Yuup,+Chris,+and+Chaz


 * Chris, Chaz and Yuup** are new to wikispaces and apologize for not knowing how to work the website properly but our experiment lab report can be found at this link - http://labscience10cblock.wikispaces.com/CYC+Rum+Experiment

This page however will briefly discuss the processes of fermentation and distillation. They are discussed within the experimental lab but only by us the authors, so outside information will be posted here underneath.

Info found at -http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-fermentation.htm__
 * Fermentation**

In a general sense, fermentation is the conversion of a [|carbohydrate] such as sugar into an acid or an alcohol. More specifically, fermentation can refer to the use of [|yeast] to change sugar into alcohol or the use of bacteria to create lactic acid in certain foods. Fermentation occurs naturally in many different foods given the right conditions, and humans have intentionally made use of it for many thousands of years. The earliest uses of fermentation were most likely to create alcoholic beverages such as mead, wine, and beer. These beverages may have been created as far back as 7,000 BCE in parts of the Middle East. The fermentation of foods such as milk and various vegetables probably happened sometime a few thousand years later, in both the Middle East and China. While the general principle of fermentation is the same across all of these drinks and foods, the precise methods of achieving it, and the end results, differ. Beer is made by taking a grain, such as [|barley], [|wheat], or [|rye], germinating and drying it, and pulping it into a mash. This mash is then mixed with hot water, and some fermentation begins. After being further treated, the liquid is transferred to a fermentation vessel, where yeast is added to the mixture. This yeast “eats” the sugar present in the mash and converts it into [|carbon] dioxide and alcohol. After a few weeks of fermentation and a further period of conditioning, the beer is ready to be filtered and consumed. Wine is created using a similar method that also involves fermentation. Grapes are crushed to release the sugar-rich juices, which are then either transferred quickly away from the skins or left to rest for a time to absorb some of the flavor, tannins, and color of the skins. Yeast is then added, and the grape juice is allowed to ferment for a number of weeks, at which point it is moved to different containers and fermented at a slower rate, and eventually aged or bottled. Pickling foods, such as cucumbers, may be accomplished by submerging the vegetable one wants to pickle in a salty water solution with [|vinegar] added. Over time, bacteria create the lactic acid that gives the food its distinctive flavor and helps to preserve it. Other foods can be pickled simply by packing them in dry salt and allowing a natural fermentation process to occur. Milk can also be cultured, and people have been using fermentation with dairy products for nearly 5,000 years. It is speculated that early fermented dairy, such as [|yogurt], was the result of a natural process of fermentation that occurred when the milk was cultured by bacteria that dwelt in skin sacks used to store dairy. Yogurt these days is made by adding a number of special bacteria, such as //L. [|acidophilus]// and //L. bulgaricus// to milk and keeping it at the proper temperature. The bacteria begin converting the sugar in the dairy to lactic acid, eventually creating what we know as yogurt.

More information can be found at this website -http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/herbivores/ferment.html__

Info found at - http://orgchem.colorado.edu/hndbksupport/dist/dist.html - The website also has a "how-to do procedure" for making a still. Distillation is the process of heating a liquid until it boils, capturing and cooling the resultant hot vapors, and collecting the condensed vapors. Mankind has applied the principles of distillation for thousands of years. Distillation was probably first used by ancient Arab chemists to isolate perfumes. Vessels with a trough on the rim to collect distillate, called //diqarus//, date back to 3500 BC. In the modern organic chemistry laboratory, distillation is a powerful tool, both for the identification and the purification of organic compounds. The boiling point of a compound—determined by distillation—is well-defined and thus is one of the physical properties of a **compound by which it is identified**. Distillation is used to **purify a compound** by separating it from a non-volatile or less-volatile material. When different compounds in a mixture have different boiling points, they separate into individual components when the mixture is carefully distilled. Boiling points are usually measured by recording the boiling point (or range) on a thermometer while performing a distillation. This method is used whenever there is enough of the compound to perform a distillation. The distillation method of boiling point determination measures the temperature of the vapors above the liquid. Since these vapors are in equilibrium with the boiling liquid, they are the same temperature as the boiling liquid. The vapor temperature rather than the pot temperature is measured because if you put a thermometer actually in the boiling liquid mixture, the temperature reading would likely be higher than that of the vapors. This is because the liquid can be superheated or contaminated with other substances, and therefore its temperature is not an accurate measurement of the boiling temperature.
 * Distillation**

More information can be found at this website - http://chemistry.about.com/cs/5/f/bldistillation.htm