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The Northern Central Grain Elevator in Baltimore once was the largest grain terminal on the East Coast of the United States. Inside was a maze of pipes and some of the foulest water I've ever encountered, possibly an unholy, decades-old dirt-beer from whatever was left inside.

Check out the rest: abandonedamerica.us/northern-c…

#baltimore #abandoned #photography

This entry was edited (1 year ago)

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in reply to Abandoned America

I love this stuff. I have been fascinated with ruins and decay for literally as long as I can remember. I blame β€œLondon Bridge Is Falling Down”, the first book I clearly remember reading by myself, around age 3. It opened with a two-page spread of the bridge collapsing, and I’d spend hours studying the image. Hey, it was 1968! We didn’t have YouTube or Nintendo back then! We did what we could with what we had! (Adjusts belt onion, yells at clouds.)
in reply to Lizard

@LizardSF man, London Bridge isn't just falling, it's exploding! But jokes aside, it's a great illustration and I totally get where you're coming from. For me, it may well have been the forest bedroom in Where The Wild Things Are
in reply to Abandoned America

@jeffjarvis Grain terminals aren’t for making beer. They’re for storage and export of grain. I’m sick of seeing this boosted with such an inane comment and replies.
in reply to Dan Morgan :ksu:

@DanMorgan @jeffjarvis rather than debate with you about how this is in fact something that could occur given the circumstances (water and grain are def present and yeast can come from as little as combining flour - also a grain and thus likely present! - and water) I'm instead going to point out how smug and rude your response is and just block you. To be clear, it's not because you disagree, or that you're wrong, it's because you were a jerk about it
in reply to Abandoned America

@DanMorgan @jeffjarvis

There is much natural yeast in the air. No need to introduce it from another external source.

Had a whole barge of molasses go crazy fermenting due to extreme heat of the river it was sitting in, and vents that allowed natural yeast in the air to enter the holds.

Looked like a can of brown spray foam.

in reply to Dan Morgan :ksu:

@DanMorgan @jeffjarvis beer is made of grain and water. this place has not been used in ages. spores get in. it rains. water plus yeast plus grain makes beer. very undrinkable beer. sit down.
in reply to Inken Paper πŸ‡΅πŸ‡Έ

@crashglasshouses @DanMorgan@vmst.io @jeffjarvis what an ass. I know next to nothing about beer making and I still know enough to know this is supremely possible in a grain terminal with water pouring through it
in reply to Abandoned America

That looks like a typical video game map. Maybe Left 4 Dead 2's map "hard rain".
in reply to David Willmore

@willmore that is one I have not played but I hear there's a resemblance often 😊
Unknown parent

Adam Sparks
I understood the idea in the original post, but, flour makes yeast? Yeast is a fungal organism. It’s not made from flour but is likely in the air so yeah, your dirt beer analogy wasn’t far off when you have grain, water and wild-type yeasts available
in reply to Adam Sparks

I'll be transparent here: I'm far, far from an expert on the subject, although there are a ton of articles how it works like this one. It's not made FROM the yeast/water, but it cultivates the environment for it to grow if you leave it in, IDK, an abandoned grain elevator or something theverge.com/2020/3/31/2119970…
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to Adam Sparks

@adamhsparks
The university I work at had bought an old MFA feed building. Years ago we had an odor complaint from the rear dock.

We went over to investigate and the place smelled like whiskey and mold. Molasses stored or leaked under the dock had fermented into some kind of alcohol product. We had to pump it out for disposal.

Unknown parent

Outeast
I was gonna make a joke about it sounding like something from an artisanal brewery, then I googled and... eh, never mind
Unknown parent

Abandoned America
@boisdevache it would be nice. I'm fine with people disagreeing and I'll own it when I'm wrong, it does happen, but being belligerent for the sake of it is a line I draw
Unknown parent

Maynard G.Krebbs
People that get "assy" over minor inconsequential things is usually because they don't have the intellectual acuity necessary to grasp the complicated subjects
in reply to Maynard G.Krebbs

@SkipFleming I mean, even if you're wildly smart and totally correct, being assy doesn't really help you make your point if nobody was actually being disrespectful to you
Unknown parent

Abandoned America
@Cherteapet thanks! It was a neat, if super gross, place
in reply to Abandoned America

@adamhsparks I’d say you’re right on! If there’s yeast in the air and it settles in the water/grain mixture, it’ll start growing, so it makes more yeast.
in reply to Abandoned America

@adamhsparks It was a perfectly fine analogy, and I don't know how the overly literal people in the world made it through high school English without learning about analogies, similies, and metaphors. I am refraining from adding an unnecessary two cents about how these days beer doesn't need to have hops, but in Tudor England it was the introduction of hops that made beer a newfangled thing from the continent that was different from ale. Oops. I guess I failed to refrain.
Unknown parent

The Drop Bear 2.0
well thank you, because of that arse I went and searched to see if @seamusblackley had an account in Mastodon since he’s the one who taught me that yes, that is how you can make yeast!
in reply to Abandoned America

@adamhsparks Yeast is just everywhere - it is naturally occuring in the environment. What they're doing for baking is 'capturing' the natural yeast, and then nurturing and cultivating it for use. Part of this is ensuring you don't get any other nasties in there, like bateria, but this is the basic process for making your own sourdough starter.

There are a number of naturally fermented beers and such out there, which use yeast from the environment.

Unknown parent

SpaceLifeForm

IIRC, that was how beer was discovered.

Pots with grain that got flooded via heavy rain that had yeast mixed in.

Mesopotamia comes to mind.

in reply to Abandoned America

I think we agree here. You’re right in the spirit of what you were saying, I was just pointing out that yeast isn’t made from flour. It’s an organism. I do have a degree that lent to studying lots of fungi and their ecology so I may be overly pedantic on this. πŸ˜‰
in reply to Abandoned America

Obviously OBVIOUSLY the only people who can say anything about beer on the internet are people who understand brewing and have actually done brewing themselves. The same goes for guns and sex. Only actual beer brewers are permitted to talk about guns and/or sex.
Unknown parent

acm
I *loved* "dirt beer" -- got your meaning immediately! I mean, there's yeast in the air everywhere...
Unknown parent

Abandoned America
@seikoliz thanks, and that's a great shot! I feel like I could have spent muuuuuuuch more time in there and not run out of things I wanted to photograph
in reply to Adam Sparks

@adamhsparks PS in case anyone is reading this Adam isn't the guy I was talking about when I mentioned the person being assy, no offense was given or taken by his comment
in reply to The Other Brook

@theotherbrook @adamhsparks see you clearly know much more about it than I do, this whole convo is making me want to learn more
in reply to The Other Brook

@theotherbrook @adamhsparks
Reasonable people: What an evocative term, I know exactly what that probably smelled like!
The "ready to throw down over whether a hot dog is a taco" contingent: IF THERE WEREN'T AGED OAK BARRELS INVOLVED THE TERM IS INACCURATE
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to Sean

@complexmath @theotherbrook oh god, right? You have to have at least a shred of a sense of humor in life.
in reply to The Other Brook

@theotherbrook @adamhsparks When I was writing a book on fermentation, I toured a brewery owned by ABInBev, and they go to extraordinary lengths to preserve the purity of the Budweiser yeast. Different lines, etc. Any contamination and bam! Different yeasts.
in reply to Philip Moscovitch

@PhilMoscovitch @theotherbrook @adamhsparks I am learning so much here! It's kind of a fascinating subject. We live in a world with so many oddities like, for example, yeast
in reply to Ian Ragsdale

@iragsdale
Indeed. As a homebrewer, there's a reason we keep everything as clean as we can so as to not infect the beer with wild yeast, which is pretty much everywhere.
@AbandonedAmerica @adamhsparks
in reply to billothekid2

@billothekid2 that's kind of the impression I got about it but also I am not a yeastologist so I left room for error on my part πŸ˜„
in reply to MegaZone

@megazone @adamhsparks that's what I thought but also I am by no means an expert. Glad I was on point!
in reply to Philip Moscovitch

@PhilMoscovitch @adamhsparks Meanwhile at places like Samuel Smith's old Tadcaster Brewery and the Belgian lambic breweries they use open vats that pick up whatever yeast is in the air. Which, to be fair, in these places that have been doing it for centuries is mostly a few strains that permeate everything, but it's still amazing they don't try to control it more.
in reply to SpaceLifeForm

@SpaceLifeForm that's pretty wild. To think of the experimentation that had to happen to replicate that once it happened the first time!
Unknown parent

Abandoned America
@cdanby thanks! It's much less charming in person πŸ˜„
in reply to Adam Sparks

@adamhsparks I figured. I am by no means an expert so the phrasing may not have been correct but I do understand that wheat doesn't spontaneously create yeast when combined with water.
in reply to Abandoned America

@PhilMoscovitch @theotherbrook @adamhsparks
A Calgary brewery wanted to make a 100% Alberta beer, down to the yeast. So they went out and collected some: onbeer.org/2017/07/albertas-fi…
Unknown parent

FeralRobots
are you kidding, man? I thought that was poetry. dude doesn't know a good thing when he reads it.
in reply to Birgit Moldenhauer Art

@BirgitMoldenhauer I got to photograph this one because a friend of mine had a contact with the demo crew, and he was kind enough to invite me along
in reply to Abandoned America

Lucky for you, this photograph is wonderful! A place for computer games, Stories, and movies...., my phantasy is going wild!
in reply to Abandoned America

thank you. I was trying not to offend while trying to share some knowledge. It’s a fine line.
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