Bioengineered Yeast

I'm shocked, SHCOKED, I tell you, to realize that Citra® is not a naturally occurring plant!

 

Frankenyeast.

 

Brewers yeast are really delicate flowers that we as brewers go through great lengths to satisfy. Brewers yeast are the result of years and years of selective breeding and a spectacular attention to circumstances. We did not get these specialty yeast strains by accident. It took a hell of a lot of coddling.

GMO, in itself, is not really something we need to be overly worried about. Living in a college town that has a world renowned Ag school I can tell you with certainty that the PhD folks who work on this stuff are mostly smart hippies and have no desire to ruin the planet. Could not be farther from that in fact. I mean you don't dedicate a lifetime of study discovering the mechanism to increase vitamin C in a tomato because you are immoral or see it as a fast buck.

But
Once Giant Corporate America gets hold of an important innovation, yeah, they take the reward and the rest of us deal with the risk. That is the downside of GMO. GMO is a political risk IMO.

I will add that there is a unique western habit of hating on increased crop yield, disease resistance and all the other things GMO crops bring to the world.
Cheers

 

Well if it’s only the yeast that’s being bioengineered then I don’t see it being a crazy issue. This is a craft that people care a lot about and no craft brewer would openly use terribly altered ingredients if it wasn’t safe for you and able to create an entirely new product.

 

Why would sanitation to mitigate cross contamination of a yeast be different from sanitation to mitigate contamination of bacteria?

Cheers!

 

Problem is that GMO technology promises those things but so far pretty much just delivers herbicide resistance. And now an apple that won't brown after being cut up and packaged. I'd love to see some of the potential benefits from GMO actualized but for now all we are getting is unknown risks and increased toxin presence in the food chain and on our farm land. Oh and increased cost to farmers and higher agritech profits

 

Good points all.

I'll counter that increased toxin presence is not accurate, except that agriculture has been pesticide and herbicide reliant for decades and GMO crops have not necessarily increased the use of these chemicals but rather have allowed for very targeted use of selected chemicals. In other words the chemicals can be applied at precisely the amount required. With the very important caveat that the required amount is not something you or I get a vote. Agri Business gets that vote. But do you have data that suggests more toxins are being served as a result of GMO?

The risks are not quite unknown, if not entirely settled. The accepted risk is debatable. Again, Monsanto is very happy to tell their story... My endocrinologist has a distinctly different understanding. Long term exposure is really a cause for concern.

And whats so bad about snow white apple slices?
I live in the county adjacent to Cortland, NY and the Cortland apple is well known for it's ability to resist browning after being cut open. Something to do with the cell structure. Pomologists are studying this unique ability. Try it out. They are great!

OK, enough heavy politics.


Give me a beer yeast that can do everything I want it to do. Under all circumstances. This is what brewers have been looking for. GMO is not the enemy IMO.
Cheers.

 

I posted on this topic in a past BA homebrewing forum thread:

“Lactobacillus delbrueckii are Gram-positive, facultatively anaerobic, non-motile and non-spore-forming, rod-shaped (cell size range = 0.5-0.8 x 2.0-9.0 mm) members of the industrially important lactic acid bacteria.”

So in units of microns, Lactobacillus delbrueckii has a cell size = 500 – 800 x 2000 – 9000 microns.

“Pediococcus damnosus Cell: Spherical cells (0.3-0.6 mm in diameter) that form short chains or tetrads. Non-motile, do not form spores or capsules.”

So in units of microns: Pediococcus damnosus has a cell size of 300 – 600 microns.

Brewers yeast is typically 5-10 microns.

The above two bacteria are significantly larger than brewers yeast. It would seem to me that any sanitation of brewing equipment (e.g., a plastic primary bucket/carboy) that kills yeast (e.g., previous batch of brewers yeast and/or wild yeast) would also kill bacteria (like the bacteria mentioned above).

http://genome.jgi.doe.gov/lacde/lacde.home.html

http://wineserver.ucdavis.edu/industry/enology/winemicro/winebacteria/pediococcus_damnosus.html

Cheers!

 

Lactobacillus is much smaller than Brewers yeast, and can be hard to sanitize. It can get into books and crannies in the brewery. A small defect in a gasket can harbor bacteria, for example. Many brewers have separate sour facilities to keep the sour bacteria away from the clean beer. Kettle souring keeps the bacteria confined to the kettle, where it is killed by the heat of the boil.

Check your math @JackHorzempa .
https://kottke.org/18/04/a-comparison-of-the-sizes-of-various-microorganisms-cells-and-viruses

 

I've kind of always realized that everything we do and produce is naturally occurring, and that science wins some and loses some. And it's all science really. Mystery and adventure and art have a sway with me as well. I do like the mix.

 

Jack, you have some statements that don't pass the sniff test. The links didn't open for me.

Bacteria are in the 1 to 2 micron range. The numbers you have, say 300 microns for pedio translates to 0.3 mm, which is visible. A thick human hair is about .180 mm, or 180 microns, we can see that diameter.

https://www.uoguelph.ca/foodscience/book/export/html/1884

 

Jeff, I did not ‘create’ the information I listed in quotes. I got them from the two linked sources that now no longer seem to be active.

“Below is something I obtained from a web search today:

Search Results

Featured snippet from the web

Image result for size of lactobacillus

microbewiki.kenyon.edu

Lactobacillus are generally nonmotile and can survive in both aerobic and anaerobic environments. L. delbrueckii, the type species of the genus, is 0.5 to 0.8 micrometre (μm; 1 μm = 10−6 metre) across by 2 to 9 μm long and occurs singly or in small chains.”

So, Lactobacillus is a ‘rod’ with the longest dimension being 9 μm in length.

The conversion of μm to microns is 1:1. So the length of the Lactobacillus will be 9 microns which is comparable in size to Brewers yeast (Brewers yeast is typically 5-10 microns).

Cheers!

 

GMO produced insulin was a big win that no one is complaining about now; people inject it straight into their bodies even. I also think it's closer example to the GMO-yeasts discussed in the OP than GMO-crop issues.

 

That's more of the size. The rods can hide in places the yeast can't. Micheal Tonsemere has some rundowns of what Brewers do in as cleaning regimes in "American Wild Ale".

@OldSock may comment if he is still around.

 

One of the selling points for using the yeast.

Since lacto strains reproduce anerobically, in low pH, just missing a few can spoil the beer.