Fungemia

This week, I’ll be posting some “fun” snippets from bits of research devoted to my current novel project.  Probably mostly of interest to people who homebrew, or are interested in yeast and brewing, brewing history, and weird cultural stuff that went on in Renaissance Europe or in Georgian England. Today? Fungemia… which is: fungal infections of the blood. Don’t worry, I don’t have any gory pictures of anything, though if you want, there are plenty of those online, only one google search away. Did you know, you can get a yeast infection in your blood? Well, you can. And even some strains of humble brewer’s/baker’s …

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Yeast, as Understood in 1736

  I’m really glad I was able to get a second opinion on one little detail that has become of great importance to my ongoing novel project. That is: how well did brewers understand the function of yeast in brewing back in 1736? It might sound strange, but that detail is incredibly important in terms of a lot of things going on in the book! During my visit to Korea, I got a chance to read a fair bit of Jamil Zainasheff and Chris White’s book Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation. I wasn’t particularly blown away by the book: …

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