Studies on Fermentation: The diseases of beer, their causes, and the means of preventing themPasteur, Louis
Science
Studies on Fermentation: The diseases of beer, their causes, and the means of preventing them
Pasteur, Louis
Beer; Fermentation
It is true that brewers generally are of a different opinion. Most of
them assert that “low” yeast cultivated at a high temperature becomes
“high” yeast; and conversely, that “high” yeast becomes “low” by
repeated growths at a low temperature. Many have told us that they have
proved this. Nevertheless it is our belief that the success of such
transformation has been but apparent, attributable in each case to the
fact, as we have just stated, of their having operated on a mixture of
the two yeasts.
Mitscherlich, and various authors after him, have asserted that “high”
yeast propagates by budding, and “low” yeast, on the contrary, by
spores, formed by the endogenous division of the protoplasm of the
cells, and set free by the rupture of the cell-wall, which then,
increasing in size, assume the character of ordinary cells. But we have
never been able to confirm this.
Fig. 41 represents a field of low yeast, taken from the deposit in a vat
after the fermentation of the beer was finished. The granular matter
mixed with the cells is altogether amorphous although in many cases
perfectly spherical. It is a product in no way related to this yeast
(see Plate I., No. 7).[100] “High” yeast and all the ferments of beer
have this kind of deposit associated with them. There is no doubt that
confused observations as regards these minute bodies have been the cause
of the error which we had to deal with in connection with a particular
mode of reproduction of low yeast, as to which we have already fully
expressed our views (Chap. V. § 1, p. 146).
Comparing Fig. 41 with Fig. 40 (p. 189), it may be seen that the general
aspect of low yeast is distinguished, in its early stages, although in
no very decided manner, from that of “high” yeast, by being slightly
smaller and less round or spherical in its cells than the latter.[101]
These differences, however, would escape an unpractised eye.
As to the case of “high” yeast, the deposits of “low” yeast after
fermentation appear as scattered, isolated cells; we do not find more
than two or three per cent. of united cells. Nevertheless the two yeasts
present, as we shall see, quite marked differences in the character of
their budding and multiplication.
[Illustration: Fig. 42.]
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