THE BAVARIAN PROCESS. 299 



necessary for the transformation of the sugar is 

 the presence of that yeast; but for the conver- 

 sion of gluten into ferment by a process of oxida- 

 tion, something more is required. 



When the power of gluten to attract oxygen is 

 increased by contact with precipitated yeast in a 

 state of decay, the unrestrained access of air is the 

 only other condition necessary for its own conversion 

 into the same state of decay, that is for its oxida- 

 tion. We have already seen that the presence of 

 free oxygen and gluten are conditions which deter- 

 mine the eremacausis of alcohol and its conversion 

 into acetic acid, but they are incapable of exerting 

 this influence at low temperatures. A low temper- 

 ature retards the slow combustion of alcohol, while 

 the gluten combines spontaneously with the oxygen 

 of the air, just as sulphurous acid does when dis- 

 solved in water. Alcohol undergoes no such change 

 at low temperatures, but during the oxidation of the 

 gluten in contact with it, is in the same condition 

 as the gluten itself is placed in when sulphurous 

 acid is added to the wine in which it is contained. 

 The oxygen of the air unites both with the gluten 

 and alcohol of wine not treated with sulphurous 

 acid, but when this acid is present it combines 

 with neither of them, being altogether absorbed by 

 the acid. The same thing happens in the peculiar 

 process of fermentation adopted in Bavaria. The 

 oxygen of the air unites only with the gluten and 

 not with the alcohol, although it would have com- 



