brewing

Friday News-Gene Mutation Could Ruin Japanese Sake

Posted by

0

The mutation affects how brewing yeast grows and divides, posing a threat to the brewing of this delicious rice wine.

 

AsianScientist (Jul. 8, 2016) – Researchers in Japan have identified a gene mutation that could potentially disrupt the brewing of the delicious Japanese rice wine, more commonly known as sake. The research was part of an academic-government-industry collaboration involving the National Institute of Brewing (Japan), the Asahi Sake Brewing Company, the Brewing Society of Japan, the University of Tokyo, Iwate University and the University of Pennsylvania in the US. The findings were published in Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry. Two types of sake considered especially high-quality are called daiginjo-shu and junmai-daiginjo-shu and are often made using the yeast K1801. Whether for beer, wine or sake, different brewing yeasts create different tastes in the final product due to factors such as how the sugar-to-alcohol conversion is carried out and the types of by-products that are released.

 

Read at Asian Scientist

Barf-Less Brews and Genetic engineering

Posted by

0

Barf-Less Brews

Genetic engineering could help keep harmful toxins out of barley and beer, but will consumers with a thirst for craft malts and brews buy into it?

This past summer, exceptionally hot and humid for many, was brutal for the small-scale barley farmers who have been cropping up in the northeastern United States—especially for those who intended to sell grain for malting and beer brewing.

“We had really bad conditions last year in New England,” says Andrea Stanley, who along with her husband Christian owns and operates the Hadley, Massachusetts–based micro-malting outfit Valley Malt. “During the last week of June and first week of July we had 90- to 95-degree, high-humidity weather, [with] rainfall almost every day. It was a really bad scene: we were just sitting on our hands, like ‘Ugh, this is bad—I need a beer!’”

While some of the farmers who supply the Stanleys with barley for malting still had suitable harvests, and their own 40 acres of heirloom grain were left unscathed, a number of barley growers were not so fortunate: weather conditions were optimal for Fusarium graminearum, a fungal pathogen that causes the wheat and barley disease fusarium head blight. (See “Plant Scourges.”) F. graminearum thrives in warm, moist environments and most often infects flowering plants. But it’s not the fungal infection that causes the most damage to cereal crops. Rather, it’s the mycotoxins produced by some Fusarium species that can be devastating. One such mycotoxin, deoxynivalenol (DON), is particularly problematic because even low levels can upset the digestive systems of animals and humans who consume infected grain, earning it the moniker “vomitoxin.”

 

Read full article at TheScientist