Fermentation of Apple Cider

756 Words2 Pages

Fermentation of Apple Cider

“Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to

humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world. Science is the highest personification of the nation because that nation will remain the first which carries the furthest the works of thought and intelligence.” – Louis Pasteur, Great French Scientist (1822-1892).

Fermentation is chemical changes in organic substances produced by the action of enzymes. This general definition includes virtually all chemical reactions of physiological importance, and scientists today often restrict the term to the action of specific enzymes, called ferments, produced by minute organisms such as molds, bacteria, and yeasts. Generally, fermentation results in the breakdown of complex organic substances into simpler ones through the action of catalysts (Encarta).

Fermentation , originally, is the foaming that occurs during the manufacture of wine and beer, a process at least 10,000 years old. That the frothing results from the evolution of carbon dioxide gas was not recognized until the 17th century. Louis Pasteur in the 19th century used the term fermentation in a narrow sense to describe the changes brought about by yeasts and other microorganisms growing in the absence of air (anaerobically); he also recognized that ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide are not the only products of fermentaion (Britannica).

In the 1920s it was discovered that extracts of muscle catalyze, in the absence of air, the formation of lactate from glucose and that the same intermediate compounds formed in the fermentation of grain are produced by muscle. An important generalization thus emerged: that fermentation reactions are not peculiar to the action of yeast but al...

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Works Cited

“Fermentation,” Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2000.

http://encarta.msn.com 1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation.

“Fermentation,” Encyclopedia Britannica Online Edition.

http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article=fermentation/9 2000.

Jonson, Lee W., Ph.D. Brew Chem 101 – The Basics of Homebrewing

Chemistry. Storey Publishing: Pownal, Vermont. 1996.

Morison, Bruce. Fermenting and Aging the Cider – Bruce Morison’s Cider Guide.

http://www.bg-mor.demon.co.uk/cider/cidferm.htm

Orton, Vrest. The American Cider Book. Farrar, Straus, and Grioux: New York.

1973.

Pfizer, P. The Pasteur Fermentation Centennial 1857-1957. Chas. Pfizer & Co.,

Inc.: New York. 1958.

Rose, A.H. Economic Microbiology – Fermented Foods. Volume 7. New York:

1982.

Watson, Ben. Cider – Hard and Sweet. The Countrymen Press: Vermont.

1999.

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