Alcohol is produced by yeast during the process of fermentation. The other product of fermentation is carbon dioxide, which is the gas that can make beer bottles explode or blow their tops off. The amount of alcohol in the finished liquid depends on how much sugar there was at the beginning for the yeast to convert into alcohol. In beer, the alcohol is generally 3% to 12% (6 to 24 proof) and usually about 4% to 6% (8 to 12 proof). Depending on the strain of yeast, wines top out at about 14% to 16% (28 to 32 proof), because that is the point in the fermentation process where the alcohol concentration denatures the yeast. Since the 1990s, a few alcohol-tolerant 'superyeast' strains have become commercially available, which can ferment up to 20%.
Very few microorganisms can live in alcoholic solutions. The main three are yeast, "Brettanomyces", and "Acetobacter". In what is essentially disinfection, yeast keeps multiplying as long as there is sugar to "eat", gradually increasing the alcoholic content of the solution and killing off all other microorganisms, and eventually themselves. There are "fortified" wines with a higher alcohol concentration than that because stronger alcohol has been mixed with them.
Stronger liquors are distilled after fermentation is complete to separate the alcoholic liquid from the remains of the grain, fruit, or whatever it was made from. The idea of distillation is that a mixture of liquids is heated, the one with the lowest boiling point will evaporate (or "boil off") first, and then the one with the next lowest boiling point, and so on. The catch is that water and alcohol form a mixture (called an azeotrope) that has a lower boiling point than either one of them, so what distills off first is that mixture of 95% alcohol and 5% water. Thus a distilled liquor cannot be stronger than 95% (190 proof); there are other techniques for separating liquids that can produce 100% ethanol (or "absolute alcohol"), but they are used only for scientific or industrial purposes. 100% ethanol does not stay 100% for very long, because it is hygroscopic and absorbs water out of the atmosphere.
Acetobacter
Acetobacter is a kind of bacteria. These bacteria are
known by their ability to change alcohol to acetic acid in the presence of air. There are several species within this genus, and there are other bacteria that can form acetic acid under different conditions; but all of the "Acetobacter" are known by this ability.
"Acetobacter" are important to people, because:
Sometimes, "Acetobacter" is not wanted. It can be killed by adding preservatives like Sulfur dioxides, or by getting rid of the air when the wine is stored.
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the spiritual leader of the Church of England and in the Anglican Communion the leader of its mother church. He is the head of the Church, and lives in the English city of Canterbury. The Archbishop is chosen by the English monarch (the church's "supreme governor"), under guidance from senior bishops, acting in cooperation with the prime minister of the UK.
The office of Archbishop of Canterbury was founded in the year 597. In that year, Saint Augustine came to England, to the area called Kent. He had been sent by the Pope to convince the local people to become Christians. The people accepted him and Christianity when their King (Ethelbert of Kent) became a Christian. Augustine became the first bishop in the kingdom of Kent and was later recognised as archbishop when a second diocese was created. Since then, there has been an Archbishop at Canterbury in Kent.
The Archbishop of Canterbury used to be head of the Roman Catholic Church in England, but in the early 16th century the English church broke away from the Roman church. The new church called itself the Church of England, and now the Archbishop is the leader of that church. The current Archbishop is Justin Welby (from 2013).
The archbishop oversees the Province of Canterbury that is all the Church of England dioceses in the south and midlands of England. The dioceses of Wales were also within the Province of Canterbury until 1920 when the Church in Wales became independent. In the north of England another archbishop has the Diocese of York and other northern dioceses (including the diocese of Sodor and Man) to oversee. Both archbishops are members of the House of Lords and rank very high in the official English order of precedence. When a new monarch is crowned the placing of the crown on his head is done by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The principal home of the archbishops is at Lambeth Palace in the south of London rather than at Canterbury itself. Within the Diocese of Canterbury (which consists of eastern Kent and a small enclave in Surrey) the archbishop has at least two assistant bishops.
Justin Welby (formerly the Bishop of Durham) became Archbishop on 21 March 2013.
Ethanol
Ethanol, also known as ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol or just alcohol, is a flammable, colorless chemical compound. Its chemical formula is CHOH, also written as CHO. It is the active part of alcoholic drinks, which are drunk in most cultures worldwide. It is also used as a solvent because it can dissolve many other chemicals and is not very toxic. Yeast makes most of the ethanol that people use.
Ethanol fuel can be used instead of gasoline in cars and other engines. Engines can use pure ethanol or ethanol mixed with gasoline.
In Brazil, ethanol fuel made from sugar cane provides 18 percent of the country's fuel for cars. Because of this, Brazil does not have to buy oil from other countries.
To do this, Brazil cut down much of the rain forests to grow more sugar cane, which is then fermented into Ethanol.
Most cars in the U.S. can run on fuels that have of up to 10% ethanol in them. Car makers like Ford, DaimlerChrysler, and GM also make vehicles specifically designed to run on higher ethanol blends. Some of their engines can run on up to 85% ethanol (E85). By mid-2006, there were about six million E85-compatible vehicles on U.S. roads.
Boiling point
The boiling point of a substance is the temperature at which the substance boils, or enters a state of rapid evaporation. For pure water this is 100° Celsius or 212° Fahrenheit. This is measured at one atmosphere, that is, the air pressure at sea level
Boiling points can be changed in several ways. The addition of solutes or other substances usually changes the boiling point. Additionally, changing the pressure on a liquid changes its boiling point.
The boiling point of a liquid depends on the pressure of the surrounding air. An increase in air pressure increases the boiling point; a decrease decreases the boiling point. In the low pressure environment at the top of Mt Everest for example, water boils at only 69 °C. (156.2 °F).
It can also be defined in terms of vapour pressure as the temperature at which vapour pressure of liquid becomes equal to atmospheric pressure
Sugar, salt or other non-volatile solutes in water will usually make the boiling point higher. Alcohol, in contrast, is a volatile chemical that lowers the boiling point of water. Even a large amount dissolved in the water will usually make only small changes in the boiling point.
Platonic solid
A platonic solid is a kind of polyhedron. It has the following characteristics:
The following Platonic solids exist; there are only 5:
There are a lot more uses for Platonic Solids, but some of the main reasons are:the shapes are often used to make dice, because dice of these shapes can be made fair. 6-sided dice are very common, but the other numbers are commonly used in role-playing games. Such dice are commonly referred to as D followed by the number of faces (d8, d20 etc.).