Page:A Practical Treatise on Brewing (4th ed.).djvu/61

 Rh been followed, every thing might have been remedied in a few days, as was afterwards proved, by cutting off the other communications between the tuns and main pipe.

I have thus given a few instances, out of many which could be adduced, of the decided and injurious effects of electricity, whether common or voltaic, exhibited during the progress of fermentation: effects which, when well understood, may be easily obviated or corrected.

The experiments of Gay Lussac also clearly prove the important agency of electricity in the process of fermentation. He found that wort to which yeast had been added, when placed in a vacuum, did not undergo fermentation, although all the circumstances were favourable excepting the presence of oxygen. But when an electric spark was passed through the fluid, the fermentation commenced vigorously. The effect here produced, he considered, was by the electric spark decomposing an atom of water, and thus liberating an atom of oxygen, which caused the process to begin. We do not mean to question the high authority of Gay Lussac, but his experiment does not altogether prove that the particle of oxygen produced was the cause of fermentation. It might perhaps be owing to a more general influence of the electric spark, which, in passing through the fluid, induced such chemical action of the different component parts