I had a pretty messy apartment last year, and several half-empty bottles of soda placed in precarious positions throughout. One day, I accidentally knocked one of these bottles (Mountain Dew) onto the floor, and the smell of beer filled the air. I didn't taste the stuff, but the inside of the Mountain Dew bottle and the liquid soaking into the rug smelled like beer, which I didn't have in my apartment. A half-empty bottle of Dew sitting on the table in my room, uncovered, had changed into something very strange over a few months.

I have seen grape flavored juice drinks ferment before but never a soda. I suppose it would be possible but not certain.

I don't think it ferments because there are no ingredients in it that would cause it to ferment. But it still could smell that way!!

Fermentation is produced by minute organisms such as molds, bacteria, and yeasts.
I don't think your MD fermeneted the same way as an alcohol because you must have yeast for that to happen. However, in an apartment the mold could form and cause some type of fermentation.

and with the sugar/corn syrup in the Dew.. bingo.

I'm not sure you need yeast for fermentation.

Years ago, I remember my grandmother pulled out a carton of OJ from the back of the fridge that was a few months old. But once we tried it, it was pretty good. It was slightly fermented and had little carbonation, tasting much like a mamosa(sp?). And I doubt there was yeast in that OJ carton.

But it terms of soda today, I tend to think that companies jack the drinks with too many perservatives for anything to ferment. But I'm no expert.


SEV [img]smile.gif[/img]

Sugar does, most definitely, "ferment."

From "wikipedia.com"...

In its strictest sense, fermentation (formerly called zymnosis) is the anaerobic metabolic breakdown of a nutrient molecule, such as glucose, without net oxidation. Fermentation does not release all the available energy in a molecule; it merely allows glycolysis (a process that yields two ATP per glucose) to continue by replenishing reduced coenzymes. Fermentation yields lactate, acetic acid, ethanol, or other reduced metabolites.

Fermentation is also used much more broadly to refer to the bulk growth of microorganisms on a growth medium. No distinction is made between aerobic and anaerobic metabolism when the word is used in this sense.

This process is often used to produce or preserve food. Fermentation typically refers to the fermentation of sugar to alcohol using yeast, but other fermentation processes include the making of yogurt. The science of fermentation is known as zymology.

Fermentation usually implies that the action of the microorganisms is desirable. Occasionally wines are enhanced through the process of cofermentation.

it's my understanding that all "alcohols" are basically the "waste products" of micro-organisms during fermentation. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 12-23-2005, 06:35 AM: Message edited by: popologist ]

Does OJ have carbonation in it to begin with?
If it doesn't how would it creat carbonation on it's owN?

Originally posted by greg:
Does OJ have carbonation in it to begin with?
If it doesn't how would it creat carbonation on it's owN?

it wasn't "carbonation"... but probably "gas bubbles" caused from some kind of fermentation.

micro-organisms give off "waste" just like people and other animals... in the form of gas, liquids, and solids.