Presently, kieselguhr filtration of beer is the most commonly used technology worldwide. Due to the growing problems with this filter aid, mainly concerning worker health and kieselguhr disposal, many alternatives have been investigated. Especially small and medium-sized breweries need solutions that allow existing equipment to be retrofitted. In the last decades, occasional articles treating the filtration of beer using cellulose fibres have been published. The properties of filter aids consisting exclusively of cellulose have been investigated as well as the properties of mixtures of cellulose and other filter aids. A lot of knowledge has thus been acquired. Pre-coat filtration of beer by cellulose is possible. The beer has to be well pre-clarified..

If you supply the world market with PVPP as BASF does, you may congratulate yourself upon the fact that about every third beer the world over has been in contact with Divergan®. For decades, BASF’s Divergan has made sure that there is nothing left in the beer to spoil consumers’ expectations. Spinning the concept further, BASF has now employed the tag line “It’s a clear choice“ to promote its new beer filtration aid Crosspure®. Brauwelt International met Gero Spika, Head of Global Sales Management, Beverages Processing Polymers.

In order to produce high quality foods and beverages, the addition of a final sterile filtration step directly prior to filling is now the status quo at many filling plants.

Haze measurement is an important step in quality control in brewing of natural beers or weissbier. Use is currently made of calibrated photometers for determining the respective haze value of beer in accordance with the EBC (European Brewery Convention). This measurement simply provides a single still picture of haze and thus allows conclusions to be drawn on long-term haze stability to a limited extent only.

The favorable combination of easy sample preparation and rapid, economical analysis has contributed to the popularity of this spectroscopic method in recent years. This has resulted in its selection by many in the food industry for analysis applications. In particular, it is being increasingly utilized in facilities which produce or process malt (Fig. 1).

For some years now, membrane beer filtration has been one of the major topics of discussion in the brewing industry, offering a new technology that overcomes the negative impact of kieselguhr (KG) to the environment and human health. The AlfaBright™ technology is based on the combination of a high speed separator and a membrane cross-flow filter system with flat sheet membranes. In this report the setup and results of the AlfaBright™ membrane filtration process will be discussed.

A proline-specific protease preparation has been commercially available from DSM Food Specialties since 2005. Called Brewers Clarex™, this product is a highly concentrated solution of a food grade, acid stable enzyme that exhibits a strong preference for cleaving protein chains next to proline residues. The enzyme is added during the primary fermentation phase and is currently marketed as an alternative to PVPP and/or silica treatments. The efficacy of the enzyme is illustrated by the fact that quantities of not more than two ml/hl wort are required to prevent chill haze formation and to produce beers that are completely stable.

Dr.-Ing. Martina Gastl (nee Schütz), Dr. rer. nat. Dipl.-Ing. Klaus Hartmann, Dr. rer. nat. Dipl.-Ing. Markus Herrmann, Dr.-Ing. Matthias Keßler, Dr.-Ing. Stefan Kreisz, Dr.-Ing. habil. Martin Krottenthaler, Dr. rer. nat. Dipl.-Ing. Ralf Mezger, Dr.-Ing. Mark Schneeberger, Dr.-Ing. Frithjof  Thiele, Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Martin Zarnkow, Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Werner Back, Faculty of  Technology of Brewery I, Scientific Centre for Nutrition, Land Use and Environment, Technical University Weihenstephan, Freising

The various possibilities available for filtering beer were one of the major items on the agenda in Bad Kreuznach. In this contribution, Brauwelt author Dr. Günther Arndt summarizes the different approaches and content of the lectures on the subject of this process step, a subject that continues to be of current interest.

Suitable analytical monitoring methods for assessment of important technological processes are described in a three-part publication. The core messages from a lecture delivered by Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Werner Back at the 39th Technological Seminar 2006 are outlined. Part 1 (Brauwelt International No. 3 (2007), p. 162) covered the issues of malt quality and mashing as well as wort boiling. This Part 2 deals with the topics of fermentation, yeast technology, filterability and haze problems.

Despite claims to the contrary, most breweries are still not “kieselguhr-free”. The majority of breweries in Germany and internationally, continue to use kieselguhr as a filter aid. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, kieselguhr remains a subject of contention. To say that questions about disposal methods, which are best and which are legal, make for lively conversation, is an understatement. Therefore, methods currently available for disposal and recycling of kieselguhr sludge will be examined below.

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