ETHANOL PRODUCER'S DATA BASE

Simplicity in Applied technology

Fermentation

BASICS OF FERMENTATION

  • Just about any type of organic matter can be fermented and distilled to produce ethanol, though some substances are, better suited to this purpose than are others.
  • It's essential that the basis for your mash contain either fermentable sugar or starch that can be transformed into a ready- to-be- fermented sugar.
  • I use corn for my initial mash experiments because it's readily available, and is excellent  material for ethanol production, and fairly inexpensive to buy or produce and it leaves a simple and efficient animal feed called Distillers Grain after the distillation is complete.
  • Fermentation is the process by which raw corn becomes mash, and it is the action of yeast upon a sugar solution. Yeast consume the sweet substance, which is added to the mixture in the form of sugar, or liberated from the corn itself by sprouting or even a combination of both to give off carbon dioxide gas and alcohol.
  • A fully fermented mash is between 10%, to 15% ethanol.
  • Distillation will then separate the ethanol vapors water and allow them to condense in the form of a maximum theoratical 96.4% Ethanol.
  • The liquid mash containing mostly water with a trace residue of ethanol,is left behind, and can be used to make the next batch of mash, thereby utilizing all the ethanol left after distillation.

 

History of fermentation

The discovery of yeast as the cause of fermentation.

 

  • 1632-1723 Antonie van Leeuwenhoek invents the microscope which allows yeast and bacteria to be seen.
  • 1789 Lavoisier: fermentation end products ethanol and CO2
  • 1810 Gay-Lussac: C6H12O6 --> 2 C2H5OH + 2 CO2
  • 1818 Erxleben, De La Tour, Schwann, Kützing (1837): Yeasts are the cause
  • 1866 Louis Pasteur: études sur le vin,
  • 1876 études sur la bière
  • 1894 Christian Emil Hansen, Hermann Müller-Thurgau, Julius Wortmann  pure culture yeast
  • The discovery of the biochemistry of fermentation
  • 1897 Buchner: extract of yeast retains ability to ferment glucose to ethanol
  • 1905 Harden and Young: heat-labile fraction (zymase, proteins) + heat-stable fraction (cozymase, NAD, ATP, ADP)
  • 1908 Gustav Embden: cleavage of fructose 1,6 -di-P
  • 1927 Otto Mayerhof: verified Embden's theory and added energetics
  • 1940: Embden-Mayerhof pathway: glucose --> pyruvate also: Otto Warburg, CF Cori and GT Cori, J Parnas
  •  Many microorganisms can do it, plants (carbonic fermentation) yeasts:
    • Saccharomyces cerevisiae (and other) uptake of sugars passage through cell  wall.

 

Fermentation Cooling

  Here is a rough sketch of a cooling coil installed in a fermentation vat

  • It is meant as a guide and schematic model.
  • Use your own tchnique to build a coil that will cover a large portion of the vat.
  • This will give good results as long as the mash is stirred occasionally.
  • Note that the coil should not pass through the bottom of the vat.
  • Bend the end of the coil so both ends of the coil are at the top of the vat.
    • I will correct this in a short while...

Image source: Mother Earth