Beer Production

Nisma Farooq (Lecturer)

Department of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics,
The Women University, Multan
Alcoholic beverages
Alcoholic beverages have been produced
throughout the recorded human history
They are manufactured worldwide from
fermentable materials usually sugars
Derived from fruit juices
Plants sap and honey
Hydrolyzed grains
Root starch etc
Some beverages are drunk fresh
Mostly aged to modify flavor
Some are distilled to increase alcoholic contents

Yeasts → primarily used in single or mixed cultures

for production of certain products
Their fermentation products are
Ethanol
Desirable organoleptic compounds
CO2
Yeasts are mostly Saccharomyces cerevisiae which
can not directly ferment starch

They require prior hydrolysis of polysaccharides to

simple sugars and small dextrins

Can be achieved by fungal or plants amylases

 Beer Brewing
The term beer is given to non-distilled alcoholic
beverages made from partially germinated cereal
grains, referred to as malt.
They include ales, lagers and stouts, which normally
contain 3–8% (v/v) ethanol.
Their other main ingredients are
Hops
water
yeast
Ale → type of beer brewed using “warm
fermentation” method
Resulting in sweet and fruity taste
Historically → drink brewed without hops
Lager → it is conditioned at low temp at the
brewery , it may be pale, golden, amber or dark

 Stout → dark beer made using roasted malt or

barley
Typically the strongest beer (7-8%)
Four main stages of beer production

Malting
It is the partial germination of cereal grain for 6–
9 days to form malt.
Malt is a primary beer ingredient and contains
mostly starch, some protein and hydrolytic
enzymes.
Malted barley is predominantly used, but beers
are also made with malted wheat, occasionally
malted oats and even malted sorghum.
Four main stages of beer production
Mashing and wort preparation
The aqueous fermentation medium, otherwise known as wort,
contains:
fermentable sugars
amino acids
other nutrients
And is prepared by solubilizing malt components through the
action of endogenous hydrolytic enzymes.
The resulting liquid wort is then ‘sterilized’ by boiling; at the
same time hops are added to impart their bitter flavor and
characteristic aroma. Overall, wort preparation takes
approximately 5–8 h.
Four main stages of beer production
Yeast fermentation is a non-aseptic batch process that
uses a starter culture of a selected brewing strain of S.
cerevisiae.
The inoculated wort undergoes an alcoholic fermentation to
produce ethanol, CO2 and minor metabolites that contribute
to flavor and aroma. Fermentations usually last for 2–7 days
depending upon the type of beer being produced.

Post-fermentation treatments are conducted to mature or

condition the new beer to make it ready for consumption,
which may take from one to several weeks.
 MALT AND MALTING
Malting involves the controlled partial germination of
barley grain
This modifies the hard vitreous grain into a easily crushable
form containing more readily degradable starch and
generates hydrolytic enzymes, such as
 amylases
 b-glucanases
 proteases.
 MALT AND MALTING
Malting begins by soaking or steeping the barley
in water for 2 days at 10–16°C, in order to
increase the moisture content to around 45%
(w/w).
Periodically, the water is temporarily drained off
and aeration is provided, thus preventing
anaerobic conditions that can cause embryo
damage.
The water used for steeping is often reused to
save on costs of both water and effluent
treatment.
 MALT AND MALTING
After steeping, the barley is partially germinated
for 3–5 days at 16–19°C.
Traditionally, this simply involved spreading the
grain on malting floors to a depth of 10–20cm.
However, various mechanized systems are now
operated, which have grain beds of about 1m
in depth.
These are aerated with moist cool air and turned
mechanically every 8–12 h to aid respiration by
the grain and prevent the build-up of heat,
otherwise the embryo may become damaged.
 MALT AND MALTING
When sufficiently modified, the malt is ‘kilned’ via
a two-stage process.
First it is dried at 50–60°C and
then at 80–110°C.

Kilning takes about 2 days and has several

functions.
It arrests embryo growth and enzyme activity.
minimize enzyme denaturation.
develops flavor and color .
 MALT AND MALTING
Pale lager malts that require little color
development are subjected to mild conditions.
Consequently, they retain more enzyme activity
than do colored malts.

Highly colored malts required for flavoring and

coloring dark beers have low enzyme activity.

 At a moisture content of 2–3% (w/w), the malt is

biologically stable for several months.
 WORT PREPARATION
The objectives of wort preparation
Are to form, and extract into solution
Fermentable sugars
Amino acids
Vitamins
Malt normally provides most of the
potential fermentable materials
Sufficient enzymes to generate a well-balanced
fermentation medium
 WORT PREPARATION
British beer is prepared from
75% malt
25% unmalted cereal
Non-cereal starch sources, referred to as ‘adjunct’

A portion of the adjunct may be in the form of

sugar syrups that may be added later during
wort boiling
In the USA
Up to 60% adjuncts may be used
 WORT PREPARATION
Wort boiling
 Sweet wort obtained from the mash
 Transferred to a ‘copper’ (‘kettle’) for boiling
 Along with dried hops or hop extracts
Hops are the flower cones of the female hop
vine (Humulus lupulus)
 Which contain α and β acids
 Primarily humulones and lupulones
It is predominantly the a acids that,
 After isomerization to iso-a acids during
boiling
 Give beer its bitter flavour
 WORT PREPARATION
Hop constituents also help to
inhibit certain
Beer spoilage bacteria
Maintain foam stability

Additional sugar
(copper/kettle adjuncts) may
be added to the wort prior to
boiling
 WORT PREPARATION
Boiling is conducted for several reasons, including
 Isomerization of hop a acids to the more bitter tasting iso-a
acid
 Sterilization’ of the wort
 concentration of the wort
 Termination of enzyme activity (the denaturation of malt
enzymes)
 Precipitation of unwanted proteins;
 Removal of volatile compounds that can impair flavor
 Development of some flavor compounds and color, through
the formation of melanoids and oxidation of phenolic
compounds.
 Fermentation
Yeast characteristics
Brewer’s yeast must be
effective in taking up nutrients from the wort
 imparting the required flavour to the beer,
should be readily removed from the completed
fermentation.
Brewers have their own yeast strains
that produce particular flavour profiles
they endeavour to maintain the genetic purity of these
strains.
 Fermentation
Both top-fermenting strains (ales) and bottom-
fermenting strains (lagers) of S. cerevisiae are
employed.
 Top yeasts → floatational-flocculation behaviour
 Used for making ‘ales’ and ‘stouts’

 Bottom yeasts → sedimentary-flocculation behaviour

 Production of ‘lagers’ in cool fermentation
 Top yeasts are unable to ferment the disaccharide
melibiose (a-1,6-linked d-galactose and d-glucose units),
 Whereas bottom yeasts can utilize it because they
possess an appropriate a-galactosidase, melibiase.

 Floatation and sedimentation behaviour ‘largely

depends on
 Dimension of fermentation vessel
 Physical conditions
 Fermentation
The Fermentation Process
The main factors that affect the fermentation rate
and influence beer quality are:
1. the amount of yeast used to inoculate the fermentation;
2. yeast cell viability and yeast quality;
3. the level of dissolved oxygen in wort at pitching;
4. wort soluble nitrogen concentration;
5. wort fermentable carbohydrate concentration; and
6. temperature.
Fermentation rates are primarily controlled by adjusting the
temperature
→ Ale (top) fermentations in these vessels take 2–3 days at 12–
24°C whereas in a traditional vessel they last for 4–7 days.
→ Lager (bottom) fermentations are usually performed at lower
temperatures of 3–14°C. They last for 5–7 days in these
cylindro-conical vessels, compared with 8–10 days for a
traditional fermentation vessel.
 Fermentation
 Beer fermentations can be monitored by
 measurement of CO2 evolution,
 ethanol production,
 the amount of heat generated or
 decline in wort specific gravity.
 The specific gravity of worts for ales is normally around
1.040 and falls to about 1.008 by the end of fermentation
 For lagers the initial gravity is often higher, at 1.050.
 Wort pH starts at around 5.2 and falls to about pH 4.0 in
finished beer,
 Whereas the number of yeast cells in suspension rises
through the fermentation period and falls towards the
end, as the yeasts flocculate.
 Post Fermentation Treatments
And Maturation

Beer after the primary fermentation young or

green beer
Green beer then undergoes a period of maturation
and conditioning
Nature of maturation method → type of beer
 Post Fermentation Treatments And
Maturation

Cask And Bottle Conditioning Of Ales

 The remaining yeast( 2×106 cells/ml ) in the green beer
undergoes a secondary fermentation to carbonate the
beer by adding priming sugar
 Dry hops or hop products are added → flavor
 Isinglass finings are added which interacts with
polysaccharide components of yeast cell walls
 This interaction leads to the sedimentation of yeast and
clarify the product
 Post Fermentation Treatments And
Maturation
Krausening
 It is similar to the cask conditioning, but it is performed in
the larger tanks
 10% of fermenting wort (krausen) is also added with
fermentable sugars and yeast
 This results in the fast removal of aldehydes and
diketones
 The sealing of vessel results in the carbonation
 Post Fermentation Treatments And
Maturation
Lagering
 Lager beer is kept in the tank at 8⁰C for several weeks or
even months
 No priming sugar is added
 Remaining yeasts continue to slowly ferment residual
wort sugars
 The CO₂ is generated that removes the unwanted
volatile compounds from the beer
 The tanks are sealed to retain the CO₂ for the
carbonation
 Post Fermentation Treatments And
Maturation

Storage Ageing
 Most commonly used bulk maturation procedure
 Beer is stored at low temperature (-1 to 4⁰C) for 7-10
days
 To encourage chill-haze particle formation
 Later removed by filtration
 Beer is carbonated (to eliminate unwanted volatile
compounds) on packaging into bottles and cans
 Post Fermentation Treatments And
Maturation
Protein Haze Control
 Proteases from Candida olea and Pichia pini are used to
control the protein hazes
 Proteases are added during fermentation or post
fermentation to prevent the chill haze (otherwise appear
during storage at 3 degree)
 Hazes are mostly formed from proteins and polyphenols
 Stabilization to prevent chill hazes is commonly achieved
by treatment with silica hydrogels, polyvinylpyrrolidone
or tannic acid
 Post Fermentation Treatments And
Maturation
Prevention Of Oxidation
 Oxygen present in the beer promotes the activity of the
beer spoilage acetic acid bacteria
 It is also responsible for the oxidation of the lipids which
affects the beer flavor and stability
 Oxygen is removed by using ascorbic acid or SO₂
 Post Fermentation Treatments And
Maturation
Special Finishing Processes
 Alcohol is removed from beer by the vacuum
evaporation, dialysis or reverse osmosis (low alcohol beers)
 Three categories of alcohol restricted beer are
 Low-alcohol, containing up to 1.2% (v/v) ethanol
 Dealcoholized, 0.05–0.5% (v/v) ethanol
 Alcohol-free, with less than 0.05% (v/v) ethanol
 Ice beers are produced by cooling the beer to –2 to –4°C
to form ice crystals
 The beer is held under these conditions for several days
and then filtered to remove the ice crystals → high alcohol
(15%) beer
 Post Fermentation Treatments And
Maturation
Packaging
 Beer is clarified by filtration prior to final biological
stabilization and eventual packaging into bottles and
cans
 Small packaged products are batch pasteurized after
packaging
 In some cases, a mixture of CO₂ and nitrogen is used to
improve foam stability
 Microbiological problems during
brewing

 Microbial infections can produce

 off-flavours
 aromas
 slime
 turbidity
 May arise from
 contaminated raw materials
 poorly cleaned equipment and vessels
 During mashing and sweet wort preparation, only thermophilic
lactic acid bacteria are likely to cause problems
 Microbiological problems during
brewing
 Lactic acid bacteria are sensitive to hop constituents and
thus do not survive in hopped wort
Brewing term,  Cooled hopped wort
adding yeast to
 nutritionally rich
the wort is
called  contains oxygen
“pitching”
 reasonable pH of 5.0–5.5.
 prone to infection by coliforms, acetic acid bacteria, lactic acid
bacteria, Obesumbacterium (Hafnia) and wild yeasts
 Infections are rare unless the wort is stored for long periods
prior to pitching or is pitched with contaminated yeast
 Microbiological problems during
brewing
 Conditions become less suitable for spoilage bacteria as
the fermentation progresses.
 Beer is a hostile environment for the microorganisms
because
 a low pH of 3.5–4.5
 little or no oxygen
 hop constituents that have antimicrobial properties
 low levels of readily utilizable carbon sources
 a relatively high ethanol concentration
 Microbiological problems during
brewing
 Problems due to
 Acetic acid bacteria are rare now due to the ability to eliminate
oxygen
 Zymomonas which cause infections of ales, particularly if cask
conditioned, are now relatively uncommon
 Currently, the most problematic organisms
 Lactic acid bacteria, Lactobacillus species and Pediococcus
species
 Gram-negative obligate anaerobes Pectinatus species and
Megasphaera species infect lagers
 Future developments in beer production
Continuous fermentation Batch fermentation systems
systems
 Currently batch systems
 Used for 100 years have spare capacity
 Advantages  Advantages
 Reduced labour costs  require less monitoring
 higher production due to a  more flexible (capable of
greater throughput from smaller producing a range of
volume plant products)
 constant product quality  microbial contamination is
 less down-time less potentially damaging
 lower cleaning costs
 more efficient use of raw
materials
 greater overall profitability
Summary
Any questions?