What the Journals Say
This section of the web site provides brief reviews of papers that should be of interest to brewers, enologists, viticulturists, distillers and readers interested in alcoholic beverages in general. By necessity, as peer reviewed articles, these papers may be a bit more technical in nature but will provide news at the forefront of the respective fields. Feel free to recommend papers that should be listed here including your own publications.
So you think you know what makes a smooth Vodka – do you? Science leads the way showing, arguably, how many water molecules per ethanol molecule are needed for the right structure and smoothness of vodka.
Cincinnati (Ohio) author and Professor Dale W. Schaefer and Russian collegues elegantly show, in a highly technical paper (and in related articles in press), how many water molecules are surrounding each ethanol molecule in various vodkas and how that may affect the “smoothness” or mouthfeel of the drink. This relates to empirical observations of our own that show, for instance, an improved “smoothness factor” or “viscosity” in 6 times vs. 3 times distilled vodkas. This research will have a big impact in marketing vodka as the sponsors of the research are already touting superior properties of their own vodka based upon its “structurability”. It also means that simply distilling grain alcohol once and adding the moniker “Craft Vodka” will no longer cut it. The papers (this one just published and others by the same authors) will no doubt stimulate a lot of discussion on the topic especially with the major “supreme” Vodka producers out there.
Landmark Publication.
Jim Hackbarth has just published, what I consider, a landmark paper in the Journal of the American Society of Brewing Chemists. It deals with the classical though little known (surprisingly many have never heard of this extremely useful equation) Tabarie equation. The paper presents a nice history of the equation and its uses and limitations. It also helps us understand how to correct Anton Paar Density meter/Alcolyzer data. I had discussed this equation with Jim a few years ago which resurrected my own interest in the Tabarie relationships. We use this equation to cross check the results in our laboratory. A few folks in brewing have used it but winemakers (they have a different form of this equation) and distillers do not seem to be readily aware of it. Here is a small excerpt from the paper and Jim would, I am sure , be interested in hearing from interested readers. He also generated the very useful MBT (Master Brewers Toolbox) calculator for many brewing functions; so Jim really knows this stuff well. Congratulations to Jim on getting this important work published.
Currently several older papers are listed here and we will update with our continued literature searches. Please note that we have covered this topic at several recent meetings and will be happy to share with you how you can gain easy access to many of the leading articles in the field.
From 2006
Beer – finally reduced to its root principles??
A new paper provides some fascinating insights into beer flavor and, for the first time, proposes that overall beer aroma can be imitated by combining just 22 reference odorants.?
The flavor components in the aroma-mix include common and well known flavors and some previously unidentified odorants.?
Up until now (unlike for wine, spirits and fruit flavored beverages) no one had made a simple “cocktail” of constituent components that could be perceived as being “beer”. This is thus a big step forward in looking at beer flavor chemistry.
Finally, there is particularly cogent discussion on hop components and beer flavor for those interested in very hoppy beers.
The paper: “Identification Based on Quantitative Measurements and Aroma Recombination of the Character Impact Odorants in a Bavarian Pilsner-type Beer” by Helge T. Fritsch and Peter Schieberle was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (Vol. 53, pages 7544-7551 in 2005).
Back up and visit our “Books” page for some neat books covering topics on wine, beer, distilled beverages and more.