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Re: Heartburn in your yeast bottle
In the TV ads for heartburn remedies they talk about acid reflux, and that
sounds like what happens some times with yeast bottles. What gets burped
up is a mixture of yeast, sugar, alcohols, etc. that makes good food for
bacteria in the tank. The cloudiness that results is likely bacteria,
rather than yeast. Even if nothing gets burped up, alcohols are volatile
and can be carried in in the air. This probably explains the small amount
of white slime or other growth often seen near the outlet of the DIY
system.
I wonder if it would be helpful to flush the system with air periodically
so that the O2 supply gets renewed and the accumulated CO2 gets pumped into
the tank. A one minute flush when the lights come on in the morning might
be a good time to deliver CO2. It should be possible to rig some kind of
clever system so that when the pressure goes negative due to oxygen
consumption, a switch is turned on to a small air pump to flush the system
for a minute or a half minute. If the culture can be kept aerobic, the
yeast will produce a lot more CO2 than if it goes anaerobic. Under
anaerobic conditions you get two molecules of CO2 and two molecules of
ethyl alcohol from a molecule of glucose. Under aerobic contitions, you
get 6 molecules of CO2 (and nothing else except 6 molecules of water) from
a molecule of glucose.
Paul Krombholz, in cool central Mississippi, where it is going to get
warmer.