Paul's admonition to Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach?

[GQ Chris]

now this thread is making me thirsty, for HOPS

 

[ebia]

now this thread is making me thirsty, for HOPS

Now if I could combine the weather here with the beer and cheese of Devon,... A good ploughmans with a decent wedge of Quick's Mature and a pint of Branoc would suit today's weather very nicely.

 

[94Preacher]

Before anyone goes any further I'd like you all to ask yourselves one question. Do grapes grow 24/7-365? I'm from grape country along the shores of Lake Erie. Granted we have winter haha, but we harvest grapes during the month of September and some in the month of October, frost makes for great ice wine. They are planted in April depending upon when the weather breaks. Grapes are incredibly finicky as well, they need a perfect mixture of sun and rain to gain size and natural sugar content. A rainy season with little sun will produce sour grapes of a large size. A dry summer with little rain will yield very small grapes that are very sweet. Now we are talking a desert climate in Israel. How much juice do you think they were producing? That would be a waste of a precious resource. Considering how difficult it would be to grow grapes in the dryer climate would suggest that the ones growing them would do all they could to make the most of their product and keep it for a long time. The only way you can keep grape juice around for extended periods of time is to ferment it into wine. Granted you could get grapes from Greece or Rome/Italy, but how well would they survive such a trip without refridgeration? The people in the region would be making the most of their crop and minimize waste.

 

[SpiritualAntiseptic]

Alcohol doesn't kill bacteria except when it is in reasonable concentration. It's inhibiting effect is limited in wine and even more limited in beer.
The reason you can mix a lot of unsafe water into wine is because chemicals from the grape skins in combination with the alcohol acts to kill bacteria. You don't get that effect with beer, so don't go adding a lot of dodgy water to your beer.

One of beer's main anti-biotic aspects is the hops. But my point isn't about that, it is about the role of alcohol. Alcohol does inhibit and kill bacteria in several ways. At a high enough concentration, it kills it. At lower concentrations, it prevents growth. Most importantly, the alcohol replaces the sugar- and alcohol is consumable for humans and provides nutrition, while it does nothing for the bacteria in an anaerobic environment.

Yes. I also have friends who are professional brewers and professional winemaker and worked with the former in various ways...

okay.

That's Carbon Dioxide knocking you out.

Actually, it is a lot of things.

 

[ebia]

One of beer's main anti-biotic aspects is the hops.

But my point isn't about that, it is about the role of alcohol. Alcohol does inhibit and kill bacteria in several ways. At a high enough concentration, it kills it. At lower concentrations, it prevents growth. Most importantly, the alcohol replaces the sugar- and alcohol is consumable for humans and provides nutrition, while it does nothing for the bacteria in an anaerobic environment.

The latter is one of those things I meant by "other factors". Removal of simple sugars, the acidity (a big factor in ciders), the hops in a modern beer, the tendency of yeast to out-compete other unpleasant organisms, the tendency of beer that has gone bad to taste undrinkable before it becomes dangerous, the removal of oxygen and (providing it is undisturbed in a relatively sealed container) the production of a protective blanket of CO2, the grape-skin antibacterials (for wine)... Alcohol alone isn't a big factor in the concentrations we find in beer, cider and wine.
Most of those factors are dependent on fermentation, but it's misleading to say that its the alcohol itself that is the reason beer, wine and cider keep while wort, apple-juice and grape-juice do not.
Of course there are acetic and lactic acid bacteria (and others) that can and do cope with those conditions.

Actually, it is a lot of things.

If you stick your head in a fermenter and take a good breath the main thing that is giving you a major kick in the head is CO2, which is quite dangerous to humans at that concentration.

...at 8-10% [by volume of CO2] unconciousness and even death occur

FWIW alcohol is most effective as a sanitiser at 70% ABV.

 

[SpiritualAntiseptic]

One of beer's main anti-biotic aspects is the hops.


The latter is one of those things I meant by "other factors". Removal of simple sugars, the acidity (a big factor in ciders), the hops in a modern beer, the tendency of yeast to out-compete other unpleasant organisms, the tendency of beer that has gone bad to taste undrinkable before it becomes dangerous, the removal of oxygen and (providing it is undisturbed in a relatively sealed container) the production of a protective blanket of CO2, the grape-skin antibacterials (for wine)... Alcohol alone isn't a big factor in the concentrations we find in beer, cider and wine.
Most of those factors are dependent on fermentation, but it's misleading to say that its the alcohol itself that is the reason beer, wine and cider keep while wort, apple-juice and grape-juice do not.
Of course there are acetic and lactic acid bacteria (and others) that can and do cope with those conditions.



If you stick your head in a fermenter and take a good breath the main thing that is giving you a major kick in the head is CO2, which is quite dangerous to humans at that concentration.

What I always enjoy about topics like this- in which I add a little information, and explain it simply, for the purpose of furthering the topic (often on something sciencey) - is that inevitably someone will show up and do their best to demonstrate whatever knowledge they have on it. It often gets into a contest to see who knows more than the other by the respondee finding silly complaints about the post... and the poster who started feeling the need to defend it.

I think it is terrific that you can demonstrate a rudamentary knowledge of the topic because you have 'friends that are professional brewers'. I get it, you don't need to let me know that CO2 is bad for me to show it.

Getting back to the topic at hand- you are completely wrong. Producing alcohol has everything to do with food preservation and preventing full spoilage. Food preservation is about minimizing the loss to the original food. By putting sugary liquids in an anaerobic environment and converting them primarily to alcohol, you have something that tastes good and still provides you with the nutrients and a good portion of the original calories. If you want to throw out some basic biochem concepts for the sake of arguing with me- that alcohol doesn't preserve anything- you go right ahead and do that. It is all about the reduction of sugars to alcohol that makes the food 'preserved'. Preservation is all about tasting good (or decent) and calories.

 

[ebia]

[Getting back to the topic at hand- you are completely wrong. Producing alcohol has everything to do with food preservation and preventing full spoilage. Food preservation is about minimizing the loss to the original food. By putting sugary liquids in an anaerobic environment and converting them primarily to alcohol, you have something that tastes good and still provides you with the nutrients and a good portion of the original calories. If you want to throw out some basic biochem concepts for the sake of arguing with me- that alcohol doesn't preserve anything- you go right ahead and do that. It is all about the reduction of sugars to alcohol that makes the food 'preserved'. Preservation is all about tasting good (or decent) and calories.

On all of that (and most of the other substantive things that have been said) we are in complete agreement.

It was this:

it has enough alcohol to kill bacteria and is safe to drink.

That I suggested was misleading - as too much of an inaccurate over simplification.

 

[ebia]

"Suspensions of Salmonella, E Coli and Shigella were tested against red and white wine, tequila (diluted to 10% ethanol), 10% ethanol, tap water, and bismuth silicate. For each of the bacterial perperations, wine proved superior to other test solutions, decreasing the bacterial count from nearly a million to zero within 20 min. Interestingly, 10% ethanol, an alcohol concentration similar to wine, had virtually no effect on the bacteria." Weisse quoted in Sander & Pinder.

 

[cowboysfan1970]

Yeah... grape juice, lol.

That grape juice thing just kills me every time I hear someone say it or read it somewhere. It's so far-fetched and ridiculous that it's great comic material. Usually that idea is promoted by people who claim to be sola scriptura but there is nothing anywhere in the Bible that could lead a person to believe that the water Christ turned into wine in Cana was anything but wine. To make their case stick they have to out outside the Bible (which violates the very basis of sola scriptura) or they have to revise scriptures to make it fit their arguement. I decided to research some of these dogmas and doctrines that some churches and people promote and I found some interesting things. Just about every one of them isn't based in the Bible at all but are false doctrines of man. Islam is the religion of alcohol prohibition, not Christianity.

Anybody know what you get when you mix cracked corn, corn malt, sugar, water, and then boil it? Let me give you a hint - try it in your back yard and the ATF will come and pay you a visit.

 

[SpiritualAntiseptic]

"Suspensions of Salmonella, E Coli and Shigella were tested against red and white wine, tequila (diluted to 10% ethanol), 10% ethanol, tap water, and bismuth silicate. For each of the bacterial perperations, wine proved superior to other test solutions, decreasing the bacterial count from nearly a million to zero within 20 min. Interestingly, 10% ethanol, an alcohol concentration similar to wine, had virtually no effect on the bacteria." Weisse quoted in Sander & Pinder.

This has nothing to do with putting bacteria in 10% solutions of alcohol.

When you press grapes, you get grape juice. In the ancient world. There were several things you could do with that juice. One of those options was to produce wine, which involved the conversion of the sugars into alcohol. The wine is "preserved" because it is still pleasant to drink and contains many of the original calories.

You could turn the juice into vinegar, but that is not drinkable. You could let the sugars be consumed or used to produced non-ethanol compounds, but it wouldn't have all the calories or be disgusting.

 

[ebia]

This has nothing to do with putting bacteria in 10% solutions of alcohol.

Exactly, which is why I objected to:

it has enough alcohol to kill bacteria and is safe to drink.

That fermenting the wine preserves it is absolutely true, that it does so because the alcohol kills the bacteria is not.

 

[GQ Chris]

did "light" beer exist in ancient times?

 

[GQ Chris]

ya know, I am a grape juice fan too. I pick up one up at least once a week at walmart.

 

[ebia]

did "light" beer exist in ancient times?

Without good malting and brewing techniques and only wild yeasts one would think most of it would only be quite moderate in its alcohol content.

Considering how involved brewing is compared to (say) wine making it's remarkable how early it seems to have been developed.

 

[GQ Chris]

Yes indeed, I wonder what the popular brew was during the hot Summertime in Jerusalem, I wonder if they had Heiffeweizens back then..

 

[ebia]

Yes indeed, I wonder what the popular brew was during the hot Summertime in Jerusalem, I wonder if they had Heiffeweizens back then..

Brewing from wheat is substantially harder than from barley, and wheat is far more useful for making bread, where as barley does not make good food. Barley is generally easier to grow as well. God clearly designed barley for making beer with, not wheat.

 

[GQ Chris]

Alas, Benjamin Franklin was right when he said "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" lol