The Science Of Peat Smoke And Flavor Development In Scotch Whisky
Peat is partially decayed vegetation and organic matter that can accumulate over thousands of years to create large peat bogs hundreds of feet thick. In North America, peat bogs are known as muskegs, and when chunks of peat are dried, it can be burned for fuel. In areas with fewer trees to burn, peat has long been used has a source of heat. Peat has long been used to malt barley for making whisky, and in doing so, the peat smoke gets absorbed by the grains. The grains then pass the smoke flavor, known as peat reek, on to the whisky. It turns out that every peat bog has a distinct chemical signature with a specific aroma and flavor profile determined by the organic matter composition and climactic conditions of the place in which it formed. For instance, in areas that get a lot of rain, peat tends to accumulate a large quantity of sphagnum moss, which contains phenolic compounds that impart a medicinal character to peated Scotch whiskies. The more moss in the peat, the more medicinal taste in the whisky. In Eastern Scotland, where the climate is drier, the peat has less moss in it, so whiskies from that region lack the overtly medicinal quality of Scotch from the western part of the country. The western islands of Scotland, such as Islay, and the Northern Highlands, also contain peat with maritime influences, so the whiskies made there exude aromas of iodine or smoked, oily fish. And in the Orkney Islands, the peat composition includes a high quantity of heather, which imparts a delicate, floral, potpourri like aroma to the local whisky.
Apart from the composition of the peat itself, the temperature at which it is burned also influences the flavor profile of whisky. Excessive combustion temperatures can degrade some of the volatile peat phenolics, impacting the flavor of the whisky. For instance, one of the phenolic compounds called guaiacol, imparts the aromas of kippers, smoked bacon and aged cheese to whisky. Cresol, another phenol, imparts medicinal flavors reminiscent of disinfectant and antiseptic. When peat is burned at higher temperatures, by stoking the fire or using drier peat, the amount of cresol increases and the amount of guaiacol decreases. In addition to choosing what kind of peat to burn, whisky makers can also alter the aromas in their whiskies by changing the combustion temperature to, say, increase the smoked fish aromas and decrease the medicinal aromas. The fermentation time and temperature as well as the amount of aging also influence the total quantity of phenolic compounds, and the perceptible flavors, that remain in the bottled whisky.
Digital “Nose” Holds Promise For Food Manufacturers
Aryballe, a digital olfaction startup from France, has developed a digital “nose” that has the ability to detect odors and categorize them into a mapped, visual, comparable format. The device is called the NeOse Pro. NeOse Pro mimics the human sense of smell by binding odor molecules to biosensors, which behave similarly to the receptors in the human olfactory bulb. The software within the digital nose is then able to compare captured odor signatures with its library of previously captured signatures. Many food manufacturers have expressed interest in the device. “Coffee companies and coffee-machine manufacturers are coming to us and asking, ‘How can you help us understand the quality of the coffee before we brew it?’,” said Sam Guilaumé, CEO of Aryballe. “It’s extremely difficult to characterize coffee powder… The only way these guys can do it today is that they brew it first, analyze the liquid coffee then smell it and compare it.”
This 30-Ton Robot May Help Crops Thrive In Warmer Climates
Standing 70 feet tall, the world’s largest agricultural robot, called “Field Scanalyzer,” is part of a five-year, $26 million project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The robot evaluates the temperatures of over 2 acres of crops, including wheat, sorghum, and lettuce, sending up to 10 terabytes of data a day to computers in Illinois and Missouri. According to data scientists at George Washington University and St. Louis University, the data is analyzed by machine-learning algorithms that researchers have programmed to recognize connections between specific genes and plant traits detected by the Scanalyzer. The project’s aim is to help plant breeders detect characteristics and genetic markers that maximize efficiency among crops under a variety of growing conditions. Researchers are also looking to grow crops that can produce biofuels to reduce the need for fossil fuels. As the planet grows increasingly warmer, the robot is scouting for food crops that can survive warmer climates as well.
New Tech Tool Helps Calculate Your Risk Of Restaurant Dining
The Georgia Institute of Technology has created an online tool that estimates how many of your fellow American diners might have COVID-19. The COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool is an interactive U.S. map using data from the Atlantic’s aggregated COVID Tracking Projectto calculate and indicate your chances of contracting the virus based on locations you choose on the map. “We want people to be informed about the risk,” Georgia Tech professor Joshua Weitz said. Of course, the risk predictor is not 100% accurate, but its data is regularly updated to offer those dining out or entering public spaces useful information on which to base decisions. Stanford University infectious disease expert Robert Siegel says “it’s more of an explanatory thing than a model for behavior,” and that it should be used as a guide rather than the sole basis of decision-making. For diners contemplating the relative risk of eating out in various locations, at least the map’s data is better than nothing.
Chipotle Mexican Grill Upcycling 3 Million Avocado Pits A Year Into Clothing
Chipotle Mexican Grill has about 300 million avocado pits left over every year after making guacamole. To upcycle them, it launched the Chipotle Goods clothing line featuring plant-based dye made from the pits. The collection is gender neutral and includes items like avocado dyed shirts and tote bags, custom order shirts, avocado lined jean jackets, sweatshirts, hats, reusable lunch bags, leggings, and baby onesies. The dye is created by simmering the pits in water to extract the color. Chipotle plans to donate profits to organizations that focus on making fashion or farming more sustainable. .
World’s First Crispr Calf Is Born For The Beef Industry
Nearly five years of research, at least half a million dollars, and multiple failed pregnancies have gone into production of a line of Crispr’d cattle to fulfill the beef industry’s needs. According to Alison Van Eenennaam, an animal geneticist at the University of California at Davis, male cattle are about 15% more efficient than females at turning feed into weight gain and muscle, better known as beef. Producing more males also has the potential to be more environmentally friendly, as fewer cattle are necessary to yield the same amount of beef.
To create the Crispr line of cattle, Van Eenennaam and her team of scientists inserted the gene that initiates male development (called the SRY gene) into a bovine embryo. It finally worked, and the success marked the first demonstration of a targeted gene insertion for large DNA sequences by way of embryo-mediated genome editing in cattle. The bull calf was named Cosmo, and in a year he will become sexually mature. At that point, the research will continue to determine if inheriting the SRY gene is enough to spur the male developmental pathway in XX embryos and produce male offspring. While Cosmo’s birth holds promise for the beef industry, he and his offspring will not enter the food supply due to the Food and Drug Administration’s current regulations on gene-editing of food animals. .
Sugar is grainy, and cream becomes a solid block of ice when frozen. So how do grains of sugar and crystals of ice transform into the smooth, creamy, cold treat we love on a hot summer day? Temperature is key. Ice cream is essentially a frozen foam, consisting of water (in the milk) and fat (in the cream) all held together by frozen liquefied sugar. When ice cream remains frozen, the foam remains cohesive and smooth. Warm temperatures cause the foam to collapse and the individual ingredients to separate.
On a microscopic level, the milk and cream in ice cream consist of protein molecules that coat clusters of tiny fat globules. The fat globules then surround bubbles of air that get incorporated into the foam during mixing. Hard ice cream has very little air incorporated during mixing, while soft ice cream often consists of 50% air. The more air that gets incorporated and the smaller those bubbles remain, the softer the ice cream feels. The extra air is also why soft ice cream melts faster than hard ice cream.
As an ice cream mixture is freezing, constant stirring breaks up the water, encouraging small ice crystals to form instead of large ones. If the ice crystals get bigger than a few thousandths of an inch in diameter, the ice cream develops a grainy, coarse texture. Stirring and rapid freezing are essential to creating a smooth and cohesive foam of ice, fat, air, and liquefied sugar. The sugar itself lowers the freezing point of the mixture, which also helps maintain the creamy texture of ice cream. Once the mixture is frozen, keeping it frozen is equally important. If you’ve ever tried to re-freeze melted ice cream, you know that it can taste gritty and “icy.” That’s because the water has melted and separated from the foam then formed larger ice crystals during re-freezing. Hard ice cream is usually frozen to 3ºF to maintain the optimal texture until the ice cream reaches the consumer.
How One Restaurateur Is Using UV Light To Kill The Coronavirus
Ultraviolet (UV) light has a demonstrated ability to inactivate airborne viruses and may help reduce transmission in small, poorly ventilated indoor spaces. Research from the National Institutes of Health found that close to 90% of airborne particles from a previous coronavirus (SARS-CoV-1) were inactivated in about 16 seconds of exposure to germicidal UV (GUV). “Although it’s not perfect, it probably offers the best solution for direct air disinfection” in the current pandemic says David Sliney, a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University and longtime researcher on germicidal UV. But “There needs to be vertical air exchange,” such as ceiling fans, says Silney, so “it’s not just sterilizing the air in the upper space of the room.”
While much more research is needed, promising study results inspired Musa Firat, owner of Marlaina’s Mediterranean Kitchen near Seattle, to install a germicidal UV system in his restaurant’s dining room. The system is located above the ceiling tiles with horizontal UV lights angled away from customers. Ceiling fans help direct air toward the lights. Firat also installed a sign outside the restaurant door that says “Coronavirus disinfected here!”
Firat’s initial inspiration came from a customer, physician Bruce Davidson, who was known as Philadelphia’s “tuberculosis czar” in the mid-1990s. At that time, the U.S. was battling a new outbreak of TB, and some of the strains were resistant to existing drugs. Studies suggest that GUV systems are about 80% effective at eliminating the spread of tuberculosis. According to Davidson, UV light was crucial to the public health strategy back then, and it may be helpful against the novel coronavirus. “It really ought to be in most indoor public spaces now,” says Davidson.
Experts say that GUV technology has not been looked at more closely or promoted more widely for several reasons: the technology just isn’t as familiar; there are concerns about its safety; scientists are focused on developing a vaccine; and there’s a general reluctance to acknowledging the role of aerosols, which remain in the air longer than the heavier droplets that fall to the ground after a person coughs, sneezes, or exhales. In recent weeks, however, more scientists have acknowledged that the coronavirus can indeed be spread through aerosols. Amid the current pandemic, GUV technology is already being used to clean surfaces on public transportation vehicles and in hospitals, and to disinfect N95 masks for reuse, so it holds promise for indoor restaurants struggling to reopen safely.
Tesla Engineer Retools The Chocolate Chip
Remy Labesque, a Los-Angeles based industrial engineer working for Tesla, has re-engineered the chocolate chip. As part of a side project working for Dandelion Chocolate in San Francisco, Labesque recognized the limitations of the popular chip’s tear-drop shape and set out to design something better. “The chip isn’t a designed shape,” says Labesque. “It’s a product of an industrial manufacturing process.” Labesque created a multi-faceted chocolate geode that will “melt at the right rate,” according to Todd Masonis, co-founder of Dandelion Chocolate. The chips are designed to melt more slowly so that you can taste more nuances of the cacao bean in the chocolate.
“We did 3-D renderings of different options for shapes, test prints of a few molds and, of course, baking tests,” said Masonis. Labesque designed the chip’s edges to not only melt slowly in your mouth but also hold the shape during baking. “They stay whole,” says Dandelion’s pastry chef Lisa Vega, “but once they’re baked, the center of the chip gets soft.” The redesign also solves a real problem at Dandelion: Vega had been creating chocolate chip cookies and piping quarter-size discs of chocolate by hand, a time-consuming and inconsistent process. The new design will help Dandelion keep up with demand for its cookies, which had sales of 30,000 units last year.
College Dining Halls Navigate Reopening With Robots, Apps, and Outdoor Tables
On U.S. college campuses, the typical all-you-can-eat, all-day, self-serve buffet will look very different this fall semester. To comply with social distancing guidelines, most colleges are eliminating self-service. Instead, cafeteria workers in masks and gloves protected by plexiglass barriers will serve a limited selection of food. Paper cups and single-serving condiment packets are returning, despite previous attempts to eliminate these items to reduce packaging waste. Some schools have employed robots to prepare and deliver food, while others are using apps to schedule staggered pickup times. At South Carolina’s Furman University, students will not be permitted to enter the dining hall at all. Furman has installed two grab-and-go meal stations and will provide students with insulated, reusable grocery bags that accommodate multiple meals to be consumed elsewhere. The university is also installing a pop-up restaurant outside its main library. At the University of Massachusetts Amherst, most classes will be held virtually, and students returning to campus will have limited food options. Ramen bowls will be premade, and salad bars will have fewer choices in an attempt to accelerate wait times. Garett DiStefano, the university’s director of dining services, also plans to expand food truck options on campus to provide students with more food choices.
