Brewers strive for optimal microbiological safety while keeping the beer's flavor and freshness. Filtration of the beer at the end By removing yeast, bacteria, and particles that have a detrimental impact on the flavor and quality of beer throughout its shelf life, brewers may get the finest solution possible.
To attain the longest shelf life and match customer expectations, breweries are increasingly using beer final filtering. Consumers are willing to pay a premium for quality products, and cold filtered beer has seen increased market growth. When compared to pasteurization and heat treatment, beer final filtering ensures greater microbiological safety while keeping freshness and taste consistency at the same or lower cost.
Alfa Chemistry leads the development of beer final filtration, starting with the design of beer-specific membranes and filter elements, as well as the process and system platform.
Taste and The Impact of Final Filtration
The examination by a third party into flavor stability reveals that the film has clear advantages over heat-treated beer. The effect of pasteurization (flashing) of different PU levels on beer compared to membrane filtration
- To 0.3 EBC, add color.
- Add color-up to 0.3 EBC
- Reduce SO2 content by 20-40%
- Reduce the value of EAP by 15-35%
- Increase oxidation and thermal indicators (such as phenylacetaldehyde and furfural)
- Pasteurized beer is not popular with the tasters (smell)
- The membrane value will adapt to the pasteurization level after 8 to 12 weeks of normal storage (20 ℃).
Microbiological Safety
When comparing beer "aseptic" filtration to regular pasteurization levels, the membrane-based beer aseptic filtration technology removes more bacteria. Even though the membrane separates the bacteria and yeast from the beer, pasteurization just renders the cells inactive, leaving them in the product. The integrity of the membrane used in beer aseptic filtering is tested before and after each production batch, giving documentation and traceability of each batch.
Cost
Alfa Chemistry develops new products to lower the capital and operating costs of beer aseptic filtration. For a beer aseptic filtering system, we created a new cleaning technique for filter element regeneration. To further lower running expenses, the cleaning procedure makes use of low-cost media and cleaning chemicals.
The membrane's service life is greatly extended, thus even though beer filterability is higher, the filtration cost is lower than pasteurization.
Basic Process Considerations
Low and gentle flux in the filtration process; high-intensity flow in the washing and cleaning process are two prerequisites for successful beer membrane filtration.
The filter membrane is divided into many groups in the Alfa Chemistry beer aseptic filtration system, with each group having its housing and outlet valve. All clusters are open during the filtration process to reduce the flow rate of each filter element. Cluster-by-cluster refresh, regeneration, and integrity testing are performed.
It has a lot of advantages thanks to the clustering principle:
- Individual cluster integrity diagnosis with high biosafety
- Flow distribution to all ink cartridges is constant and controlled.
- To keep the taste and freshness of the beer, a gentle flow is used during the filtration process.
- During rinsing and cleaning, a high specific flow rate can help to extend the service life.
- Reduce the amount of water and energy you use.
- System availability is always guaranteed.
- Filter replacement is simple and quick.