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Designing DNA Circuits To Brew Tastier Beer
Al writes "Researchers at Boston University have developed a way to predict the behavior of different DNA segments and make synthetic biology a little bit more reliable. James Collins and colleagues have built libraries of component parts and a mathematical modeling system to help them predict the behavior of parts of a gene network. Like any self-respected bunch of grad students, they decided to demonstrate the approach by making beer. They engineered gene promoters to control when flocculation occurs in brewers yeast, which allowed them to finely control the flavor of the resulting beer."
Somebody must stop them... Before they produce the beverage man was not meant to brew!
A philosophical question: can beer brewed using genetically engineered yeast still be pure according to Reinheitsgebot?
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
All other science to this point has solely been done as groundwork for better tasting beer.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
Damn fool BU geeks.
You don't use genes to manipulate beer, you use beer to manipulate jeans.
Kids these days....
All other science to this point has solely been done as groundwork for better tasting beer.
Which brings us full circle, since the development of agriculture (which led to the sedentary lifestyle, food surplus, and a leisure class with the time and resources to "do science") is believed (by some anthropologists) to have been primarily motivated by a desire to raise more grain for feeding to yeast in order to make beer (and, incidentally, bread).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Applied Science AKA "Engineering" exists to make life better. Air conditioning, blogging, better tasting beer. If not to make life just that little bit better, than for what?
Sure, there are starving people in XYZ country, but they are starving precisely because they are NOT using engineering to make their lives better! Sure, you could donate the cost of that better-tasting beer and feed the starving kid for a few days... but then what?
Feel free to donate to 3rd world countries (I do) but when you do, don't just throw money/food at them, donate your money towards programs that will improve their infrastructure. Things like education. (I personally sponsor to help aschool for kids in rural Haiti)
And don't hesitate to enjoy that good-tasting franken-beer!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
This would be a neat trick if it allowed brewing with yeasts that produced an English flavor profile yet had the high flocculation rates associated with American ale yeasts (Wyeast 1232 is the best compromise currently produced commercially, IMHO).
if they can adjust speed of fermentation and can actually change the flavor of beer, this could mean a whole new market of beer flavors we haven't had the change to try!
Imagine a skunky stout, or a crisp and light porter. . .
the changes could be immense!
(or maybe I'm just being silly)
... selling this technology to the cigar or wine industries.
Because of terroir, different regions are going to have different climates and different soil content to produce different tasting or different quality products.
But imagine being able to grow a grape in Sonoma or some cigar tobacco in Honduras and have them taste just as if they had come from France or Cuba respectively by genetically engineering a strain. Sure, some would want and have the option to keep their wines and cigars just the way they currently are. But for those who desire a taste that is currently well outside of their price range or (in the case of Cuban cigars) illegal due to embargo, this would be a boon.
There is, for example, a stark difference between Cuban tobacco from before and after 1996. Why? They changed from using corojo tobacco to a corojo/cigarette tobacco hybrid that would withstand mold. The flavor and richness are not the same anymore. But perhaps with some genetic tweaking, they can create a strain which is resistant to the mold AND shares the same flavor characteristics as the old corojo leaf.
So even at the top of the ladder, there is room for improvement.
Also, I'd like to volunteer my services to test their beer.
The hype: Skyy Vodka
The reality: Skyy Vodka is a marketing company. Manufacturing is outsourced. They buy bulk ethanol from a MGP Ingredients (formerly Midwest Solvents Company) plant in Pekin, IL. MGP makes ethanol for beverage and industrial purposes. They used to sell ethanol for fuel, too, but that ended in February 2009 due to financial losses; their production costs were too high for fuel use.
The ethanol is pumped into tank cars and shipped by rail to Frank-Lin Distillers Products in San Jose, CA., which has their own railroad sidings. Frank-Lin bottles, along with Skyy Vodka, most of the low-end booze on the West Coast. They make everything from brandy to whiskey, by mixing ethanol, water, and flavoring. They make over a thousand different "brands", although they only have about a hundred different recipes.
Frank-Lin is very automated. They have automated bottling lines that can change from one bottle and product to another without human intervention, and equally flexible packaging systems. So they can create the illusion of thousands of products, all coming from one plant.
It's all just flavored ethanol. Deal with it.
For more information than you'll probably ever want about beer brewing, see How to Brew, by John Palmer (free online, also available in print).
Although the Palmer book is for homebrewers, apparently getting rid of haze is something that commercial breweries are extremely interested in, and they spend millions of dollars on research. As far as I can tell, it would mainly be an issue for American-style lagers (e.g., Budweiser), which are transparent enough that the haze would be noticeable. However, tannins and haze can also correlate with taste and shelf life (oxidation). As a homebrewer, I've never really worried about it much.
I'm not clear on why they want to use genetic modification to control when flocculation happens. There are tons of varieties of yeast that you can buy, and one of the criteria you apply when you're selecting a strain of yeast is how alcohol-tolerant it is. A less alcohol-tolerant strain will respond earlier to the stress of the alcohol by flocculating out. Since there are already so many different strains with different flocculation properties, I don't really see what the genetic modification gains you.
Find free books.
the "Library Grape," http://anathem.wikia.com/wiki/Library_grape from Neil Stephenson's Anathem. I happen to be re-reading it right now, and just got through the dissertation on the Library Grape yesterday. I love coincidences like these.
I am not left-handed, either!