Author: Biology Junction Team

Fermentation Rootbeer

 

FERMENTATION – MAKING ROOT BEER
David Fankhauser’s Main Page

 

Introduction:

Fermentation has been used by mankind for thousands of years for raising bread, fermenting wine and brewing beer. The products of the fermentation of sugar by baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (a fungus) are ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide causes bread to rise and gives effervescent drinks their bubbles. This action of yeast on sugar is used to ‘carbonate’ beverages, as in the addition of bubbles to champagne).

We will set up a fermentation in a closed system and capture the generated carbon dioxide to carbonate root beer. You may of course adjust the quantities of sugar and/or extract  (Zatarain’s) to taste. 

EQUIPMENT
SUPPLIES
  • clean 2 liter plastic soft drink bottle with cap
  • funnel
  • 1 cup measuring cup
  • 1/4 tsp measuring spoon
  • 1 Tbl measuring spoon
  • Cane (table) sugar [sucrose] (1 cup)
  • Zatarain’s Root Beer Extract (1 tablespoon)
  • (When I could not find it locally, I ordered a case of 12 bottles for $18 from Zatarain’s, New Orleans, LA 70114
  • powdered baker’s yeast (1/4 teaspoon)  (Yeast for brewing would certainly work at least as well as baking yeast.)
  • cold fresh water

 

 

INSTRUCTIONS:

1) Assemble the necessary equipment and supplies
2) With a dry funnel, add in sequence:

1 level cup of table sugar (cane sugar) (You can adjust the amount to achieve the desired sweetness.)
3) Add: 1/4 teaspoon powdered baker’s yeast ( fresh and active)

(Fleischmann’s or other brand)
4) You can see the yeast granules on top of the sugar.
5) Shake to distribute the yeast grains into the sugar.
6) Swirl the sugar/yeast mixture in the bottom to make it concave (to catch the extract).
7) Add with funnel:

1 Tbl of root beer extract (I prefer Zatarain’s, but Hires, etc. will work.)

on top of the dry sugar
8) The extract sticks to the sugar which will help dissolve the extract in the next steps.
9) Half fill the bottle with fresh cool tap water (the less chlorine, the better).

Rinse in the extract which sticks to the tablespoon and funnel. Swirl to dissolve the ingredients.
10) Q.s. [fill up] to the neck of the bottle with fresh cool tap water, leaving about an inch of head space, securely screw cap down to seal. Invert repeatedly to thoroughly dissolve.

If you leave it in a warm temperature longer than two weeks, you risk an explosion…

11) Place at room temperature about three to four days until the bottle feels hard to a forceful squeeze. Move to a cool place (below 65 F). refrigerate overnight to thoroughly chill before serving. Crack the lid of the thoroughly chilled root beer just a little to release the pressure slowly.

NOTE: Do not leave the finished root beer in a warm place once the bottle feels hard. After a couple weeks or so at room temperature, especially in the summer when the temperature is high, enough pressure may build up to explode the bottle! There is no danger of this if the finished root beer is refrigerated.
12) Move to a refrigerator overnight before opening.

 

NOTE: There will be a sediment of yeast at the bottom of the bottle, so that the last bit of root beer will be turbid. Decant carefully if you wish to avoid this sediment.

A WORD ABOUT THE ALCOHOL IN HOME MADE ROOT BEER: The alcoholic content which results from the fermentation of this root beer and found it to be between 0.35 and 0.5 %. Comparing this to the 6% in many beers, it would require a person to drink about a gallon and a half of this root beer to be equivalent to one 12 ounce beer. I would call this amount of alcohol negligible, but for persons with metabolic problems who cannot metabolize alcohol properly, or religious prohibition against any alcohol,  consumption should be limited or avoided.

 

February Calendar

 

February Calendar

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

1
Chapter 14 and 15 Test

2
Record keeping
Grades sent home
begin 16-1 notes
HW: 4 interesting things from 16-1
3
Quiz
6
Comparing Primate Cranial Capacity Lab
7
Comparing Amino Acid Sequences Worksheet
16-2 Q’s – Due 2/13
8
Lecture over 16-2
9
Substitute Teacher!
Watch Video
10
Quiz
13
Classifying Shoes
Taxon Sentences
14
Kingdom Notes
Dichotomous Key
15
Work Day
16
Hominid EC Due
Ch 17 Q’s Due
Review game
17
Chapter 16 and 17 test today
20
18-1 Notes
HW: 18-1 Q’s
21
Virus spreading activity
22
18-1 Q’s Due
18-2 Notes
HW:18-2 Q’s
23
24
Quiz
18-2 Q’s Due
27
28

 

Fast Food Chemistry Lab

 

   McMush

Introduction:
Carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, and other nutrients  provide your body with energy  necessary to carry on life activities. These compounds are present in the plants and animals you use as food. In this lab, you will test for specific compounds and then determine if those compounds are present in ordinary foods.

Objective:
To determine the compounds present in food.

Materials:

McDonald’s Happy Meal (fries + drink included) (no toy!), beaker, graduated cylinder, test tubes, test tube clamp,  hot plate, Benedict’s solution, Biuret solution,  Indophenol (DPIP) solution, Lugol’s iodine solution,  1% silver nitrate solution, blender

Procedure:
Part I – Testing of Known Substances

Protein test: 

  1. Place 5 ml of the gelatin solution into your test tube.
  2. Add ten drops of Biuret solution.
  3. Observe any color change 

Glucose test:

  1. Place 5 ml of the glucose solution into your test tube.
  2. Add 3 ml of Benedict’s solution.
  3. Place the tube in a beaker of boiling water and boil for five minutes
  4. Use test tube clamps to hold hot test tubes.
  5. Observe any color change 

Starch test:

  1. Place 5 ml of the starch solution into your test tube.
  2. Add 5 drops of Lugol’s iodine solution.
  3. Observe any color change  

 

Vitamin C test:

  1. Place 5 ml of the vitamin C solution into your test tube.
  2. Add 5 drops of indophenol solution.
  3. Observe any color change

Chloride test:

  1. Place 5 ml of the salt solution into your test tube.
  2. Add 5 drops of silver nitrate solution.
  3. Observe any color change.

 

Record your results in a data table: 

 

Food Substance    Reagent test           Results
Gelatin                  Biuret solution  
Glucose  Benedict’s solution  
Starch Lugol’s iodine solution  
Vitamin C             indophenol solution  
Sodium chloride   silver nitrate solution  

 

Procedure:
Part II – Testing McMush

  1. Place the Happy in a blender. Add enough water to cover and blend until you get an emulsion.
  2. Filter the mush in to a beaker.
  3. Predict the substances you will find in the McMush solution. Record your predictions in the data table using   a “ +” or “-“.
  4. Repeat the reagent tests above using 5 ml of the McMush solution.
  5. Describe and record your results.

    

Food Substance    Prediction Reagent test           Results
Protein Biuret Solution  
Sugar  Benedict’s Solution  
Starch Lugol’s solution  
Vitamin C Indophenol Solution  
Sodium Chloride Silver Nitrate Solution

 

Procedure:
PART III: McMush – Demonstration of Fat Content

Materials:
McMush, hot plate, 1-500ml beaker,1-200ml graduated cylinder, 100 ml of water, 2 oven mitts, 1 wooden spoon, 1 refrigerator to cool McMush mixture

Overview: 

The complete meal will be blended to make the McMush. A large sample from the blended Happy Meal will then be heated. From the heated sample, 100 ml will be taken and cooled. This cooled sample will represent the complete meal.

Steps:

  1. Preheat the hot plate
  2. Break up meal into small pieces and blend.
  3. Pour part of the blended McMush into a 500 ml beaker.
  4. Add 100 ml of water to the McMush and stir well.
  5. Boil McMush mixture gently for 15 minutes.
  6. Use oven mitts to protect your hands and pour the hot McMush  mixture into a graduated cylinder. Then cool in the refrigerator for 5 minutes.
  7. Remove McMush from the refrigerator and measure the amount of accumulated fat at the top of the graduated cylinder.
  8. Record results.
  9. Clean glassware with warm soapy water.

Expected Outcome: 

  The fat will form a layer at the top and solidify as it cools. You may calculate the percent of fat in the McMush meal by dividing the ml of fat by the total ml of your sample.  For example, you might find 40 ml of fat out of a total of 100 ml of sample. This would indicate that the total meal contained 40% fat.

Adapted from a lab by C. Sheldon

 

Frog Dissection Worksheet

 

Frog Dissection Worksheet
    1. What do you think is the function of the nictitating membrane, and why?
    2. A frog does not chew its food. What do the positions of its teeth suggest about how the frog uses them?
    3. Trace the path of food through the digestive tract.
    4. Trace the path of blood through the circulatory system, starting at the right atrium.
    5. Trace the path of air through the respiratory system.
    6. Trace the paths of sperm in a male and eggs in a female.
    7. Trace the path of urine in both sexes.
    8. Which parts of the frog’s nervous system can be observed in its abdominal cavity and hind leg?
    9. Suppose in a living frog the spinal nerve extending to the leg muscle were cut. What ability would the frog lose? Why?
    10. The abdominal cavity of a frog at the end of hibernation season would contain very small fat bodies or none at all. What is the function of the fat bodies?

 

  1.  Structures of an animal’s body that fit it for its environment are adaptations. How do the frog’s powerful hind legs help it to fit into a life both in water and on land?
  2. During one mating of frogs, the female lays some 2,000 to 3,000 eggs in water as the male sheds millions of sperm over them. How do these large numbers relate to the frog’s fitness for life in water?
BACK

Energy in Food Writeup

Energy in Food Write Up

Introduction:

Use your lab and your textbook to locate and include the following information in your introduction.

  • What organisms are capable of making their own food?
  • What process do they use to do this?
  • Where do these organisms get their energy for food-making?
  • This energy is captured with the help of what pigment?
  • This energy is stored in what organic molecules?
  • Where exactly in the organic molecules is the energy stored and so it can be used again later? (Hint: Energized electrons form these and then energy is released again when they are broken.)
  • What process takes place in plants & animals to release energy?
  • What gas is required for the process to occur?
  • When foods are “burned” in our bodies, where is the energy being released from? Where did this energy originally come from?
  • What is the usable form of energy for our cells?
  • Define calorimetry and explain how it can be used to measure energy stored in chemical bonds of food.

Hypothesis:

  • Write a statement explaining that calorimetry can be used to detect the amount of energy stored in the chemical bonds of foods.

Materials:

In sentence form, write a statement listing the materials required for this lab.

Procedure:

  • In paragraph form, write the procedures for completing this lab.

Results:

  • Draw and fill in table 1 showing the results of burning
  • Draw and fill in table 2 showing your data analysis for nut calorimetry
  • Write out and answer the questions on the lab. Remember to write and underline the question, but do NOT underline the answer.

Conclusion: (Write in paragraph form.)

  • Restate your hypothesis.
  • Tell how were you able to measure the amount of energy in each nut
  • Did all three nuts contain the same amount of food energy? Explain by giving data from your experiment..
  • Explain why some foods contained more energy than others
  • Tell where this energy originally come from and how it got into the nuts
  • Explain any errors you might have made in lab that could have affected your results