Kinetic Determination of Alcohol in Beer using CCD Detection.  Alyson Mobey; Eric Titus. 2007.

Abstract:

This experiment was designed to determine three different things. The first was the sonication of beer during a solution preparation does not affect the measured alcohol content, the second was that the ADH method of determining alcohol concentration used in CH 461 reflects the manufactures stated amount, and finally, the third goal of this experiment was to determine a method for using the OOI CCD as a detector for this experiment (instead of a PMT). A calibration curve was set up using 3 standard ethanol solutions in testing the second hypothesis. The first and second hypothesis were tested using a OOI CCD as a photodetector. With regard to the first hypothesis the results of this experiment showed that only 1 out of three sonicated samples were significantly different than an unsonicated sample. As for the second hypothesis, one beer (Stella Artois) did not agree with the manufactures value, while the other sample (Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve) had mixed results: two sonicated samples agreed with the manufactures posted value, while one sonicated and one unsonicated value were significantly different than posted value.