Spent grains – a valuable raw material

Spent grains are the main by-product in the brewing industry. The present practical study shows the incorporation of spent grains into indirect expanded cereals. Fermentation and cooking extrusion are the key factors for a high-fiber cereal with a very high customer acceptance.

Barley processing in a brewhouse with a wet mill and a lauter tun

Using a proportion of raw barley as a malt substitute is an established practice at many breweries, and is a relatively unproblematic option when used up to a proportion of 30 - 40 percent when using additional exogenous enzymes. In fact, by using special enzymes, it is nowadays even possible to produce high-quality worts with up to 100 percent barley. There is, however, some far-reaching empirical feedback from brewhouses on this, particularly when using a hammer mill and a mash filter, or a 4- and 6-roller dry mill and lauter tun. That brews with 100 percent barley can be also processed with a wet mill in conjunction with a lauter tun has been demonstrated in a series of trials conducted jointly by Krones and Novozymes in collaboration with a brewery on an industrial scale featuring 16.5 tons of grist.

At the Hopsteiner Forum in June 2013, five different wheat beers were presented to an audience of brewers and brewing scientists showing the influence of different hop varieties used for dry hopping.

Brewing scientists, don’t miss out on this: The scientific journal BrewingScience by Fachverlag Hans Carl usually covers all topics from brewing and beverage science.

For the December issue (publication date: 20 December 2013) however we will do a Hop Special. Any scientists with a focus on hop research are cordially invited to submit their scientific papers by 2 September 2013 at the latest.

Please note that all papers should be written according to the author guidelines published at www.brewingscience.de/pdf/BrewingScience_authors_guidelines.pdf. If you have any questions, call us on +49 (0)911 952 85-58 (Dr Lydia Winkelmann).

For the past year, Hopsteiner has been developing an in-house sensory panel to provide additional evaluation of hop varieties and products. The Hopsteiner Sensory Panel trains on a set of sixty aroma reference standards in order to correctly identify common aromas found in hops (e.g. lemon, pine, mango, rose, etc.).

Water and waste water

Beer drinkers hear in advertisements again and again about the importance of the right water for brewing a good beer. When revisiting the first issues of Brewing 101, one can read about the major influence of hop and malt raw materials, about the importance of brewhouse operations and unit operations in the fermenting room and storage cellar, about the influence of yeast and that the most attractive beer, ultimately, can be ruined during filling. So why should water, above all, have a significant influence, it is just water? We will soon learn that water quality and composition are very relevant for subsequent beer quality.

3rd Brewing Science Seminar in Wuhan

When March rolled around, it was once again time for the Brewing Science Seminar in Wuhan, China. This year, the third annual seminar took place from the March 11th to 14th, 2013, and the motto selected for the event held was “Energy Issues at the Center of Science and Innovation”. The seminar is jointly organized by the Technical Brewing Academy in Wuhan and publishing house Hans Carl of Nuremberg, who issues the Chinese edition of BRAUWELT.

Very heavy rainfall on June 2nd and 3rd caused flooding in many Bavarian hop gardens. First

GrainCorp Malt, the parent company of German maltster Schill Malz and the UK maltster Bairds Malt has announced that it will implement a reorganization of its European businesses. This reorganization will allow the German and UK businesses to provide better service and capabilities to their customers as they will benefit from closer cooperation in all divisions - in manufacturing, engineering and sales.

In 2010 the company Wolf Anlagen-Technik GmbH & Co. KG (Geisenfeld) and the VLB Berlin e.V. started a two year project focusing on energy recovery during hop kilning. A heat exchanger was installed in an industrial scale hop kiln in order to decrease the consumption of primary energy. The efficiency of heat recovery using exhaust air of the hop kilning process was determined and potentially saved primary energy calculated. Heat recovery from exhaust air produces certain volumes of condensate. The collected condensate was analysed for eight selected hop oil components which were also determined in green and kilned hops. Before the heat exchange process the exhaust air was forced through a filter cartridge that contained activated carbon material..

Since recent years plastic packaging material is used for draft beer in disposable kegs. Week points of disposable kegs are the barrier properties and the mechanical properties of the packaging material.