h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Please consider this entry:

http://www.h2g2.com/A373871

It's not been covered in the Guide up to now and I believe if you don't know how to burp these things you're going to get yourself into a shedload of trouble.

Nicely written. And I think I can help fill in an important point.

After I took up homebrewing, I figured out why people burp their plasticware: to prevent fermentation and other spoilage. Fermentation is simply the process where yeast (in this case, wild airborne yeast which occurs naturally and is almost unstoppable) interacts with oxygen and nutrients to produce alcohol and carbon dioxide. Other spoilage comes from bacteria, mold sports, etc., which work much the same way.

Homebrewers always take care to *include* sufficient oxygen for their carefully selected yeast. But most people who put food in containers don't have a lot of control over the yeast, and aren't really aiming towards alcohol as an end product anyway. Since you can't really cut down on the nutrients (or else your plasticware becomes useless for storing nutrients in), the idea is to cut down on the oxygen.

Comments taken onbaord - in abridged form - and nudged into place. Thanks.

Onboard, obviously!

I found this entry quite informative and well-written. When it's my turn to recommend an entry to the editors (in about 2 weeks or so) I'll recommend this one.

Thanks for your recommendation. You'll be glad to know that we think this entry is great, and it has now gone into the Editorial Process for future inclusion in the Edited Guide. When it does get into the Edited Guide, we will email to let you know, but please bear in mind it can take a while for entries to go through the sub-editing system.

And it's really good, too.

Wampus

Editorial note: This thread has been moved off the Peer Review page to the entry's own forums, as it has now been accepted for editing.