Month: July 2008

(Tap Tap Tap) Is this thing on?…

Move is underway. Here’s a quick update / test.

Cornelia and Monk(eymutt), the Laser Dogs

On the way home (to Texas, that is, with a load of furniture from House v1.0 in Idaho) we adopted a co-dog. Now Cornelia isn’t the only official dog in the house.

Yeah, I know, pretty frivolous stuff. What do you want – this is mainly a test post. You guys ARE seeing this post, right? (Please comment and let me know). I’ve finally found and jumped through the hoops necessary to migrate the bigroom.org website over to the new host. It’s also running on the old server in House v1.0 on the DSL line as well, but this post isn’t getting put on it. If I’ve done everything correctly, hosting for bigroom.org should now be handled by Eskimo North. Just a few other minor tweaks and I’ll be set to return to House v1.0 and shut down the old server so I can move it down here to Texas.

I’ve gone from about 4400ft elevation down to about 250ft, but the plastic bottles of Mountain Dew® Wine seem to have positive pressure, so it would appear there is still some live yeast left in there and the priming sugar is slowly doing its job. I’m pretty sure the benzoic acid is what’s slowing down the activity so drastically, but it hasn’t killed it off yet.

I’ve also got a couple of entries in mind already for the next The Giants’ Shoulders blog carnival, and hopefully some more crazed brewing project news to offer sometime. And, of course, the promised post on why benzoic acid works. Stay tuned.

Administrivia

As part of the moving process, bigroom.org is going to be moved to hosting on “Eskimo North”, who I found via a Google™ search for “Linux-friendly” ISP’s. If all goes well, there’ll be no noticeable interruption. If all doesn’t go well, there may be up to a day or two while the site appears to be down (while the change propogates around the Domain Name Servers). If this happens, please don’t give up on me!…

Sometime in the next 24 hours or so I’ll take this physical server down so that I can bring it with me to the new Asylum, which will take a couple of days. Hopefully everything will have transitioned over to the new host before I do that. Wish me luck. More postings in a few days…

Mountain Dew® Wine: Disappointment strikes!

<whine excuse=”obligatory”>Have I ever mentioned what a huge hassle it is to relocate from one abode to another 1600 miles away?…</whine>

I’m finally back at House v1.0 where I can check on the progress of my Mountain Dew® Wine. It appears to have managed to ferment, in spite of the severe dose of preservatives in the stuff designed to prevent that from happening. It went somewhat slowly, but it’s gone from an original gravity of around 1.054 down to about 1.011 or so, suggesting about, say, 5-6% alcohol in the final product, which has faded to a pale, cloudy yellow color. Hopefully the cloudiness is from still-living yeast, which has now demonstrated that it is reasonably benzoic-acid-and-caffeine tolerant.

I fear I must report that the result is a crushing disappointment to me. It’s not very good. Worse yet, it’s not very bad, either. I was hoping that if it wasn’t surprisingly tasty that it would at least be shockingly awful in some interesting way so I’d have something entertaining to say about it here.

Actually, the adjective that comes to mind is “inoffensive”. If you would like to whip up a quick simulation of what I’ve got here, you might be able to do it like this: Take some citrus-flavored sparkling mineral water. Dilute it about half with (uncarbonated) distilled water. Then mix about 7 volumes of that with one volume of vodka. What I’ve got here is slightly sparkling, with a barely noticeable citrus flavor and little or no remaining sweetness. It’s a little surprising to me just how much of the flavor of Mountain Dew® apparently comes from its sweetness. Perhaps next time I try this (if there ever IS a “next time”…) I’ll have to mix regular and “diet” Mountain Dew® – with some bonus sugar to make up the difference, of course.

I’m not completely done here. I’m still going to dispense it into cleaned bottles with a little bit of sugar to prime it for full carbonation. Sanitized plastic soda-bottles of course – none of that snobby glass stuff for this here experimental drinkin’ substance! It may be high-class for “pruno”, but it’s sure as heck not Champagne™. (Besides, I want to evaluate reusing plastic bottles anyway – it’d be a lot easier to tell when there’s too much pressure and to let some of the pressure off if there is.) Plus, I need to take some of the still-live yeast and keep it alive. No point in developing a benzoic-acid-tolerant yeast strain and not keeping it!

On a related note, an article was mentioned on fark.com, saying that back in 1955, a scientist “proved” that it is not normally possible to get drunk on beer. Of course, he seems to have been referring to dilute mass-market bladderwash and his reasoning was that a typical human stomach cannot contain enough 3.7%-alcohol beer for a typical human to achieve a dangerous blood-alcohol level.

As usual, the articles (see here and here) go for the “a scientist says this” part but never bother to say WHERE the scientist says it – usually a real scientific publication.

A quick search of pubmed turns up a likely candidate:

Greenberg LA: “The definition of an intoxicating beverage.” Q J Stud Alcohol. 1955 Jun;16(2):316-25 (link goes to the pubmed entry, which has little more information that this).

I do believe it is a moral imperative that I get a copy of this article somewhere so that I may reference it later. Is there anyone out there reading this who might be able to get a copy of this paper somewhere for me? Please?…

SHENANIGANS! Caffeine is our FRIEND!

Our new Asylum has real internet finally now and we’re getting settled in. The Houston area here is one of the most hot and humid areas of the US. All hot and sweaty. So of course I’ve been advised that my favorite psychotropic substance – 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine [“caffeine” for party-poopers who aren’t into the fancier names] – is no longer my friend, because it’s a diuretic that’ll dehydrate me, right?

NO! Shenanigans! Caffeine is our FRIEND! And that stuff about it being a diuretic? CRAP! LIES AND SLANDER!

But don’t just take my word for it. After all, humans are a bunch of freakish multicellular soft-celled eukaryotes, and I normally focus on normal organisms like bacteria, archaea, and yeasts. So, let’s ask some real human-physiology type scientists and check out their official peer-reviewed findings:

Armstrong LE, Pumerantz AC, Roti MW, Judelson DA, Watson G, Dias JC, Sokmen B, Casa DJ, Maresh CM, Lieberman H, Kellogg M: “Fluid, electrolyte, and renal indices of hydration during 11 days of controlled caffeine consumption.”; Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2005 Jun;15(3):252-65.

“[…]The following variables were unaffected (P > 0.05) by different caffeine doses on days 1, 3, 6, 9, and 11 and were within normal clinical ranges: body mass, urine osmolality, urine specific gravity, urine color, 24-h urine volume, 24-h Na+ and K+ excretion, 24-h creatinine, blood urea nitrogen, serum Na+ and K+, serum osmolality, hematocrit, and total plasma protein. Therefore, C0, C3, and C6 exhibited no evidence of hypohydration.[…]”

Abstract on Pubmed

Armstrong LE, Casa DJ, Maresh CM, Ganio MS: “Caffeine, fluid-electrolyte balance, temperature regulation, and exercise-heat tolerance.” Exerc Sport Sci Rev. 2007 Jul;35(3):135-40.

“[…]This review, contrary to popular beliefs, proposes that caffeine consumption does not result in the following: (a) water-electrolyte imbalances or hyperthermia and (b) reduced exercise-heat tolerance.”

(Review article, apparently – Abstract on Pubmed)

Del Coso J, Estevez E, Mora-Rodriguez R: “Caffeine effects on short-term performance during prolonged exercise in the heat.” Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2008 Apr;40(4):744-51.

“[…]RESULTS: Without fluid replacement (NF and NF + CAFF), subjects were dehydrated by 3.8 +/- 0.3%[…]CONCLUSION: During prolonged exercise in the heat, caffeine ingestion (6 mg.kg body weight) maintains MVC and increases PMAX despite dehydration and hyperthermia. When combined with water and carbohydrate, caffeine ingestion increases maximal leg force by increasing VA (i.e., reducing central fatigue).”

(“NF” = “No Fluid replacement” – the “dehydration” mentioned here is due to exercising in the heat, and doesn’t appear to be related to whether the test subjects consumed caffeine or not)

Abstract on Pubmed

Scott D, Rycroft JA, Aspen J, Chapman C, Brown B:”The effect of drinking tea at high altitude on hydration status and mood.” Eur J Appl Physiol. 2004 Apr;91(4):493-8. Epub 2004 Feb 11.

“[…]Several markers of hydration status were also taken immediately pre and post each condition, including measures of urine specific gravity, urine electrolyte balance (K+, Na+), and urine colour. None of these measures indicated a difference in hydration status as a result of the dietary intervention in either the control or tea condition.[…]”

(In this study, the tea was the only caffeine-containing substance involved. The study group’s caffeine came solely from the tea. The control group got no caffeine at all.)

Abstract on pubmed

Paluska SA: “Caffeine and exercise.” Curr Sports Med Rep. 2003 Aug;2(4):213-9.

“[…]It[caffeine] is relatively safe and has no known negative performance effects, nor does it cause significant dehydration or electrolyte imbalance during exercise.[…]”

Abstract on Pubmed

Grandjean AC, Reimers KJ, Bannick KE, Haven MC.: “The effect of caffeinated, non-caffeinated, caloric and non-caloric beverages on hydration.” J Am Coll Nutr. 2000 Oct;19(5):591-600.

“[…]This preliminary study found no significant differences in the effect of various combinations of beverages on hydration status of healthy adult males.[…]”

Pubmed entry – full text available

See? Oh, I know what you’re going to say next – “But, like, dude! When I drink my Venti Mocha Crappucino [note: Link goes to “Foamy the Squirrel”, who is a bit of a pottymouth, ranting about the “Tall/Grande/Venti” nonsense.  It amused me.] or a can of Jolt Ultra I have to take a major whiz a little while later! Isn’t that ‘cuz of the caffeine?” Well, no, it isn’t. It’s because you just drank a bunch of liquid. Duh.

So, you see, caffeine really is our friend. Be nice to caffeine. But don’t feed it to your yeast in the presence of benzoic acid because it’ll kill them. See? I managed to turn this into a segue back to the stuff I was talking about before the whole “buy a house in Texas” thing started interfering. Stay tuned…