experiments using force but they really need to steer clear of the biological experiments.
 
I have seriously considered exposing a clear bottle or two of a light beer to white LED's. I have a ton and would like to see how much time is needed to skunk. I know someone here uses sunlight for skunking (BierMuncher?? perhaps).

That way I could control the skunkage to a desirable level.

Isn't skunking a reaction with UV light? LEDs produce pure white light, don't they?
 
Isn't skunking a reaction with UV light? LEDs produce pure white light, don't they?


According to some, there is some low frequency components to white LED's. Here is an example spectrum.

800px-White_LED.png



Notice the emission between 400 and 450nm. I read in a BYO article that it is possible to skunk with wavelengths between 350 and 520nm. Article Well within the range of typical white LED's.

But this would only be a fun experiment and not for scientific data. Just beer :)
 
MythBusters are great, but they are not scientists. They worked on special effects, not in a lab.

Are there any reports in the peer-reviewed scientific literature regarding effect of music on plant growth (let alone yeast growth)?
 
Are you trying to say that Yanni is better than The Clash?

Hmm, I name most of my beers after Clash songs... maybe I should play it some for 'inspiration.'
 
If you play classical music during fermentation, be sure to include a nice long diacetyl rest to compensate...

The Clash would probably be ok for an ESB or a Porter, but I'm thinking something a little jazzier would be good for a Belgian, to encourage those spicy flavor notes...
 
Very entertaining thread.

In other news, I heard on late night radio the other night that earth people (elves, pixies, leprechauns, etc that most people can't see) are working in Starbucks. True.
 
I thought I was going to hassled and stuff for this thread.
 
I have seriously considered exposing a clear bottle or two of a light beer to white LED's. I have a ton and would like to see how much time is needed to skunk.

Use blue LEDs, much more UV radiation than white LEDs.

Raffie said:
I thought I was going to hassled and stuff for this thread.
If it'll make you feel better, I can call you a big dumb poopie head. :D
 
Raffie,

Just thinking here, but people who use carboy heater belts are inducing magnetic fields into their wort. Which brings up the problem of heating if you wrap an EM coil around your carboy.

Second thought would be to induce strong magnetic fields through the coil. Example: 1000' coil of 20 magnetic wire + a couple of amps of current. Then see if the beer clarifies quicker than a control batch. Could be a quick way to clear a beer.

OR

If you reverse the current, it would be a way of keeping the yeast in suspension. Sort of like having a stir plate at the bottom. Only using field mechanics of induce vertical fluid currents in the beer.
 
Back
Top