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r H AND ITS APPLICATIONS IN BREWING
Author(s) -
De Jean Clerck
Publication year - 1934
Publication title -
journal of the institute of brewing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.523
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 2050-0416
pISSN - 0046-9750
DOI - 10.1002/j.2050-0416.1934.tb05553.x
Subject(s) - citation , computer science , library science
Anyone familiar with scientific investiga tions previous to formulation of the concep tion of pn will remember how difficult it was to understand the results when questions of acidity and alkalinity arose. It was evident that acidity played an important part in many chemical and biological phenomena but when attempts were made to study its effects more closely one was faced with contradictions. The conceptions of electrolytic dissociation, of pa and buffer action cleared up all these confusions, and enabled great progress to be made in chemistry, and particularly in biochemistry, from which brewing has greatly profited. What happened 10 or 20 years ago in regard to acidity and alkalinity is now taking place with oxidation and reduction. These terms have acquired an entirely different meaning. Oxidising and reducing agents are now arranged on a simple scale and graded according to their activity, just as acids and alkalis were ranged according to their dissociation constants and just as the degree of acidity of a liquid was expressed by the symbol p» so now is its level of oxidation designated by that of r«. Such rather imperfect measurements of rH as I have carried out with beer have shown tliat its determination has real value. In this new scientific conception we appear to have the means to take another step towards the comprehension ofphenomena which occur in brewing.