Daily Life Chemistry Hacks-10 (Skunked Beer)

Hello! Friends; how you doing? This is our new post and there are some daily life chemistry hacks for you all. So lets get stared with a bottle of beer; just kidding! But if your beer is skunking lately then don't forget to read this post.  

Attention beer lovers. We’re about to save you the trauma of losing anymore brews to skunking. It’s a miserable feeling when you’ve cracked open a cold one on a beautiful sunny day, only to take a sip and find out that it tastes and smells like a skunk’s behind. So what the heck happened to your once delicious beer, and how can you stop it from happening in again?

Skunking is a photo-chemical reaction. This means that is things are going down deep inside your beer at the molecular level. To understand the reaction that causes skunking, first you’ve got to get a sense of the chemical makeup of your beer and in particular, the things that give beers their distinct flavors. Hops and barley. These are the two  main ingredients that give beer its flavor, but when talking skunks, the culprit is the hops. During  the brewing process, hops are boiled and release bitter flavor compounds known as ISO-alpha acids. These alpha acids, when hit with sunlight, break down into free radicals that then get mixed up with proteins that have sulfur in them. That reaction that occurs then creates this putrid molecule, which is almost indistinguishable from the stuff in skunks behind. The worst part is that’s its insanely potent! People can detect this stuff when in concentrations as low as 1 part per billion. So in other words, if you  fill an Olympic sized swimming pool with beer, one    eye drop of this stuff would change the way it tasted. A skunked beer is also known as a ‘light-struck’ beer. Sounds dramatic, right? The best tip: Get rid of light, get rid of the skunk. Draft beers in glass cups should be kept in the shade as much as possible. If you notice, a lot of craft brews come in either aluminum cans or brown bottles. These two containers do the best at keeping light out of the picture, but brown glass can let in enough light over time to skunk your beer so keep that cooler lid shut! Some people say that you have to keep your beers out of the heat to stop them from being skunked. Well it’s time to debunk that myth. Heat and temperature changes don’t skunk beers. Instead, heat increases the rate of oxidation in the beer, which in turn can make your beer really a stale like cardboard, but that doesn’t mean it’s skunked. Even if it’s skunked no one out there likes to drink a hot stale beer anyways. So stick to  the shade and watch out where you’re storing your favorite beers if you want to keep them tasting good. So look folks, I don’t need to tell you, but I’m going to anyways, always drink responsibly. 

Alright all you life hackers out there, hope you enjoyed this new post of the Chemistry Life Hacks. Stay safe and enjoy your drinks. Thank you!

Daily Life Chemistry Hacks-9 (Balanced Protein For Muscular Body)

 Alright readers it’s time to hit the gym. And if you’re trying to bulk up, you know you need protein to help build muscle. But how does that work? How much protein do you need? How much is too much? Ahhh it’s also confusing!

 First things first, there’s three different types of muscles; skeletal, cardiac and smooth. We’ll be talking about skeletal muscles. You know, biceps, triceps, quads, and so on. They’re the most adaptable tissues in the human body and can be molded through working out or … by sitting on the couch. The way you can build muscles is by … well, damaging them. Not real damage, like a major tear that will keep you on the side lines. When you do intense exercise like resistance training, little microtears occur in your muscles that need to be repaired. But before we talk about repair, we need to talk protein. Proteins are essential because they are made of amino acids, which are responsible for most of the reactions and processes in living cells. Your main source of amino acids is through proteins in your diet. Foods like meat, fish, eggs, and seitan are chockful of amino acids, some more so than others. After you eat protein, your body breaks it down into it’s amino acid parts. Which brings us back to your damaged muscles. The damage causes your body to string together amino acids into new proteins to repair the microtears. The damage also activates satellite cells, which are kind of like stem cells. The satellite cells flood the damaged area where they multiply, and fuse onto the muscle fibers to repair the strand and make it bigger and stronger. So here’s where your swole comes in. Muscle growth only occurs when you have enough amino acids to repair all the microtears, plus some extra left over. The extra amino acids can be used for further muscle growth, bulking you up. But if you don’t have enough amino acids, your muscles won’t heal, you won’t bulk up, and you’ll be more prone to injuries and muscle loss. To prevent that, you need to eat enough protein. So how much protein is that, you ask? Well it’s all relative. Gender, body size, body composition, age, and hormone levels all determine how much protein you need. Someone with amore muscular body that is pumping heavier iron will use more protein than someone who is smaller and just starting to work out. Women don’t gain muscle nearly as fast as men, because more testosterone means more muscle. But don’t start taking T just to bulk up. There can be serious consequences. It is recommended that you eat 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight to maintain muscle. For a 175 pound person, that would be 63 grams of protein per day. Not bad. However, some dietitians recommend up to 1.8 grams per kilogram of body weight for athletes. Think Michael Phelps or Cam Newton. At 1.8g/kg, that 175 pound person would need to consume 143g of protein per day. Now that’s a lot of protein. To get 143 grams of protein you’d need to eat 24 eggs, or 4 chicken breasts or around 6 scoops of protein powder. This is why some athletes drink protein supplements. It gives them a lot of protein without having to eat as many calories. Still, it doesn’t have nutrients like vitamins, fiber, minerals and so on. So don’t depend on them completely. But when should you eat your protein? One study suggests that for young men, protein’s benefits max out at 20 grams after a workout. With that said, everyone’s different and there’s a lot of conflicting research out there. But you can’t just eat a whole bunch of protein and expect to hulk out. In fact, excess protein is metabolized into glucose and used for energy or stored as fat. So when you’re trying to bulk up, make sure to consult a specialist to get your protein consumption right. Have any science-backed workout tips that you swear by? 

That's it for today and good luck for your strong and muscular body. Did you take a balanced protein diet while doing work out?  Let us know in the comment section. And hey, thanks for reading.