360 HOW CHOPS GROW. 



The properties of the two are, however, remarkably 

 different. If malt be pulverized and stirred in warm 

 water (155° F.) for an hour or two, the whole of the 

 starch disappears, while sugar and dextrin take its place. 

 The former is recognized by the sweet taste of the wort 

 as the solution is called. On heating the wort to boiling, 

 a little albuminoid is coagulated, and may be separ- 

 ated by filtering. This comes in part from the trans^ 

 formation of the insoluble albuminoids of the barley 

 On adding to the filtered liquid its own bulk of alcohol, 

 dextrin becomes evident, being precipitated as a white 

 powder. 



Furthermore, if we mix two to three parts of starch 

 with one of malt, we find that the whole undergoes the 

 same change. An additional quantity of starch remains 

 unaltered. 



The process of germination thus develops in the seed 

 an agency by which the conversion of starch into soluble 

 c^bhydrates is accomplished with great rapidity. 



Diastase — Payen & Persoz attributed this action to 

 the nitrogenous ferment which they termed Diastase, 

 and which is found in the germinating seed in the vicin- 

 ity of the embryo, but not in the radicles. They assert 

 that one part of diastase is capable of transforming 2,000 

 parts of starch, first into dextrin and finally into sugar, 

 and that malt yields one five-hundredth of its weight of 

 this substance. See p. 103. 



A short time previous to the investigations of Payen 

 & Persoz (1833), Saussure found that Mucedin,* the 

 soluble nitrogenous body which may be extracted from 

 gluten (p. 93, note), transforms starch in the manner 

 above described, and it is now known that various albu- 

 minoids may produce the same effect, although the rap- 



* Saussure designated this body mucin, but this term being estabUshed 

 as the name of the characteristic ingredient of animai mucus, Ritthau- 

 sen has replaced it by mucedin. 



