Celiac disease is a condition, in which case the person’s body reacts to the prolamins of wheat, rye, barley, and oats. The only way to treat CD is a total lifelong avoidance of gluten consumption. In this study Tef (Eragrostis tef L.), which belongs to the family poaceae that is regarded as gluten free, was used as raw material. The objective of this study was to optimize the malting conditions to produce a gluten free malt of high quality for gluten free foods. Tef, with a thousand kernel weight of 0.3–0.4 g, needed special arrangements like small sieves etc. Tef has a remarkable agronomical advantage that the water requirement is probably the lowest of any major cereal.

The inspection of returned beverage crates as well as bottles in industrial automatic filling lines is mainly performed by imaging systems. These systems are not able to detect invisible damages or embrittlement. A powerful novel system based on the principle of mechanical vibration analysis for the detection of small and concealed damages is presented. The selection of individual crates is performed automatically by a pre-trained artificial neural network (ANN). Numerical finite element simulations form a basic insight into the vibration behaviour of the crates and help to plan a pilot setup. This leads to a final recognition rate of more than 99 % over all checked crates in a prototype for industrial use.

BrewingScience - Monatsschrift für Brauwissenschaft, 61 (May/Juni 2008), pp. 81-93

Practical experiences with a very large reverse osmosis plant for the treatment of brewing and industrial water

In 2003, the French brewery Brasseries Kronenbourg put one of the largest reverse osmosis plants for the treatment of brewing and industrial water in Europe into operation in Obernai. Since then, more than 6 million cubic meters of raw water have been treated with this plant. The practical experience gained during this time convinced Brasseries Kronenbourg that they had made the right investment decision not only from the technological and economic point of view but also with regard to the system being future-proof.

Quo vadis, beer stability?

Brewers will continue to require spring malting barleys. Adequate quantities of winter barley varieties suitable for brewing are not yet available. Tests described below showed that partial use of 6-rowed winter barley causes changes in taste as well as in taste stability and lowers beer stability. Higher quantities of silica gel for protein adsorption as well as PVPP for tannin adsorption have to be added. The objective is to adapt stabilization measures to the respective operational conditions.

The formation of haze is a serious problem of bright beers because it limits the storage life of the bottled or barrelled product. The problem is particularly evident in the bottle. Haze (chill haze) is said to be caused by different substances and mechanisms. The most commonly held opinion makes a protein polyphenol interaction responsible for its formation. Therefore efforts of the brewing industry are targeted towards a minimization of one or both of these components by filtration through PVPP (polyvinylpolypyrrolidone) and diatomite (Celite). The objective of this study was to trace the influence of polyphenols as well as other phenolic substances on the colloidal stability of beer and to lay the foundation for tracing them throughout the brewing process.

The determination of the concentration of dissolved oxygen (O2) plays an important role in different stages of beer production. Only precise, stable and fast measurement procedures for determining the oxygen content in beer are therefore suitable for the use in breweries. A research project was carried out in order to evaluate the newly developed oxygen measurement system built in the CO2/O2 Gehaltemeter type c-DGM of Haffmans BV by comparison with other standard analytical references such as the Orbisphere 3650 from Hach Ultra Analytics GmbH and the DIGOX 6 from Dr. Thiedig & Co. The measurement system of the c-DGM was compared with the certified reference systems during a series of tests..

During the malting process storage proteins are degraded by proteolytic enzymes into small peptides and amino acids. The activity of these enzymes was measured at various stages during malting of barley and was found to be increased. To visualize proteolytic degradation, proteins of unmalted, germinating and malted grains were fractionated. After extracting the proteins on the basis of their solubility (Osborne fractionation) protein fractions were analysed using a Lab-on-a-Chip technique, which separates the proteins, based on their molecular weight, by capillary electrophoresis. This new technique for the analysis of proteins was supported by using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. In addition, amino acid analysis on barley and barley malt was carried out..

The functional disaccharide isomaltulose (Palatinose™) was tested to determine its suitability as an ingredient in beer and beer specialties, and its potential fermentability by typical beer contaminants, and typical beer production yeasts.

In this work, new cognitions on the influence of common parameters for the isomerization of humulones, such as the temperature, pH, storage time, the concentration of humulones, microbial growth and pressure in especially prepared aqueous hop solutions were observed. The results provided an important background for future works regarding the enrichment of humulones and iso-humulones from aqueous solutions by using foam fractionation, in order to produce isomerized and non-isomerized marketable hop products. At low pHs between 2 and 3, higher isomerization rates were observed. Isomerization took place already at low temperatures between 8 and 10 °C, which previously has not been observed. At higher pHs, sufficient isomerization was also induced, but after a duration of ca. 72 hours.g..

The use of adjunct is one of the most important factors in the beer industry, since adjunct not only influences production variables such as quality and cost, but also has an influence on market sales strategy, such as pricing strategy in Japan where liquor tax is assessed according to malt usage. Although a great deal of knowledge has been accumulated regarding adjuncts such as liquid adjunct (L. A.) and barley, not many reports have been published regarding special quality

Self-priming or pressure-operated gas dispersion system

The adding of gases in liquids is frequently unavoidable in reaction technology. The quality of a dispersion here largely determines how economic the system will be. Small bubble diameters are needed in order to obtain the largest possible mass transfer area. A ring injector was combined with a static mixer as an economically interesting solution.