Tag: food chemistry

Craft brewers now have a brand new software for sniffing out hint taste compounds

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In dry hopping, hops are added during or after the fermentation stage of the brewing process.

Enlarge / In dry hopping, hops are added throughout or after the fermentation stage of the brewing course of. (credit score: Natasha Breen/Getty Pictures)

Craft-beer aficionados relish the countless taste variations that may be achieved by mixing and matching completely different types of hops, whether or not one favors refreshing citrus or fruity notes or one thing a bit extra earthy or pine-scented. However a number of the chemical compounds that contribute to these flavors are current in such hint quantities that it is troublesome for brewers to measure and observe them in the course of the brewing course of. Now German scientists have devised an automatic, environment friendly methodology for doing simply that, based on a latest paper printed within the Journal of Agricultural and Meals Chemistry.

As we have beforehand reported, all beer accommodates hops, a key flavoring agent that additionally imparts helpful antimicrobial properties. (With out them, beer spoils rapidly.) Brewers mash and steep grain in scorching water, which converts all that starch into sugars. That is historically the stage when hops are added to the liquid extract (wort) and boiled to offer the beer that trace of bitterness. Through the boiling course of, a sure portion of the resins (alpha acids) in hops isomerize into iso-alpha acids. That chemical rearrangement of the molecules is what produces bitterness. Yeast is then added to set off fermentation, turning the sugars into alcohol.

However slightly hops goes a great distance. Add too many hops, and the beer will probably be so bitter as to be undrinkable.

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Higher than the Scoville scale? Chili-shaped system can price pepper hotness

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Seeds spill out of a trio of hot peppers in a skillet.

Enlarge / There might quickly be a better strategy to inform how sizzling that chili pepper is. (credit score: Azman Mohamad / EyeEm by way of Getty Photos)

Capsaicin is the compound liable for figuring out simply how sizzling quite a lot of chili pepper will probably be; the upper the capsaicin ranges, the warmer the pepper. There are a number of strategies for quantifying simply how a lot capsaicin is current in a pepper—its “pungency”—however they’re both too time-consuming, too expensive, or require particular devices, making them lower than splendid for widespread use.

Now a group of scientists from Prince of Songkla College in Thailand has developed a easy, transportable sensor system that may connect with a smartphone to indicate how a lot capsaicin is contained in a given chili pepper pattern, in keeping with a brand new paper within the journal ACS Utilized Nano Supplies. Bonus: the system is whimsically formed identical to a red-hot chili pepper.

An American pharmacist named Wilbur Scoville invented his eponymous Scoville scale for assessing the relative hotness of chili peppers again in 1912. That testing course of includes dissolving a exact quantity of dried pepper in alcohol in order to extract the capsaicinoids. The capsaicinoids are then diluted in sugar water. A panel of 5 skilled tasters then tastes a number of samples with lowering concentrations of capsaicinoids till no less than three of them can not detect the warmth in a given pattern. The hotness of the pepper is then rated in keeping with its Scoville warmth items (SHU).

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Finding out clay-pot residues might assist scientists recreate historic recipes

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Two rows of simply black pots.

Enlarge / Seven La Chamba unglazed ceramic pots have been utilized in a yearlong cooking experiment analyzing the chemical residues of the meals ready. (credit score: Melanie Miller)

Archaeologists are fascinated by many various elements of cultures within the distant previous, however figuring out what historic folks cooked and ate will be notably difficult. A workforce of researchers spent a complete 12 months analyzing the chemical residues of some 50 meals cooked in ceramic pots and located such cookware retained not simply the remnants of the final meal cooked, but additionally clues as to earlier meals, spanning a pot’s lifetime of utilization. This might give archaeologists a brand new device in figuring out historic diets. The researchers described their ends in a current paper printed within the journal Scientific Stories.

In line with co-author Christine Hastorf, an archaeologist on the College of California, Berkeley (UCB), the challenge has been a number of years within the making. Hastorf has lengthy been within the relationships between folks and vegetation all through historical past, notably as they pertain to what folks ate previously. Again in 1985, she co-authored a paper analyzing the isotopes of charred plant stays collected from the within of pots. She has additionally lengthy taught a meals archaeology class at UCB. A number of years in the past, she expanded the course to 2 full semesters (9 months), overlaying each the ethnographic elements in addition to the archaeological strategies one would possibly use to glean perception into the dietary habits of the previous.

The category was particularly intrigued by current molecular evaluation of pottery, but pissed off by the brevity of the research finished so far on the subject. Hastorf proposed conducting an extended examine, and her college students responded enthusiastically. So that they devised a strategy, assigned analysis matters to every scholar, and situated locations to buy grain (maize and wheat from the identical area of the Midwest), in addition to receiving venison within the type of donated deer roadkill. She even purchased her personal mill so they might grind the grains themselves, setting it up in her house storage.

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