What even is DEET?
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Melissa:And now onto the show. Okay. So you asked me what the heck time I should probably finish doing this. Oh, I forgot to do our intro.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:Hey. Hey. I'm Melissa.
Jam:I'm Jam.
Melissa:And I'm a chemist.
Jam:And I'm not. And welcome
Melissa:to Chemistry For Your Life.
Jam:The podcast helps to understand the chemistry of your everyday life.
Melissa:Okay, Jim. Last week, you asked me the question that we've all been wondering that's on everyone's minds is what the heck is DEET? Yes. And how does it work, and why is it on all these bottles?
Jam:Yeah. And is it even important? It seems like it probably is, but who knows?
Melissa:Okay. Well, here we go. DEET is just your standard organic compound. It's just like a type of chemical a molecule situation. Any person who's taken organic chemistry could draw the structure, has seen structures like it, can probably give it its, like, official name and do reactions with it.
Melissa:It's just like a simple little organic chemistry compound. Time. I'm gonna show you a picture of it.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:It is. Here we go. I'm good. I have to share my screen with you. Right there.
Melissa:Do you see it?
Jam:Yes. Yes. I do.
Melissa:It's just it's got a ring that's known as a benzene ring. It's a 6 membered carbon ring that's really stable. And it's got a carbon sticking out from one side, and then on the other side, it's got a structure that's known as an amid carbonyl group and then a nitrogen. So the interesting thing when people asked me questions like, what the heck is d? Uh-huh.
Melissa:I was like, I don't know. It's just an organic chemistry molecule. What do you something to say. Yeah.
Jam:That's that's, like, very well, I guess we'll get more to, like, what it does and stuff like that. But so far, it's, like, pretty underwhelming because it's like you're like, yeah. It's just normal. Just Regular old compound. You know?
Melissa:Yeah. It's gonna get more exciting.
Jam:Not different than anything else. That's so funny. I expected to be like Also, I thought maybe, like, DEET was an acronym or something because it's just such a weird word. Oh, it is an acronym.
Melissa:It is an acronym for the IUPAC name. To so IUPAC is the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. It's basically a group of people who get together an aside international names for chemistry. We're all gonna name molecules the same thing no matter what country we're in or whatever.
Jam:And there's, like, a secret society kinda thing.
Melissa:It kind of is like that.
Jam:Pulling the chemistry strings from from an from the underground.
Melissa:Yeah. Sometimes their rules are really frustrating, but they're trying to help because, you know, if if you're a chemist and you're looking at a molecule and you're trying to describe it to another chemist, that's really hard unless you have some standardized way of talking.
Jam:Right. Right. Yeah. Because, yeah, can you imagine being, like, The one that's got, like, the oxygen and, like, the nitrogen, and there's, like, a carbon. It looks like a stick figure laying on its side.
Jam:Like, that would be, like, Don't they all acoustic figures, Aviso?
Melissa:Right. Right. And that's I try to make my students one of them gets to look at a molecule and the other one doesn't. Mhmm. And then they have to explain what they're looking at without using the IUPUAC name.
Jam:Oh, interesting.
Melissa:And they can't usually. It's really hard. And so then I say, that's why I'm forcing you to learn this. Yeah. Is because we need a language about which to talk about chemistry.
Melissa:So the fancy name for it is N n diethylamtoluamide.
Jam:Woah.
Melissa:Means, like, nothing to you guys, but there's a diethyl and then tall, uamid. I think that's where the d e t comes from. I don't know why there's 2 e's because
Jam:I
Melissa:mean, there's 2 Ethel groups, so maybe that's it. But, Yeah. I think that's, that's they shortened it down to deep because it sounds better than saying n n diethyl m toluamid.
Jam:Yeah. Definitely sounds better than that. That's true.
Melissa:But if you're an organic chemistry person, if you're taking the class or your biology major. See if you can remember what that structure might look like. That'd be a fun game. So that's what date is, and that's kinda boring. It's almost like if you ask me what's water and I tell you, well, it's like an oxygen and 2 hydrogens.
Jam:Right. It doesn't tell you much about, like, what it can do or what it ends up appearing like in nature and how it interacts with other things. It just tells you, like, what it is by it's like it's kinda like looking at the dictionary definition or something. It can send us just not really tell you much about it. Like
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:Yeah. I don't know. I could tell you an example of a word like that, but that's that seems like it's similar.
Melissa:That that's my immediate thought when people ask me, what is this thing? And you I just think it's a molecule. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah. But I do know what to tell you because I did a lot of other research on it.
Melissa:1st, d is not DDT.
Jam:Do you
Melissa:know what DDT is?
Jam:Uh-uh. I do not know.
Melissa:Have you ever seen the images of kids playing in, like, clouds? I've said a like a lot. Oh. Seen the images of kids playing in clouds of insecticide coming out from trucks? Yeah.
Jam:I totally have. Especially, like, I remember my mom talking about doing that as a kid, but also in the tree of life, they do that. It's, like, one of my favorite movies. Right. Takes place in, like, the fifties or sixties, and And they do that.
Melissa:Yes. So DEET is not that thing.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:It's not the DDT clouds behind trucks. T DDT was great at killing insects, but it was bad because it was also accumulating in the environment. It was toxic. It was thinning eggshells in birds. So bird populations were dying.
Melissa:It's very bad. Yikes. And for a long time, I thought DEET and DDT were the same thing.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:They're not. So I paired those 2 in my mind, and that's interesting that I had done that because it does seem like they were developed around the same time.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:The US military during World War 2 and in the years after, just like in my 1st few years after World War 2, was really working on developing products to help troops
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:In insect infected areas.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And that was how these insecticides came to be from the US military in the mid 19 forties.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:Then after the war ended, they try to use those same products that they were using militarily to improve civilian life back at home. And DEET came out around that time. I think it was being used in the public for the 1st time in the fifties. I think it was made around 46 from what I remember.
Jam:Wow.
Melissa:It keeps things away from you. It does a great job.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:There's a study in 2002 that tested Dee against some other more natural insect repellent. And Dee had a complete protection time, completely protected due for 301.5 minutes.
Jam:Oh my gosh.
Melissa:Yes. And that was just a 23% deep formula.
Jam:Interesting. Is that, like, around what we have available to us, like, as regular consumers or what?
Melissa:I think so. Yeah. It's about that.
Jam:Okay. Interesting. I didn't realize it was that effective.
Melissa:It's incredibly effective. They tested some other things. 1 was a soybean oil based repellent, and that was that worked for about 95 minutes.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And all the botanical repellents that they tested basically protected you for 20 minutes.
Jam:Oh, wow. Dang. Yeah. It isn't That's not much. If you're gonna be outside enough to, like, put on some sort of repellent, you're gonna be outside for more than 20 minutes.
Melissa:Yes. And the the last thing they tested was those wristbands that have talent in them. Uh-huh. They said those offered no protection at all.
Jam:I believe that. I remember those. Man, it did not work.
Melissa:So DEET really does a really very good job of repelling insects.
Jam:Wow.
Melissa:Mhmm. But they didn't know how Deet worked. A common theme.
Jam:Yeah. So they just were like, this works. I wish we knew how, but, wow, it worked.
Melissa:A a 100%. So doctor Christopher Potter, who worked on a study that we're gonna talk about in a minute. It was in an interview for Chemistry and Engineering News magazine, which is a really Good magazine. He said that, traditionally, they would just screen thousands of chemicals and see which ones worked on repelling mosquitoes.
Jam:I guess depending on, like, where technology is at, that might be faster. They're like, well Mhmm. We could, like, theorize about the with this kind of chemical structure do this or that, we're gonna just try it and see. To That might even make more sense now. I don't know.
Jam:I mean, if as long as you're not gonna potentially hurt somebody. Seems like you would get you would get some answers pretty quickly, I guess.
Melissa:I think that gives some insight into 2 approaches with chemistry or developing new molecules is there's one that is we're gonna dismantle the existing system that we're trying to alter Mhmm. And figure out how it works, and then we're gonna address that. And then there's the other way that's just brute force. We're gonna make a bunch of stuff and see what happens. Yeah.
Melissa:Well, doctor Christopher Potter and his team, they said, we're gonna figure this out. They're of that approach.
Jam:Okay. Nice.
Melissa:So they modified these mosquitoes' antennas, which, honestly, I do not understand at all how they did this, but they developed a test that made neurons in the mosquito's antenna fluoresce when the odor receptors turned on. So, basically, there was a visual response that you could see when the mosquitoes' odor receptors were triggered.
Jam:A little signal kinda thing.
Melissa:Mhmm that you could see with your eyeballs.
Jam:Yeah. Gotcha.
Melissa:So then they tested different odor signals. They tested odors and chemicals that come from our skin, and they tested several repellents, including DEET and a few other synthetic ones.
Jam:Mhmm. And
Melissa:then they tested natural repellents, the botanical ones like lemongrass, and there's another one called Eugenol. These are
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:Are natural products. And the odor receptors lit up with human scent, and they lit up with the natural products.
Jam:K.
Melissa:The odor receptors did not light up with DEET.
Jam:Wow. So That's crazy. That's so smart to think to, like, modify some mosquitoes like that because I don't know how yeah. How else would you really know? It's like t Mhmm.
Jam:It's like having a little signal that says your phone's charging. It makes all the difference. It's like, okay. Yeah. It's charging.
Jam:Got it. Mhmm. It's like, if you don't have that, then you're just Totally in the dark. That's very smart.
Melissa:It is smart, and it shows that the natural repellents and the DEET work in 2 different ways. Mhmm.
Jam:I I
Melissa:think maybe the other synthetic repellents also didn't light up, but we're focused on DEET today. So that's what we're gonna talk about most.
Jam:Did did they try some of the more, like, natural Repellents like garlic and crucifixes and that kinda thing?
Melissa:No. I think they left those for
Jam:the vampires. Oh, Okay. Well, yeah, it's gonna be a different topic, different day.
Melissa:So but what's really interesting is then when they mix the human odors with the deep and sprayed that, there was no signal for the olfactory responses. Oh. So it seems that the natural repellent work in a different mechanism than the synthetic ones like DEET.
Jam:Mhmm. But it
Melissa:also seems that maybe DEET is shutting down that olfactory signal or something to where they they do not detect our human odors at all anymore.
Jam:So it's like a little
Melissa:know for sure, but that's what it seems that's happening.
Jam:Yeah. Almost like a little clothespin for their noses. It's like Or like how you know how, like, if you smell a skunk, it's like you can't smell anything else for a second. Like, if if someone hit 1 or whatever, like, on your street or something, It's just like, man, you you probably couldn't smell anything else for a little bit when you're near something like that. Maybe it just, like, destroys their smell because it's so strong or something to them.
Jam:I don't know.
Melissa:Yeah. I think that that that could be it. They also found they used a photo ionization detector, which basically lets you visualize what's becoming volatile or not.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:And it seemed that less human odorants were becoming volatile in the presence of DEET. Oh. So it could even be working another way. Somehow, the deet is keeping the olfactory signal from lighting up, but it's not triggering it itself or anything like that.
Jam:Got it.
Melissa:So it's just keeping it
Jam:from lighting up.
Melissa:Mhmm. We've got a question mark there.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:But, also a different researcher said that they found that different mosquito species respond to deep by different mechanisms. Mhmm. And this same professor, the first one that we talked about who did all this research, agreed because a lot of mosquito species diverged a long, long time ago.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And so they could have very different receptor signals. They could have very different methods of detecting humans. There's lots of different things going on in different species of mosquitoes, so this was just one instance of testing specifically malaria mosquitoes that a species that can transmit malaria. But Uh-huh. That's just kind of a a qualifier.
Melissa:You know?
Jam:Right. Right. Right.
Melissa:This is one species that they found. Some people have found some other stuff, but I thought it was so interesting that they found the DEET kind of let there be less human smells, but also the DEET was not lighting up their olfactory signal at all. Mhmm.
Jam:It
Melissa:wasn't it was just almost shutting down that system or ignoring that system altogether, making it to where those human smells could not hit the olfactory receptor of the mosquito.
Jam:Kinda like putting, like, an invisibility cloak over you or something like that. Just like
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:Like, you obviously, there's a human there, but Somehow, it's hiding or preventing the your our smells and volatile compound or whatever else from being detected at all. That's crazy. I know.
Melissa:And, like So that's deep.
Jam:Is the c o two they didn't That's not where they they didn't detect the c o two in the same place, do they, in their olfactory?
Melissa:No. I think the c o two and the olfactory receptors were 2 different things. Okay. Or maybe there's different sites on the antenna that detect for 1 or the other. But in the previous studies, they would disable the c o two receptors, but still have the olfactory response.
Melissa:So I think those are 2 different.
Jam:Okay. Got it. Got it.
Melissa:But like I said, there's tons of species of mosquitoes that probably all react a little bit differently. So I think we're just kind of scratching the surface of mosquito science and how they're attracted to humans and everything. But one thing that seems unequivocal is that DEET works.
Jam:Yeah. So, like, they Reverse engineered it by testing it with the malaria type, the mosquito, and modifying their antenna. That's what you're saying. Right? Mhmm.
Jam:But In practice, it's proven it's been proven to work even if you don't know how in every species, and proven to work in more than just that one Species. Right?
Melissa:I believe so. It seems to work with mosquitoes, period, but it's just by different mechanisms in different species of mosquitoes, which makes sense because they probably have different mechanisms of finding humans and different species of mosquitoes.
Jam:Got it. Got it. Dang. That's crazy.
Melissa:It really is so interesting. So that was where I started, and then I looked into the safety. So do you wanna stop now and tell me that to back, and then we can talk about safety?
Jam:Yes. I would like to. That'd help me keep it straight, I think. So so mosquitoes, like we learned about And the other episode's 2. And just like humans, they've got an old factory.
Jam:You know? Like we've talked about before, one of the oldest factories there is. And one of the ways that they find us is by smelling us, smelling some some compounds that we give off, some volatile assets, etcetera. And so what they've been able to find out after the fact, they already realized that DEET, which is a Seemingly not super special, super powered kinda compound. This is one of what's a chemical compound?
Jam:Right? Organic? And it's organic? Mhmm. Yes.
Jam:That they found out that It keeps mosquitoes away and has an effect on them Not not really bothering humans when it's present. And only recently in this test that Christopher I was gonna say Christopher Plummer, but that's that's
Melissa:It's doctor Christopher Potter. Potter.
Jam:To Mister Palmer is pretty cool, but I think he's spent most of his time acting, not not so much on the science. They only have recently discovered that at least in one type of mosquito, it seems like it's just somehow preventing their olfactory receptor, their the the equivalent of their nose kinda thing
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:From Being able to detect the kinds of smells and stuff that they're looking for Mhmm. To find good Sources of blood protein for, for production reproduction in their eggs and stuff like that. Somehow, the deet just prevents them from, like, smelling us, smelling those things, just prevents that That for rent, maybe, is too active a word. Somehow, in the presence of Deet, their olfactory receptor doesn't come on, and so they can't smell us or don't smell us somehow.
Melissa:Right.
Jam:Is that is that the gist of it?
Melissa:That is the gist of it. And I think, like I said, in this instance, it seemed that maybe the d was keeping the volatile compounds from coming up top off your skin being as Mich quality. Other researchers have found a different mechanism that DEET works, so it might just be that DEET has multiple effective methods of working against mosquitoes. So that's really cool.
Jam:In the preventing of, like, our You said, like, preventing How do you word that? Preventing volatile compounds or the
Melissa:It basically just keeps them from volatile from becoming volatile.
Jam:Okay. So that would be, like that would make it pretty important to have to it's like, what would we put on our skin then? In that case, In those situations where it's preventing those compounds from becoming volatile and then being detectable, my mosquitoes, that's why we just That's why we would spray ourselves and not just spray around the air or whatever.
Melissa:That probably is part of why those bracelets didn't really work. Time
Jam:wondering. Right.
Melissa:But it's me totally speculating on someone else's research that I'm not an expert in.
Jam:Breaking news. You heard it here first.
Melissa:My roommate, whenever I say dumb things or make comments about shows, will always say, hot takes by Melissa. 2 year hot takes by Melissa.
Jam:There's this show I love, called Time Crisis. And they talk about music and stuff, and one of the guys is pretty kind of a He's a little negative, I would say, but he's pretty opinionated, which I like. His name is Jake, and so they call it Jake's Takes. They'll he'll say something like, Oh, I don't like this song. We're like, oh, yikes.
Jam:That's rough. And then it'll be like they have a little prerecorded thing that says that just like Jake's takes, And it just, like, has a slam kinda sound, like, almost like an earthquake at the same time. Oh,
Melissa:that's funny. Okay. Well, let's talk about safety.
Jam:Okay. Sweet.
Melissa:The safety is gonna be your same old chemistry story. In this case, it does not seem acutely toxic. It's ranked there's a a system of 4 different levels of, from the EPA of what's safe and what's not safe, and they're second to last. So they're pretty fine. Okay.
Melissa:It's barely toxic, if toxic at all. And there has been some concern about it's exposure to children Mhmm. Exposing date to children and exposing pregnant women to to date. But been some reviews that studied all the literature on the topic came back to say it doesn't seem like there's any conclusive findings.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So the general consensus is that DEET is probably fine
Jam:Mhmm. To
Melissa:use as instructed on the bottles that it comes in or whatever intermittently. I think it becomes more dangerous if you're using it constantly day in, day out, whatever. But the way that it is instructed to be used on the bottle, it should be fine. We have no evidence that it's not.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:One source I saw said children under 2 years probably shouldn't be using it. Okay.
Jam:So you
Melissa:can get baby special Mhmm. Insect repellents. My personal opinion as a chemist is that I tend to try to put less things that are not naturally occurring in my body as much as possible.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:I just reduced the amount of exposure I get to non natural products.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:For me, this is not a big deal because I don't have much of a response mosquitoes. They don't really bother me, so I would probably tend to use a natural one that gives a little less protection, if anything. But if you're really at risk if you're someone who gets bitten a lot, if you live in a country where malaria is a real issue. It all the agencies and people who are investigating this stuff have given DEET a very low toxicity risk compared to other things.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:So that's the general consensus. Maybe be careful if you're in one of those more vulnerable populations. Yeah. Keep up to date on any new breaking information about it. But as of right now, Deet does not seem to be the villain that DDT was.
Jam:Nice. Okay. That's cool.
Melissa:So it seems like everyone's okay with it being used, but you might just on the side of caution. You know?
Jam:And it makes sense for, like like you said, kids under 2, because even just like like, their skin can be really sensitive to, like, even just Things that have a scent to them. Like, a lot of Yeah. Times they just say, like, hey. You probably should just use, like, no scent, detergent and stuff like that Just because that can even be sensitive to them. So it might even be, like, maybe it's not the the fact that Deed is dangerous.
Jam:It's just that it's a chemical type of thing that they haven't been around yet or whatever.
Melissa:Right. Well and a lot of scents aren't regulated by the FDA. To if you can go scentless, it's generally better
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:To do that. So just as a rule, there's not a lot of regulation on what things smell good and don't smell good. So or there's not a lot of regulation on the safety of things that smell good, so you might I recommend going scentless as often as possible
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:In in beauty products and stuff like that.
Jam:Interesting.
Melissa:That being said, if somebody gives me a bottle of lotion that smells good, I'm gonna use it. But Yeah. There's just to be a fully informed consumer. There's not a lot of regulation on the scents that go into products.
Jam:That makes a lot of sense.
Melissa:Oh, no.
Jam:I was about to say something about being scentless in Seattle, which is not really a pun. Just that was a Funny play on it, but then I was like, oh my gosh. It's just so much more obvious one right in front of me. I I I have not really felt like I haven't I haven't had any, scientific reasons to feel this way, but I just Don't like bug spray. I like how it smells.
Jam:And
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:I just feel, when it's on my skin. And I think there's certain situations where It's probably safer just to do it. Like, I've been to several countries that have a high risk of malaria and had to take malaria prevention medication while I was there and Was directed by doctors to, like, use some sort of repellent that's has d in it. In those situations, I followed directions because like, okay. This is gonna be like a 2 week trip.
Jam:It seems like it's worth it just to be safe. But in the day in, day out, like, Texas summer, to I mean, I just, I just don't like putting it on. And it reminds me so much of being a kid and being having to, like, be told by my parents, like, slather in in, sunscreen and insect repellent and running around riding bikes, Sweating and just it makes me think like, I don't maybe I'll just stay inside. If it's really if I've gotta do that and it's that bad, if there's that much sun and that much That many mosquitoes, and maybe I'll just I'll just stay inside.
Melissa:Yeah. I understand that. Yeah. I don't love that feeling. But it does seem like if you're willing to reapply a lot, those botanical repellents also do work if you wanna go as natural as possible.
Jam:That's true. I guess you could just keep it on hand and just apply every 20 minutes or whatever. Mhmm.
Melissa:Yeah. It said, let's see. There were Lemongrass, I think, and Eugenal were the 2.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:Well, that's it. That's our, what the heck is deep and how does it work chemistry free life episode. Nice. Next week, we're gonna talk about what's new in the world of scientific research. So I'm just gonna look at a lot of different articles of chemists developing new insect repellents and tell you what approaches they're taking, which is a little bit different than what we've done before, but I think it'll be fun and testing.
Jam:So it'd be kind of like, what are they what are some things that they're trying, different different ways of repelling, mosquitoes and stuff? Okay. Yeah. Awesome. That sounds
Melissa:cool. I think
Jam:it'll be fun. Sweet. Is it time to talk about
Melissa:our weeks?
Jam:I think so. Awesome. There's one thing that I know that you've been excited about that maybe you should just go first.
Melissa:Okay. I'll go first. So I you guys know, we've talked about before, I am an old school Apple product user. I try to not to spend money and make things last as long as possible. But Rona has different ideas for technology.
Melissa:And I have had the same computer for 11 years. It got me through my undergrad degree, my 1st graduate degree, internship, this degree. It took us through a whole year of chemistry for your life, and, it could not handle the demand of remote learning. It just would get really hot on my lap and burn my legs. I had to put an a cool pack from the freezer underneath it.
Jam:Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Melissa:It just couldn't be running all the things I needed it to be running constantly all workdays every day. So I thankfully had a scholarship from the university, and I was able to use that to to get a brand new computer.
Jam:Nice. Yeah. Dude, it's that's so awesome. What a great feeling that is. Especially, like, to It's nice whenever you wait a long time to update like you've been able to.
Jam:It makes it even sweeter when you do because, like, you just jumped 10 years of computer, Like, updates, basically. Like
Melissa:Oh, yeah. I earned this update. It's like when you take a shower after a hard workout.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:This is the shower after my 11 year workout. So it makes recording easier. I'm not scared we're gonna shut down midway through. That has happened while we're recording. My computer just stopped recording.
Jam:Yeah. Did yeah. That was scary.
Melissa:During a class, it just shut down multiple times while I was teaching. Crazy stuff is happening. So, multiple times while I was teaching. Crazy stuff is happening. So now I have a very reliable new computer.
Melissa:I was kind of sad to see the other one go. But Mhmm. I'm very happy now to be working on a computer that's quick and takes care of all my stuff, and I don't have to worry that it's gonna just randomly shut down on me. So here's to another 11 years Yeah. With this computer.
Jam:To Dude, awesome. I'm excited for you. I love I love that. I was, like, very, very pumped that you were doing that. I knew it was like you probably would've done it sooner if you could have.
Jam:To Definitely not always a fun move to have to make. But once you do, it's so exciting and so enjoyable to be, like, to get to use a new thing and get to put it to work and use it every day on stuff that you care about doing, so that's awesome.
Melissa:It really is so awesome. I'm pretty excited. So and and Jamset may have a dropbox, so now I never have to worry that my data is gonna disappear, which literally happened to me the week of my master's defense
Jam:last Yeah.
Melissa:Last year. So
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:I'm I'm fully I feel safe. I feel fully protected with this new technology.
Jam:Yeah. When that happened, when you, like, lost some data or whatever, to you're just talking about that story. Me and one of our other mutual friends hatched a plan to try to, like, strong-arm you into getting Dropbox or some sort of backup thing. Our friend our friend Ryan, we were like, we've gotta get her. She's doing too much important stuff.
Jam:We can't afford for any of that to, like, just go missing with for computer dies. And so it took it took longer than expected, but we did get you set up. And I'm a firm
Melissa:did give me a setup. I'm a
Jam:firm believer in Dropbox. So Dropbox, if you wanna sponsor our show, just let us know. We we both are in Yeah. That's true.
Melissa:You really are a firm believer. So what about you? What's your happy thing this week?
Jam:So my thing's a lot less cool, but something I'm excited about, I was reading some now I don't know about the chemistry side of this, but it is sort of chemistry related for a future topic about coffee. But I was reading some forums and and groups and stuff like that about cold brew, And there's lots of theories about there. Obviously, a lot of it's the approach of try stuff and just see what happens. You know, most of us Doing coffee stuff are not scientists. We're just guessing as we go.
Jam:And Mhmm. I read a pretty convincing post that convinced me to change my cold brew ratio. Woah. So I've been brewing it Five to 1, which means for every 5 parts of water, I have 1 part of coffee. And it's really easy to calculate if you're using metric.
Jam:So Got, like, say, a 100 grams of coffee, then you have 500 milliliters of water. And this post talked about how they believed that there wasn't enough water available to extract all that could be extracted out of the coffee if you do 5 to 1. Mhmm.
Melissa:So I
Jam:guess that'd be something It
Melissa:it gets saturated. The solution gets saturated.
Jam:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so this person was like, I think 6 to 1, in My experience seems to be the lowest, the most concentrated you can go while still getting as much as possible out of the the coffee. Because you do wanna have to vodka, you wanna have it be concentrated and then dilute it when you drink it.
Jam:And so Mhmm. Anyway, all I have to say, tons of nerdy stuff, but I Really dove deep into these posts and stuff, and I thought I had had the perfect ratio and stuff, but I tried. I've done 2 batches now at the 1 to 6 ratio, and it tastes The same in sense that it doesn't taste weaker, which would sort of, in a subjective way, prove that person's point that there's not less being, Like, extracted into the water or whatever. So
Melissa:Interesting.
Jam:I'm excited because it improves the cold brew game one more step. It makes it more efficient. And I use, less coffee, and it does taste better to me. So that Nice. Has been exciting For me.
Melissa:That is exciting. Yay. So you can basically get more coffee out of the same amount of coffee, beans.
Jam:Yep. I'm actually I'm using literally 50 grams less coffee per batch, so that's, like quickly adds up in coffee savings. So
Melissa:Wow. Congratulations. Your your coffeeologist ways are coming back around to us.
Jam:Absolutely. I could definitely talk way more about that, so, we'll stop it there. But, any cold brew people out there, definitely DM us if you wanna talk more cold brew.
Melissa:Yeah. I really enjoyed it when Abby asked about how to up her coffee game.
Jam:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was fun.
Melissa:Well, thanks for sharing your coffee triumphs with us, and thanks for coming to learn all about what the heck is in indulging my organic chemistry ways. And thanks to all of you listeners also for coming and learning. We're so thankful for you guys. We could not do this show without you.
Jam:Dude, anytime. Thanks for having us. Thanks for teaching us. And, thanks for answering questions, but giving us new ones Every time we keep having, like, a cliffhanger at the end, it's like, hey. We'll talk about that next week.
Jam:Previously on chemistry for your life. So So Mohsin and I have a lot of ideas for topics of chemistry in everyday life just like mosquitoes and deet and repellent and all those. But we wanna hear from you. So if you have questions or ideas, can reach out to us on Gmail, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook at chem for your life. That's to help us keep our show going and contribute to cover the cost of making it, check out our limited run merch shop at bonfire.com
Melissa:/
Jam:store/chem for your life. Check out our merch there, and you can support the show by buying something on our on our merch store. If you are able to do that, You can help us by subscribing on your favorite podcast app and rating and writing a review on Apple Podcasts. That helps us to be able to share chemistry with even more people.
Melissa:This episode of Chemistry For Your Life was created by Melissa Collini and Jairam Robinson. References for this episode can be found in our show notes or on our website. Robinson as our producer, and we'd like to give a special thanks to a Hefner and s Flint who reviewed this episode.
