Dutch Yeast and spirits factory (NG&SF)
Beijerinck must have been working on the root nodules when Van Marken offered him a generous salary to move to Delft and research ways of improving the quality of the factory’s products and controlling contamination problems. A new laboratory was built for him. However, it cannot be claimed that he was happy during his time as an industrial microbiologist. His wide range of interests did not really suit the more focussed requirements of industrial life, despite the broad freedom that van Marken gave him. When he should have been concentrating on yeast, fermentation and other production-related subjects, he was apparently also still working on his root nodules, different sorts of bacteria and even speculating whether the recent spectacular sunsets were due to dust from Krakatoa which had recently erupted.
Topics of Beijerinck’s publications that appeared during his years in industry (subjects in bold show his official industrial work).
- Sunsets (Were the spectacular sunsets of the time due to dust from Krakatoa?)
- Root nodules and their bacteria
- Plant galls
- Grasses, carrots, gardenias, barley
- Algae, protozoa in drinking water, hydrogen peroxide in living organisms
- Fermentation, butanol fermentation, Saccharomyces associated with beer, Schizosaccharomyces octosporus
- Lactase, maltase, blue cheese bacteria, kefir
Figure 1. Yeast and Spirits factory buildings at the end of the 19th century
