JUST TO SHARE (Lau Tai Onn): Alkalinity / Acidity of Products

The blogger’s note: In response to a question on the pH values of beer, wine, whisky, brandy and alcohol, the Great Sifu Dr JB Lim explains in ‘a simple way’ (in his own words) as follows. But as far as the blogger is concerned, he is still seeing stars after reading this so-called simple explanation, because Chemistry happens to be the worst or nightmarish subject in the blogger’s student life.

Friday, 7 June, 2013 2:15 AM

From: lim juboo

Thanks for asking this difficult question. I shall try.

I am unsure why you want to know the alkalinity and acidity of the various alcoholic beverages? I have personally not thought of this question in all my student or working life.

I have never in my career in analytical food chemistry, food quality control, nutrition, in medicine or in medical research measured the pH of the various alcoholic drinks, and I do not think anyone else in the same area of work has ever done that before? So my answer to you is very simple: “I do not know the answer”.

However, I shall still try to answer from whatever remnants of what I know.

In organic chemistry, there are many classes of alcohols. The lower alcohols, examples: ethanol (ethyl alcohol) is non cyclic, or a non-benzene compound. Hence we call them alicyclic compounds.

Ethanol and other primary alcohols belong to the aliphatic group where their carbon atoms are joined together in straight chains, branched chains. Hence they do not have a benzene ring in their molecular (non-aromatic rings) structures.

Only the secondary alcohols (example: cyclohexanol), and perhaps some tertiary alcohols or higher alcohols do have aromatic cyclic rings attached to their carbon atoms.

But none of the alcohols, be they primary, secondary, tertiary or higher ones are acidic nor alkaline, let alone the (only) drinkable one (ethanol) which is the one found in all alcoholic beverages (wine, beer, whisky, brandy…etc).

None of them, to my left over knowledge in organic chemistry, are acidic or alkaline. They belong to their own class of ‘neutral’ organic compounds.

So this question about acidity or alkalinity of any alcohol does not arise at all.

However, they may be some residual organic acids present in some of these lower alcohols, especially ethanol and even in methanol (wood spirit). Take care! Methanol is not drinkable. It is a poison.

This wood spirit is oxidized by alcohol dehydrogenase in the liver to formaldehyde (an aldehyde) and then by the liver enzyme - formaldehyde (formalin) dehydrogenase into formic acid, both of which are extremely poisonous. Drinking methanol (methyl alcohol) leads to blindness and death.

Even the drinkable ethanol has some degree of toxicity since it is still metabolized into acetaldehyde and into acetic acid (vinegar), the later is less poisonous. However, toxicity from ethanol can be greatly reduced by a higher intake of thiamine (vitamin B1).

Back to what I was trying to say, some organic acids may find their way into all the alcoholic beverages – beer, whisky, wine, brandy and even in toddy. The explanation is very simple. Ethanol is made by the anaerobic fermentation of sugars in grapes, malt, sugar canes, barley, rice, etc. from which these beverages are made.

In any anaerobic fermentation (respiration without oxygen), lactic acid is formed. This is the same acid that causes you to pant and makes you very tired after exercise when you become breathless (SOB – short of breath – “oxygen want”) when ATP is an-aerobically converted into ADP to give that short burst of energy generated from the break up of energy-rich phosphate bond to release the needed energy and returned to ATP when oxygen is available. The body goes into “oxygen debt” in an anaerobic exercise or after the race. Prolonged exercises make you very tired because of the accumulating lactic acid which has no time to be oxidized into water and carbon dioxide. This acid is also found in anaerobic fermentation where no oxygen is utilized.

Lactic acid formed in the meantime can be oxidized into CO2 and water by hyperventilating the lungs.

Since the fermentation is carried out by yeast to convert the sugars into alcohol (ethanol), there is bound to be some un-oxidized lactic acid in trace amounts in all the alcoholic drinks – from beer to toddy. This acid will find its way into the drink. But it is such a harmless biological acid.

Not just that alone. There are also a lot of fruit and plant acids (examples: malic, citric, oxalacetic, quinic, pyruvic, fumaric, lactic, succinic, aketoglutaric, acids just to name a few) inside the fruits, cereals grains and in almost all plant-based materials where you used to ferment them into rice wine, toddy, brandy, et, etc, that will also find their way into all these alcoholic drinks. You can’t avoid them.

All these fruit acids are not fermentable by the yeast, and they remain there unchanged into the final fermented product (the beverages).

But all these are very weak natural fruit acids which are easily, easily metabolized by the body, and they do absolutely no harm to the body. They do not cause a medical condition called “metabolic acidosis“(excessive acids in the body).

Even the poisonous methanol made from wood by pyrolysis (destructive distillation) of wood, would first yield acetic acid, and this will find its way into the wood spirit, let alone lactic acid and fruit and vegetable acids remnants inside wine, whisky, rice wine, barely wine and toddy.

What is even more, even if wine manufacturers are able to remove all those very small amounts of weak naturally occurring fruit acids in their wine, brandy and whisky, the very food you eat daily – any type will do – from fats, proteins to carbohydrate – all of them will still have to undergo metabolism in the body.

All of the foods you eat, no matter which, MUST be converted into most of those acids I mentioned above through what we call the Tri Tricarboxylic Acid Cycle or the Citric Acid Cycle. Whether you like it or not, you just cannot escape this biochemical cycle inside your body. This cycle is the powerhouse – the generator of all energy and biochemistries inside your body to give you life. Without this “acid cycle” you just die.

The very name of this cycle itself, already tell you that it is acidic in nature, producing vast, vast amounts fruits and organic acids inside your body. These same acids are also found in all fruits, vegetables and in the fermentation of all raw products into the finished wine.

Despite all those tremendous amounts of organic acids plus a very powerful and corrosive one too (the hydrochloric acid produced by the chief cells of your stomach), yet… yet, the body is so very capable of making the entire blood in your body – a volume of about 6 -10 litres (depends on your body size and weight) slightly alkaline over a very narrow range of around pH 7.35.

For this beautiful balance of base-acid adjustments, you must thank God for this as your Supreme Designer to be able to do this for you through a highly complex biochemical buffering system.

So what is your problem about wanting to know the pH of the various alcoholic drinks??

Why are you so concerned about them when I have explained in a very simple way how lots of acids are metabolically churned inside your body itself from any and every food eat daily?

So why are you so concerned? Are you drinking litres of alcohol like water every day? Another health freak are people asking you to drink “alkaline water” and they sell this “water” at exorbitant prices to other equally idiotic health freaks roaming the streets telling them that “alkaline water” is good for their health, because they heard from somewhere people telling them that the blood is alkaline, so they must drink “alkaline water” to make their blood even “more alkaline”? Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

Any acid (if any?) in the any alcoholic drink is physiologically, biochemically, nutritionally, and health-wise absolutely nothing, compared to the many health and nutritional hazards all the injuries alcoholic beverages inflict to your body. This includes the so-called “health-promoting” red wine, claimed to be cardio-protective because of antioxidant resveratrol. All alcohols including ethanol is toxic to the body. This toxicity has nothing to do with any residual organic fruit acids inside the alcohol.

Published medical literatures showed chronic drinkers of alcohol, whether the alcohol is acidic or alkaline, cause a wide range of diseases, including brain seizure, Korsakof's syndrome, Wernicke's Syndrome, dementia, brain shrinkage, stroke, subdural hematoma, hemorrhage, neuropathy, fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, cirrhosis, cancer of the liver, diabetes, ketoacidosis, gout, anemia, bone marrow toxicity, iron or folate deficiency, leucopenia, etc, etc…. just to name a few. This knowledge we know in nutrition and in medicine years ago.

Once again, I have never analyzed acids or alkaline, or measure the pH in alcoholic drinks in my entire life. I do not know of any food chemist, food quality controller, nutritionist, food scientist has ever done this before in their analytical work? It serves no purpose for them to do this.

I have never been asked this question before by anyone, nor in any of the countless question papers I needed to sit in all the universities in my life. You are the first person, and this is the time I try to answer.

So, I do not know the correct answer, except what I have just tried to explain in a simple way.