First off, welcome to yet another blog about beer and thanks for stopping by. My name is Maciej, I am from Poland and with this first post I’d like to introduce myself a bit and explain how I actually ended up in EJDFoodSci – doing a PhD in brewing science.
I cannot recall exactly my first experience with beer, but pretty vaguely I remember being around 6 or 7 and taking a sip from my father’s glass that was left around.
Brewing technology was always a point of my interest. I cannot recall exactly my first experience with beer, but pretty vaguely I remember being around 6 or 7 and taking a sip from my father’s glass that was left around. At that time I completely could not understand what was so special in this “beer thing”. It took me roughly a decade or so, when eventually I could experience all the amazing things that beer offers. Beer diversity, the complexed technology or its long history – these were just the few aspects that led me to study Fermentation Technology at Lodz University of Technology.
That’s pretty much me until I saw the EJDFoodSci offer. I applied, I was accepted and then… it all started! Now I know that a PhD research can go along pretty well with traveling, networking and surprisingly – with beer! The project’s kick-off took place in March in Krakow – there all the 8 students met up for the first time. My first impression? An international group of different age, characters and educational background did only confirm the many interesting and fun moments ahead of us. I can proudly say that within a matter of couple of days (or few beers) we became a heck of a great EJD family. And though sometimes we don’t agree upon simple things, e.g. the way a real pizza should be made, we all agree upon one thing: “beer being the best invention of all times; the wheel is also a great invention, but try to imagine having it together with pizza”.
But Krakow was not just about meeting ourselves and integration – there we had our fist training on transferable skills. Besides, we had a great chance to visit a couple of brewing and malting plants in Poland and talk to the people from this sector. Few weeks later another training. This time at VLB Berlin including the technology of malting, beer packaging, process automation and so on. Now, while writing this post, we are getting ready for our next training at Technical University Berlin… Ever since the project started all goes incredibly fast. So fast, that sometimes it’s hard to realize that half year have already passed.
But a PhD would just be nothing without its research – and I couldn’t end up in a better country – Belgium! By this I do not only mean the beer itself, but the work environment that the Technology Campus Gent offers and the people that create it.
And my research – what’s it all about? I don’t want to spoil all the fun by unraveling all the aspects of my project, but in general I’m involved in beer flavor stability. Some of my future posts will refer to beer aging and its driving forces. Later on, having some comprehensive results, I’ll try to give some solutions and ideas that can preserve beer flavor profiles – make your favorite beer being fresh and great for longer. I hope that many of you will find something interesting here – no matter if you are a student, homebrewer or a brewing expert.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to dive deep into my brewing research. My next post will appear in few weeks or so, but you’re more than welcome to follow me on twitter @MDitrych or FB. Meanwhile, I do recommend to check out the posts of my colleagues on this blog.
Cheers!
