CYC+Rum+Experiment

**//__Chris Hosking's, Yuup Van Engelshoven's and Chaz Main's Rum Experiment__//**
This page is for our Experimental lab, however our home page contains information about the processes mentioned underneath To go back to that page follow this link - http://labscience10cblock.wikispaces.com/Yuup%2C+Chris%2C+and+Chaz

__Background -__ Fermentation and Distillation, the processes and use in the creation of alcoholic beverages. Website information can be found at the original webpage. Fermentation is the process in which yeast is used to break down the compound glucose into ethanol, alcohol. Fermentation usually occurs when a fruit juice mixture is added with yeast and left alone in a stable environment. Although it is often described as yeast breaking down sugars, fermentation in actuality surrounds around glucose, which can be found in sucrose, a mixture of glucose and fructose. We are using fermentation to ferment a mixture of water, molasses and sucrose to make rum, and we hope to measure the productivity of the fermentation reaction with this lab. Distillation is the process used to divide and purify a mixture by heating the mixture so that the different components boil and then condense as they have different boiling points. We use a heat plate to heat the mixture up until gas goes up a tube at the top leading to the condensor. The condensor simply condenses the gases and then the purified and fractioned liquids then run into the next container. We are using distillation to measure just how effective the fermentation process was after each set amount of days.
 * Fermentation** -
 * Distillation -**

__Aim__ - The experiment explores the two processes of creating an alcoholic beverage, both fermentation and distillation, and specifically looks at how time relates to the fermentation process. We aim to brew a drink, rum in particular, then add the yeast needed for fermentation and then periodically distill the brews to see the changes between brews that have fermented for longer than others. We will look specifically at distilling the same brew but after 4, 6, 8, and 10 days. At these points the brew will then be distilled to measure the amount of ethanol alcohol within the beverage, aka how effectively the fermentation process has worked thus far.

__Question__ - How does the time spent fermenting an alcoholic beverage change the beverage, in terms of amount of alcohol produced from the brew?

__Hypothesis__ - We believe that the amount of time fermenting will most deffinitley increase the amount of ethanol alcohol within the beverage, as indeed fermentation is the process of breaking down glucose with yeast to produce ethanol. However, we do not think this goes on indefinitley and propose that perhaps the fermentation process will be completed after the first 6 days.

__Precursor to experiment:__ As a precursor to the main experiment of making rum, we wished to test our equipment and procedere. To do this we fermented and distilled a barley mix to create a crude beer. To begin the fermentation we made a mix of water, sugar, barley pearls, and a combination of juices(peach,orange,apple).We mixed this into a liter flask.Before sealing it, we added yeast to begin the fermintaion process of breaking the mix down. After we had let it ferment for about a week, we were left with a foul smelling mix which was ready to be distilled. Our first attempt at distillation failed miserably. We couldn't

__Materials__: Containers - Flasks both 250Ml and 2L size. Measuring devices - Weighing machine, and a magnetised hot plate. Reactants - Distilled water, sugarcane molasses, yeast, and sucrose. Special - Condenser Misc - Magnetic stirrer, thermometer, paper towels, glass stirrer, mortar & pestle, rubber tubing and corks for the flasks.