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Suggested Response - Q5

**Answer BOTH parts of this question:

You have been tasked with reducing beer losses in the maturation department and have identified an opportunity to recover beer from tank bottoms.

a)    List the financial opportunities this presents to the brewery

b)    List the quality risks this presents to your brands

Response:

Part a)

Financial opportunities:

Opportunity

Benefit

Beer loss reduction

Recovering beer entrained in yeast will increase yield per hl brewed. This means the additional extract recovery will improve cost per hl to produce.

Reduced effluent costs

With less effluent going to drain, it will result in reduced biological and chemical oxygen demand (BOD & COD). Lower BOD and COD loading will reduce on-site effluent treatment costs and help to keep the site compliant with the water authorities.

Create/ boost site income stream

Additional yeast from the maturation tank bottoms can be sold as a vitamin-rich dietary supplement or animal feed.

 

Part b)

Quality risks:

Risk

Disadvantage

Microbiological stability risk

Increasing the number of beer movements during the brewing process increases the risk of infection. Process equipment and pipework must be hygienically designed with CIP practices being used frequently.

Minimum residence time

Maturation tank bottoms (feedstock) and recovered beer should be held for as short a time as possible to mitigate negative flavour development and micro-infection risk.

Risk of oxidation

To reduce the risk of oxidation in process, all beer mains and equipment should be charged with deaerated water before introducing beer into the system.

Yeast autolysis

Tank bottoms will contain dead yeast, and any autolysed cells (ruptured cells) will have a negative impact on flavour stability. Off-flavours include ‘yeast bite’ and bready.

In addition, autolysed yeast release protease enzymes from dead cells, which leak from the cell and digest the foam positive proteins in beer. This negatively impacts head retention, causing a rapid collapse of foam.
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