Attn Beer Chemists

[bernd]

I'm currently taking a class in organic chemistry, and need a topic for a research paper. I'd like to examine a chemical reaction that occurs during brewing, fermentation, or even aging. The topic would need to be specific, and I would need to be able to plot out the synthesis of the product(s), which accounts for the bulk of the paper. It would also need to be something that some journal or research articles have been written about.

I've thought about looking into issues with fusel alcohol production, light struck issues (doesn't that produce thiols?).

Any ideas?
thanks,
bernd

[MikeB]

Look up Maillard Reaction.

[spiderwrangler]

Look up Maillard Reaction.

Depending on the depth of the paper, Maillard may be too much... that's a whole clusterfuck of chemical reactions. Light struck or fusel sound interesting.... possibly the impacts of some of the acid forming bugs?

[MikeB]

I ran across a paper titled "Absolute Configuration of Beer′s Bitter Compounds" late last year.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 08450/full

There might be something interesting in the supplementary material.

[Kbar]

Ethanol and other Fusel alcohol production during yeast's uptake of sugars.........

Distilling on the mind..........

[theobrew]

Look up Maillard Reaction.

Depending on the depth of the paper, Maillard may be too much... that's a whole clusterfuck of chemical reactions. Light struck or fusel sound interesting.... possibly the impacts of some of the acid forming bugs?

Yea... big boy scientists still don't know exactly all that goes into the Maillard Reaction to make it the deliciousness that it is.

I'd enjoy reading something on the light reaction with hops. Might be easier to do since yes the alcohol production stuff is technically chemistry it's happening within the cell structure and can be very hard to track at the chemical level with the time spent on an undergrad orgo chem class. That would be more suited to a masters project IMO.

Good luck. Let us know what you do, I'd enjoy reading it no matter what it is you do.

On this note... does anyone know if there are journals for brewing related sciences? And if there are is there a free way to access them? I'd like to read up more on this stuff.

[BDawg]

How about the effects of temperature on ester production?

[tlael]

Alpha Acid Isomerization.
This could take many paths...
Max IBU limits, Boil length/IBU relationships (Effects on utilization)...
There should be TONS of sources available on hops given the recent craze for hoppy beers and subsequent hop shortage of a few years back.