[PLUG-TALK] making/faking cheap beer for slugs

Keith Lofstrom keithl at gate.kl-ic.com
Sun Jun 10 07:00:43 UTC 2012


On Sat, Jun 09, 2012 at 11:42:42PM -0700, Paul Mullen wrote:
> 
> I wonder if the fermentation is even necessary.  Would plain sugar
> water be enough to attract the slugs?  

I don't think they can smell sugar - yeast can be plenty stinky.
It does lead to an interesting question - what molecules are they
actually smelling, and can those be added to plain water?

The good thing about yeast is that it can grow and multiply.  So
the trick is making slug slop with the proper nutrients for yeast
reproduction, without helping something nasty reproduce instead.
I assume that means sterile conditions and skill so that the yeast
are the only living things involved.  I also assume that if I keep
things clean, I can dilute mature yeasty slop with more sterile
raw materials and get fast reproduction.  Saccharomyces Cerevisiae
yeast have a two hour generation time at 30C, so the real problem
may be preserving uncontaminated starter between batches.

Chances are, the reason slugs are attracted to yeast is for that
very reason - they can process yeast, rather than pathogens
processing them.  So a yeast smell is a safety signal that
pathogens are absent.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs



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