Dynamizing Water For Biodynamic Viticulture

Forgive me for starting a new thread on this if this topic has already been discussed. But one of the strangest aspects of biodynamics to me is the practice of dynamizing water. It seems to be all the rage. Instagram is full of videos of biodynamic winemakers stirring their water before doing anything with it. But the explanations I’ve seen for why one might want to do this are far removed from any grounded chemistry or physics.

There are a few related questions I’d be interested in hearing folks who might know more here try to answer on this topic (if there are any answers).

  • Can someone explain why this results in any change to the water?

-Has anyone proposed and tested a rigorous explanation as to why this does anything? Released gases? Absorbed gases? Anything? The testing part is the most important to my mind.

  • Can someone point me to any before-and-after spectroscopic studies, if there are any, on dynamized water? I’m thinking some type of mass spec and/or Raman spectroscopy to try to identify chemical and physical changes. But anything.
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I swear to God I thought it said Demonizing Water…

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The only thing stirring can possibly add is oxygen and that is if it is not already saturated. Off gas of CO2 can occur as well. But honestly once you open the tap and fill up a tank or whatever they are holding the water in, these two things occur quite rapidly.

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Hmmmmm…big mistake here, Jayson. Trying to find some scientific explanation for BioDynamic practices.
BioDynamics is a religion…not an agriculture practice.
And I think you’re supposed to stir it so many cycles in the clockwise direction, then the same number of cycles
in the counter-clockwise direction. If you start off counter-clockwise, Steiner will strike you dead!!
Tom

Exactly. Bernoulli knew that. (Added: Archimedes maybe too if he observed gases in liquids.) As do I watching a glass of tap water after filling it up.

No one can explain it, because it is nonsense. I like the ideas of Biodynamics that cross over into rational, scientifically based agriculture. But too many of the “principles” of BD are just conspiracy theories wrapped in voodoo. Given the problems these kinds of pseudo-science conspiracy theories cause in this day and age, I can’t condone just standing by and allowing something like BD to get a pass, because it seems otherwise harmless. If something has sound science behind it, great. If not, we need to reject it, and ask those who want to use it as a marketing tool to provide sound evidence for their practices.

Right. You know, I can see how other biodynamic practices lead to something that in the end could be useful if I set aside the mystical explanations. But I don’t get stirring the water. So I’m not invested here in this thread in bashing BD. A lot of good has come out of it IMO. I’m interested in really understanding why stirring the water does anything useful to it.

The fact that you’re even asking the question, and open to an explanation - when you know very well there is none - is the problem I’m referring to. I’m not bashing Biodynamics, I’m bashing conspiracy-ridden, pseudo-science nonsense, because it leads people to a state of mind where they are willing to believe there may be something real when they know full well there can’t be.

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I would imagine that differences in the water source would make for far greater differences than “stirring”. Was the water from an on site well, a pond, municipal water etc. Those differences are huge. Stirring any of them may or may not change them significantly.

Tom

I prefer my water shaken.

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Site well = low oxygen, possible high CO2 depending on pH and alkalinity
Pond water = ugh, what’s growing in the pond. Oxygenating may promote a bio growth.
Muni tap water = stable water, May have excess chlorine, stirring may not help this.

Alan, I guess I’m trying to be open minded and you think that’s dangerous. I get it. You and Tom and some others here understand that the spinning can’t cause coupling to the rovibrational, let alone the electronic, degrees of freedom of the water molecules or anything else in it. Hence, there’s my dilemma that so many people are doing this for no reason I can discern — people who employ science all the time to make wine. Maybe they do it because, all else aside, if they skipped even that one step, they can’t call the wine BD. I don’t know if that’s true or not. So maybe it is part of the marketing aspect of BD.

I’m curious if people here who will go down the open minded road with me have any answers.

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Well, I have a Ph.D. in physical chemistry, have studied, used, taught lab classes using equipment that measures these things (various types of spectroscopy). There just isn’t anything there. I mean, zero possibility that stirring water changes it in some way that could have an effect on its properties. Other than mixing, of course, or maybe helping some CO2 to escape.

I don’t think BD is dangerous. I think allowing one’s self to be duped into believing there is something real about a mystical, unscientific practice, invented by a guy decades ago (who also believed in some other pretty irrational stuff) is dangerous. It leads to being open to accepting all kinds of other things that might actually BE dangerous.

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Oh I get it, mineral content and chemical composition variation is huge between sources.

What I am getting at is stirring has far less importance than content.

Tom

Perhaps, just perhaps, it’s a useless step, dreamed up by a bizarre guy, who happened to create a system that for some unknown reason, appeals to certain people. Those people generally tend to be obsessive, and thus pay close attention to everything, and thereby often make great wine.

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doubt it’s in Steiner’s tome. Do they pour it through a cow horn? And where is it used since irrigation isn’t allowed?

Then all the shit will leak out.

Most of the BD practitioners I’ve talked with suggest that the dynamization process maintains a very high level of oxygenation of the liquid being stirred.
When asked why it would be important to maintain a high oxygen level in the preparation, these folks often talk of providing O2 for the microbial population in BD preps like #500 or a Maria Thun Barrel prep.
I’ve yet to hear any understandable explanation (perhaps the limits of my feeble mind) as to why oxygenation would be important to the inorganic preps (like #501 Horn Silica).

Cheers,

Well water can be undersaturated in oxygen and have higher concentrations of dissolved methane and VOCs. If you were to take well water and stir it well you’d off-gas methane/VOCs and oxygenate it effectively. You know this already, I know, but I think it’s likely the reason. Stirring water a lot won’t hurt it, and oxygenating and off-gassing it well could benefit it, so why not stir it up? Maybe 95% of the time it’s unnecessary but 5% of the time it’s mildly useful. Which I think describes a number of the more peculiar biodynamic practices. People want rituals. I don’t begrudge them that.