Ah, sugars... the sweet nectar of life... and brewing!
📰 An insightful article from Phys.org and the American Chemical Society, shared by Tim Faith about the impact of sugar on Kombucha's flavor profile got me started on this. Because when I think about it, the way sugars are involved in such a diversity of metabolisms is quite fascinating.
⛽ Sugars are the fuel powering the machinery of life, broken down through very complex biochemical reactions into the energy necessary for cellular processes to occur. This process, called glycolysis, is happening all the time in our own cells. And that's not all, sugars are also the building blocks of more complex molecules such as nucleic acids and proteins, both essentials for the growth and maintenance of our bodies.
☘ In plants - happy recovery from St Patrick by the way - sugars are produced from the sunlight through the famous photosynthesis and allows for plants to grow. In turn, those sugars pass through the food chain to animals and humans.
🍺 Great, but how about beer you may ask? Of course, in the beautiful world of #brewing, sugars are playing a crucial role too. And it gets even more interesting, because it here requires a diverse set of skills from all of us, #farmers, #maltsters, #yeast and equipment producers, and of course #brewers, working hard to mimic the magic naturally occuring in nature.
Sugars are produced within the cereals during growth, then, specific enzymes are activated until they reach an optimum during malting. There comes the brewer, accurately mashing the malt at the right temperature for the conversion of complex sugars into fermentable sugars. And then finally the yeast and its #fermentation, completing the circle by consumming sugars for its own growth, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide as byproducts along with a delightful set of flavor compounds such as ethyl and acetate esters in the final #beer.
🥤 Finally, coming back to #Kombucha, the findings from the Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania unveiled some interesting facts. They discovered that the choice of base sugar and the presence of oxygen could lead to lower alcohol level, faster fermentation and more gluconic acid. A glucose base led to a kombucha with more gluconic acid and minimal ethanol while a fructose base led to more acetic acid and ethanol.
It's funny, right, how simple little things often have a big impact.
Cheers🍻
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