Free open course on the chemistry of beer

[koots]

well **** me I'm a terrible student I had no idea there were texts! I thought some of the stuff definitely wasn't in the videos haha

Chemistry so far is in the texts rather than videos. Unfortunately the quiz makes it difficult due to formatting errors. The first page asks about a carbohydrate for example and in the diagram shown it is virtually impossible to distinguish the carbon from the rest of the visual mess.

Some of the other questions make little sense but the information in the documents is free and that to me is what is most important. Read that, don't worry so much about passing - worry about understanding the information and how it pertains to brewing.

 

[beermeupscotty]

I've got to wonder though, how being familiar with the structure of a prostaglandin is relevant to brewing (got it right though).

Agreed. I actually posted a comment about this at the beginning of the lipids section, to which the Prof (Mark) kind of responded.

The quiz due date seems to have been extended. It says due January 26 for me. Although I'm not sure if that's US time or here.

 

[GalBrew]

It seems to me that they have cut and pasted bits of standard chem/biochem texts rather than write material specifically aimed at the biochem of brewing. There was a lot of stuff in the material that I frankly think is irrelevant.

 

[beermeupscotty]

From Mark:

...writing an [sic] complete textbook from scratch was not within in the scope of creating this course, we did make attempts to secure access to texts that would had the chemistry needed as well as the brewing science perspective. Regrettably, the publishers of the texts were not willing to provide access within the social and note taking functions of the Janux platform. So like the man that brews in an aluminum pot, we used the best available resources we could find or piece together.

Yes I definitely got the feeling a fair bit of it was not necessary, and the material could do with a cull.

 

[GalBrew]

From Mark:


Yes I definitely got the feeling a fair bit of it was not necessary, and the material could do with a cull.

That's totally understandable, but then surely the irrelevant parts should not be assessed? Free up another question for a brewing related matter.

 

[beermeupscotty]

That's totally understandable, but then surely the irrelevant parts should not be assessed? Free up another question for a brewing related matter.

Yep. I agree.

 

[beermeupscotty]

The chemistry is basically not covered in the videos, and nor is much of the history. I've been going through the chemistry texts for the last 3 days - lots of information...

Oops, correction: The videos do explain the chemistry - I just forgot they were there! :-/ Watched all the brewing ones first, before starting the chemistry stuff, and thought I'd seen them all.

 

[shaunous]

Well just watched the video's once each and done the main quiz after 1 practice quiz.

scored a 58% 11.7/20

So im happy with not having to read anything

Some of them words are bamboozeling though. Dont ask me tomorrow what half them mean.

 

[beermeupscotty]

16.7 here but I'm pretty dubious on the two questions I got incorrect. One has been discussed here as odd and the other I checked on wiki and my answer was correct. Ah well, learned a fair bit but I might take it a bit easier with text-study for next unit.

 

[BeerNess]

16.7 here but I'm pretty dubious on the two questions I got incorrect. One has been discussed here as odd and the other I checked on wiki and my answer was correct. Ah well, learned a fair bit but I might take it a bit easier with text-study for next unit.

Yeah hopefully Dr Morvant's near miss review will correct that... I'm sure 2 of mine were correct that weren't accepted... got 15/20 ... would be nice to get at least 1 more point to buffer the 70% pass grade...

 

[r055c0]

I'm a bit frustrated that the test window keeps getting extended, if I had known there would be all this extra time I wouldn't have done it at 1am on thursday night (pretty much the only time I had free to do it during the test window), I feel like I would have scored better if I had been fully awake.

EDIT: Not to say that I don't think it should have been extended, if there were issues with access or whatever of course it should be made available for longer so everyone can do it, but I'm sure these kind of problems aren't specific to this one test. maybe if you're going to have an online test available you should take the likelihood of IT problems into account and just have a bigger test window from the start.

Or I could be more organized...

 

[BeerNess]

I'm a bit frustrated that the test window keeps getting extended, if I had known there would be all this extra time I wouldn't have done it at 1am on thursday night (pretty much the only time I had free to do it during the test window), I feel like I would have scored better if I had been fully awake.

EDIT: Not to say that I don't think it should have been extended, if there were issues with access or whatever of course it should be made available for longer so everyone can do it, but I'm sure these kind of problems aren't specific to this one test. maybe if you're going to have an online test available you should take the likelihood of IT problems into account and just have a bigger test window from the start.

Or I could be more organized...

hasn't yours been reset? i did it during the problems, unaware of the issues, but when they brought it back up my 1st attempt had been wiped.

 

[r055c0]

Hmm, will have to jump on and try again

 

[technobabble66]

Bah,
15/20
(i've a Biochem degree, though not used since studying; so i'm a bit miffed i didn't get closer to 100%)

One or two of the questions could be asked in better/clearer ways, imho. Or the answers actually provided somewhere in the texts/vids...

The chemistry escalated pretty rapidly in the lipid section!

Generally very happy with it though (esp for a free course!!). I'm curious as to where its heading - some of the chemistry was fairly weighty, and i'd wonder about the relevance of certain (tiny) parts (esp in the Lipids section). Chemists definitely do love their minute details in reactions!! (i s'pose it IS a course in beer Chemistry, after all). And other sections were a breeze.
Eagerly awaiting the next units.

 

[technobabble66]

Unit 2 is up

 

[DeGarre]

It's a pain trying to navigate from one video to the next because the scroll bar is not there and the video is below the screen section somewhere. The moron idiot who designed this should be fired. Why not just have a list of videos on the side somewhere where it can be seen and then when selected and clicked the video will pop up? Now I can't see what videos there are because they disappear below the screen section bottom and can't be navigated to.

 

[OzPaleAle]

A lot of Unit 2 is going over my head, getting the gist of some of the concepts but its pretty bio chem heavy stuff, hopefully its not so relevant to home brewing.....

 

[sp0rk]

hmmm, haven't even touched unit 2 yet
Guess I better get a move on

 

[beermeupscotty]

Started unit 2 yesterday but haven't got too far (i.e. not at the chemistry) yet.

 

[r055c0]

did my unit 2 practise test yesterday. 25%

Not looking forward to parent/teacher interviews...