Reading Notes:
Current Enviro Events:
Project Postings:
Final Report [pdf] Presentation: 12/9 Report Submitted: 12/15
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Posted by cleakins
Dylan Ewing
12/14/09
Project Summary: Brewing Beer, is it a product of the environment?
BEER. The German purity laws state that only 4 ingredients go into it; water, malt, yeast, and hops.
Water is an important because it makes up more than 90% of the beer’s composition, thus it is relatively important to have water that is clean, as in not filthy. While better water makes better beer, it is not the most important ingredient because even some water and their impurities will be purified by the hops natural ability to do so.
Malt is the base oil the beer. May be viewed as the infrastructure. Malt is a syrupy, thick, molasses-like viscosity that is derived from germinated barley grain. It provides the main source o sugars that the yeast will consume, (maltose -à glucose by diastrose- natural enzyme in barley grain, glucose is digestible form of sugar for yeast) glucose molecules and convert them into Carbon dioxide and ethanol as waste products. Not much is known about yeasts but all yeasts for beer were originally derived from the immediate environment- Today, they are re-cultured and have been for hundreds f years (most of them).
Hops may arguably their most important ingredient. It provides the distinct flavors to a beer, naturally preserves and purifies the beer, and is the most effective ingredient when relating a beer’s composition to an environment. All oils and resins come from lupulin glands on the base of the flower’s petal, these release alpha and beta acids which are responsible for the beer’s distinctive flavor, purity, and preservative qualities.
I showed you guys how to make some home brew in a 15 min. video, this beer was an experimental approach to see if there was an observable difference in two identical beers; manipulated with two variables via hops and yeast. For two different beers made (an American Pale Ale and an English Pale Ale), the hops and yeast used were obtained from the two corresponding regions, as traditionally used in these regions.
The Recipe;
Both Ales:
-dried malt extract (2 lbs each)
-60L 2-row crystal grain (Barley) (10 oz each)
- Pale malt extract (3.3 lbs each)
- approx. 20 juniper berries and a sprig of juniper each
Manipulated variables:
English Pale Ale: 1 oz Target hops, 1 oz Kent Golding’s finisher hops, 1 packet of English ale yeast
American Pale Ale: 1 oz Centenniel hops, 1 oz Amarillo finisher hops, 1 packet American ale yeast
Yeasts make a profound influence on the taste of the beer and are derived from their environment, typically by leaving beer outside and awaiting for the microspores to land and colonize the sugary-solution, a direct influence of the environment. However, with modern technology, these yeasts are available all over the world now and have evolved very much with their short life-histories and fast reproduction/mutation rates. Thus , the English ale yeast of today is surely different from what it may have been 300 yrs. ago.
Hops have an even more profound influence on the taste of the beer. The alpha acid content is the source of this influence. The American hops, characteristic of the American Northwest, have a much higher alpha acid content than do the English, thus the American pale ale was one that was much more bitter, as opposed to the more mellow, aromatic flavor given by the English pale ale. Differences in oil and resin content also added to different flavors observed in the beer. The Amarillo hops of the American ale gave it a distinct citrus-grapefruit like flavor, while the finisher Kent Golding hops gave the English ale a mellow-citrus, more fruity kind of flavor.
CONCLUSION
Surely at some point in time, these hops and yeasts were direct products of their regional climates and soil compositions, however, the main point of this project was to stress that there is no ‘original’ environment in modern day. In order to create a beer that is a product of its environment would require extraordinary means, by which, one would literally have to seclude their self in the wilderness and be able to successfully grow their own ingredients and derive their own yeast. Even in such a scenario, the product would likely be undesirable and surely not your typical brew. Our environments are constantly changing, and so are the products that are derived from them. Like the evolution of people, habitats, and ecosystems, such products like beer, most certainly follow. In modern day, barley grains are grown in monocultures of hybrid/genetically modified variants, hops are hybridized/genetically modified and grown under climate controlled systems with fertilizers and supplements that do not mimic regional soils, yeasts are maintained and controlled in laboratory cultures, and beer in general is a result of mass transportation and a melting pot of cultures.
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Posted by 0ats
Notes for Readings:
Current Events Postings:
Project Update Postings:
Project Report[1] – my report project summary! Presentation Dec 2, posting Dec 14.
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Posted by bkfahey
COURSE PORTFOLIO
Notes On Readings:
Current events:
It’s Blowing in the Wind My Friends
Lawn, How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways…
Corse Project:
PROJECT REPORT
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Posted by rannkelly
A.) Links to class reading notes
Week 2, September 1: Cronon “The Trouble With Wilderness”
Week 2, September 1: Sullivan “The Meadowlands”
Week 3, September 8: Abbey “Desert Solitaire”
Week 4, September 14: Williams “Red”
Week 5, September 22: Coates “Nature Part I”
Week 6: September 29, Presentation of Coates, Nature Part II
Week 7, October 6: Berry “Unsettling of America”
Week 8: Perkins Observatory Trip
Week 9: Mid-Semester Break
Week 10, October 27: Hodgkinson, How to Be Idle (missed)
Week 11, November 4: Vandermeer and Perfecto “Breakfast of Biodiversity”
Week 12, November 11: Robbins “Lawn People”
B. Link to Presentation Postings
Presentation with Matthew Jordan
September 29: Coates “Nature Part II”
C.) Link to Current Events and other postings
August 26: Introduction
September 1: Lead Poisoning
September 8: Pro-Climate Change Website
September 15: A Microcosm of Ants
September 30: Baby Animals!
October 11: Perkins and Planning
November 11: Thoughts About Lawns
November 18: Porches
D.) Link to project postings
September 8: Initial Project Ideas
September 15: New Project Plan
September 22: Final Project Proposal
E.)Project Report Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Selby
Apparently there will be a national eggo waffle shortage… I think that this is really a national crisis and Obama should nationalize waffle-product.
To read more about this crisis, click here.
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Posted by bkfahey
The home that I grew up in has a small front porch; just big enough for the mailbox and three boy scouts to stand under and sell popcorn. We use our back deck much more often; almost every night in the summer.
But porches make me think of Lakeside. Its a Chataqua-eske town on Lake Erie, traditionally Methodist. There are lots of retired pastors and others who retire there, and during the summer it turns into a gated community with lots of weekly tourists. My family spend the first week in August at Lakeside for 16 years of my life. Besides the lake, 15 mph speed limit, evening entertainment, shuffleboard, and a plethora of ice cream shops, Lakeside is truly a porch town. Almost all of the houses have a screened-in porch, and at any point of the day you can find people on them. The elderly are out during the day, knitting, reading, or writing letters. Around 6 o clock the younger people return from sitting on the pier (another form of porch) in adirondack chairs and families play games before dinner. After the program, the elderly and children go to bed and those of a proper age relax under the stars.
Although you might think this expensive, old-fashioned kind of vacation will soon go out of style, I don’t think so. Lakeside has been making efforts to connect with new generations through more youth activities, field trips, and stores. They keep building houses, which means people keep retiring there- which means they will bring their grandchildren to sit on the porch with them.
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Posted by Selby
This is just a blog from the San Diego area and gives a positive spin on front porches. It lists a number of good activities front porches are used for but also discusses how front porch owners differ in various geographical locations.
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/janetgoes/2009/feb/28/uh-porch-studies/
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Posted by cpm15
Two things;
One: here is an article about the possible influence of pesticides on Honey bees, I personally would not doubt that pesticides have inadvertently harmed honey Bee populations as a ‘non-target’ species indirectly through various kinds of pesticidal applications that are residually exposed to visiting pollinators. Relevant to the lawn people; a lot of research has been done on this subject, finding that various pesticides, especially organo-phosphates and nicatinamide, have induced vertigo, loss of memory and sense of direction, and overall neural overload on honey bees. Bees that stay in the hive mis-communicate with other bees, their danc3es are “nervous” and the behavior of the hive in total, appears confused. Foraging bees experimentally exposed to the compounds mentioned above, end up losing their sense of memory/instinct and sense of direction, all the while performing a lousy foraging job, and then get lost, explaining the enigma of disappearing bees that is so distinguished and characteristic of ‘Colony Collapse Disorder’, which is also commonly dubbed, for its elusive mess, the ‘AIDs of Honey bees’.
secondly,
We have an ecologist coming to speak on Thursday about the ecology of bees. I will be interested on what she has to say about Honey bees. Honey bees were themselves, an invasive species introduced to the Americas with European influence around the 1600s. Since Apis mellifera does such a good job at pollinating and foraging, they have come to be artificially selected and such crops like alfalfa, clover, and almonds, are dependant on these bees’ productivity. California represents approximately 85% of the world’s almond production and industry, and is 100% reliant on honey bees for its pollination and continuance. however, with such priority placed on Honey Bees by agriculture, native pollinators and indigenous bees have almost been completely neglected. It was only recently that a taxonomist rediscovered a handful of native bumblebees, to find that they have already gone extinct. Thus recent attention has been diverged over to native pollinators, and researchers are finding out that some of these guys have better immunity to common diseases that plague the Honey bee while displaying competent pollinator efficiency. Some even go so far as to believe that we should let the Honey Bees go extinct, the ide being that we should let our land’s native pollinatiors evolve, while beholding the possibility that a little natural selection may end up being good for Apis mellifera. I will be very interested to scope the opinion of our guest.
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Posted by 0ats
