Preparing for Homebrewing Part 1

Home brewing is essentially Leaving Certificate chemistry! 

The theory behind turning Glucose, a Monosaccharide, a single building block of sucrose (a Disaccharide) into Alcohol is quite easy to understand. The reason for using Glucose is that it is available to be consumed by the reaction immediately as it is a single Saccharide (Monosaccharide) and does not require to be broken down any further before it can react. You could you Sucrose but this would slow your rate of reaction down as it is a Disaccharide it would require to be broken down in to a Monosaccharide using an enzyme such as Lactase ,

To prepare for making a few litres of home brew which for your first attempt I would recommend attempting to craft an Ale as these are not as complex as Lagers. The reaction its self is quite simple:

Glucose + yeast will react to give you Pyruvate (an intermediate) this then will turn into the Ethanol and Carbon Dioxide. the Process is called Anaerobic Respiration.

Figure 1: Anaerobic Respiration

The reaction requires as small bit of thought as , if you add too little Glucose the yeast will die and the reaction will be stagnant. The Yeast however is the limiting reaction agent , this means if you don't have a surplus of Yeast in the reaction it will not fully react the Glucose and again your reaction will not produce enough Ethanol (Alcohol).