White Noise makes beer prepare faster, says scientists

Music can make people do things faster, run, dance and make homework good examples. It seems, however, that we are not alone to pick up the sound of a good melody.

Researchers have discovered that touching a sound commonly known as white noise can be shortened fermentationPuguilably the most important step to make beer, for 21 to 31 hours, without significantly changing the taste. This could help breweries to increase beer production without reducing quality.

How the sound changes beer fermentation

The sound consists of two parts: pressure changes (with compression and rarefaction areas) and particle movement, where particles in the middle vibrate and pass that movement to nearby particles. “This study investigates the effect that the audible sound particle movement component has on beer fermentations using linear actuators (lat) that predominantly deliver the sound particle movement component instead of the pressure component,” the researchers wrote in a paper Posted in May in the journal Food Research International. In other words, scientists wanted to find out if vibrations, instead of strong sound pressure, could accelerate the fermentation process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgfop0rkow0

Fermentation is when yeast“Trains of unicellular fungal species,” says sugars in alcohol and carbon dioxide. The process can take days or weeks, but when the researchers used specialized devices, the Lats, to transmit white noise to beer, fermentation occurred faster.

“The application of sound stimulation increased the growth of yeast by maintaining a higher concentration of suspension yeast cells,” said Parise Adadi, principal author of the study and researcher of Food Sciences at the University of Otago – ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, in a university statement. “Solid energy stimulated cellular processes and metabolic pathways, improving the growth and activity of yeast. This led to faster consumption of grass sugars and subsequent alcohol production; but it is important that it did not alter significantly the composition of the taste of the final beer.”

Adadi and his colleagues concluded this after comparing two lots of beer: one that experienced the sound simulation and another that did not. The beer that was treated with faster sound. For experiments, scientists used white noise between 800 and 2,000 Hertz, delivered to intensities close to 140 decibels.

Benefits of faster fermentation

Faster fermentation increases production efficiency, which allows brewers to make more beer without sacrificing quality. And since it has little effect on volatile compounds, flavor and aroma remain consistent, Adadi explained. “In addition, if audible sound stimulation is scalable, it could revolutionize fermentation technology, generating innovations in other fermented products such as wine and spirits,” he added.

Adadi and the work of his team could also have implications outside the alcohol industry. Think of how quickly yogurt, kombucha, chucrut and kimchi could do!