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    • 专利摘要:
    Method for preparing beer concentrate, comprising the steps of: a) subjecting beer (1) to a first concentration step comprising nanofiltration (A) or reverse osmosis to produce a retentate (2) and a fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components (3) wherein the retentate (2) is characterized by the concentration of non-filterable components higher than 20% (w / w), preferably 30% (w / w), most preferably 40% (w / w) , as calculated by density measurement corrected for the alcohol content; b) subjecting the fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components to a subsequent concentration step (B) comprising freeze concentration, fractionation, preferably distillation, or reverse osmosis, so as to form a concentrated fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components (4) and a residual fraction (5) to obtain; c) subjecting the residual fraction (5) of the following concentration step (B) to a fractionation, preferably distillation, an adsorption or a freeze concentration to obtain a second fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components and a second residual fraction.
    公开号:BE1025453B1
    申请号:E2017/5872
    申请日:2017-11-30
    公开日:2019-03-05
    发明作者:Andre Joao；Miguel Monsanto
    申请人:Anheuser-Busch Inbev S.A.；
    IPC主号:
    专利说明:

    Beer or cider concentrate
    Technical area
    The present invention relates to a method for preparing beer or cider concentrate comprising alcohol and flavor components, and furthermore beer or cider, respectively prepared therefrom. More specifically, the invention relates to a two-stage concentration process wherein the first step comprises high pressure nanofiltration resulting in a highly concentrated retentate and an aqueous permeate fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components, and wherein the second step involves removing water from the permeate fraction for obtaining a highly concentrated alcohol solution comprising volatile flavor components.
    BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
    The biggest advantage of producing concentrates is the reduction in weight and volume, which can save on storage and transport costs, and it also often has a beneficial effect on improving the shelf life of a product. Because beer and many other alcoholic beverages are generally naturally recognized that the most economical way to store them and spread them over a considerable distance would be the standard of a concentrate.
    In principle, a concentrate can be reconstituted wherever and whenever to the initial product by adding the solvent, usually water.
    Notwithstanding, it is not obvious to produce an alcoholic beverage concentrate;
    the greatest difficulty lies in the fact that most concentration procedures lead to a reduction in alcohol
    BE2017 / 5872 and loss of many flavor or aroma components. Beer in particular is a very challenging alcoholic beverage to produce a concentrate because, unlike drinks produced from fruit juice fermentation such as wine, pear cider or cider; the aromas present in the beer are more subtle and much less concentrated, meaning that the loss of even a very small part of it from the concentration phase would have a pronounced effect on the organoleptic perception of the rehydrated end product. In addition, it is expected that, due to the popularity of the drink and the general public of demanding beer lovers, the reconstituted drink meets the expectations with regard to its distinctive aroma, taste, mouthfeel, foam properties, color, and even turbidity perception. Reconstituted beer simply cannot taste like a diluted beer because it lacks certain characteristics; to be approved by the consultant with simply having all the qualities of real unprocessed beer.
    Methods for producing beer concentrates and then rehydrating them in final drinks are known in the art. Various methods for concentrating alcoholic beverages known in the brewing industry include processes such as freeze drying, reverse osmosis, and filtration. All these processes start with an almost finished beer after which the water is removed. The resulting concentrated drinks can then be transported more cost-effectively and then reconstituted at a final destination by adding water, carbon dioxide and alternatively also alcohol.
    An example of a particular method for the preparation of a reconstitutable beer concentrate is found
    BE2017 / 5872 in GB2133418. The method is based on subjecting beer to reverse osmosis and results in a low alcohol concentrate that can be rehydrated to a low alcohol beer.
    US4265920 and US4532140, on the other hand, describe two-step processes for obtaining a beer concentrate with a high alcohol content that can be reconstituted into beer with a normal alcohol content.
    The method of
    US4265920 comprises a first distillation step for separating ethanol and volatile aroma components from the retentate comprising the rest of the beer components, which is followed by a second step comprising a rather costly freeze concentration procedure to concentrate the retentate from the first step.
    Finally, the distilled ethanol from step 1 is combined with the freeze-concentrated retentate from step 2, which results in the final ethanol-enriched beer concentrate. The method of US4532140, on the other hand, subjects ultrafiltration to beer in the first step to obtain a concentrated retentate, and in the second step, the aqueous permeate is then subjected to reverse osmosis to concentrate ethanol and volatile components;
    finally, the alcohol fraction from step 2 is drawn with the retentate from step 1 to obtain the final beer concentrate.
    Although at least some of the methods described above provide a general approach to concentrating beer including its alcohol content and, to some extent, volatile components, they achieve their goal at the expense of obtaining high concentration factors and only provide final concentrates with a volume which is half or maximum one-third of the volume of
    BE2017 / 5872 the starting beer. Therefore, there is clearly room for improvement and the provision of more concentrated beer bases that entail a greater reduction in transportation and storage costs.
    The present invention provides a method for producing a high density natural beer-enriched beer concentrate, said method providing an advantageous concentration factor potential of at least 5,
    10, 15, up to 20 or more, while at the same time ensuring a high and optionally selective retention of natural beer flavor components, including the volatile.
    These and other advantages of the present invention are shown below.
    BE2017 / 5872
    Summary of the invention
    The present invention is defined in the appended independent claims. Preferred embodiments are defined in the dependent claims. In particular, the present invention relates to a method for preparing beer or cider concentrate which comprises the steps of:
    a) subjecting beer (1) to a first concentration step comprising nanofiltration (A) or reverse osmosis to obtain a retentate (2) and a fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components (3), the retentate (2) being characterized by the concentration of non-filterable components higher than 20% (w / w), preferably 30% (w / w), most preferably 40% (w / w), as calculated by density measurement corrected for the alcohol content;
    b) subjecting the fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components to a subsequent concentration step (B) comprising freeze concentration, fractionation, preferably distillation, or reverse osmosis, so as to form a concentrated fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components (4) and a residual fraction (5) to obtain;
    c) subjecting the residual fraction (5) of the following concentration step (B) to a fractionation, preferably distillation, an adsorption or a freeze concentration to obtain a second fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components and a second residual fraction.
    The present invention also relates to a method comprising:
    (a) subjecting beer (1) to a first one
    BE2017 / 5872 concentration step comprising nanofiltration (A) or reverse osmosis to obtain a retentate (2) and a fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components (3), wherein the retentate (2) is characterized by the concentration of non-filterable components higher than 20% (w / w), preferably 30% (w / w), most preferably 40% (w / w), as calculated by density measurement corrected for the alcohol content;
    (b) Subjecting the fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components to a subsequent concentration step (B) comprising an adsorption process in which volatile flavor components are adsorbed on a column and then washed with a volume of water or alcohol to produce a concentrated fraction of volatile flavor components (4 ') ) and a residual fraction (5 ').
    Brief description of the figures
    For a more complete understanding of the nature of the present invention, reference is made to the following detailed description in combination with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
    Figures 1 to 4: show a block diagram that schematically illustrates important steps of four alternative methods according to the present invention.
    Figure 5: shows a schematic diagram of a preferred embodiment of the method according to the invention, wherein the second concentration step (B) comprises distillation. Reference characters as in Figure 1.
    Definitions
    As used herein, the term concentrate as defined in the Oxford dictionary means: A substance made by removing or reducing the diluent; a concentrated form of
    BE2017 / 5872 something (cf.
    http: // www. oxforddictionaries. com / definition / english / concen träte). In line with this, the term beer or cider concentrate or, alternatively (concentrated) beer or cider base or beer or cider syrup, refers to beer or cider, respectively, from which the majority of its solvent component - ie water - was removed while the Most of the dissolved components with properties such as taste, odor, color, mouthfeel etc. are retained.
    As used herein, the term beer should be interpreted according to a rather broad definition:
    wort, the drink obtained by fermentation from a starch or sugar-containing raw material, including hop powder or hop extracts and potable water. In addition to barley malt and wheat malt, only the following should be taken into account for brewing, mixed with eg.
    wheat malt, starch or sugary raw materials in which the total amount may not exceed 80%, preferably% of the total weight of the starch or sugary raw materials:
    (a) maize, rice, sugar, wheat, barley and its various forms.
    (b) sucrose, converted sugar, dextrose and glucose syrup.
    Although, according to certain national laws, not all fermented malt-based beverages can be called beer, in the context of the present invention, the terms beer and fermented malt-based beverage are used herein as synonyms and are interchangeable. Therefore, as used herein, the terms reconstituted beer and
    BE2017 / 5872 reconstituted fermented malt-based beverage should be interpreted as beverages that are substantially identical in composition to beer, but were obtained by adding the solvent, i.e. water or carbonated water, to a previously prepared beer concentrate.
    Then, as used herein, the term cider is to be interpreted as any alcoholic beverage resulting from the fermentation of apple juice or apple juice mixed with max. 10% pear juice. This also includes any product of this fermented apple juice term that was further modified by adding such standard cider production additives (or tartar) and / or sugar, filtering, cooling, saturation with carbon dioxide, pasteurization, etc. , which is commercialized under the term cider.
    As used herein, the term non-filterable components is to be interpreted as referring to all different components included in any type of beer or cider that cannot pass through a nanofiltration membrane,
    i.e.
    beer components with a size greater than 150 or 200 Da, which is the cut-off of the molecular weight retention size depending on a particular nanofiltration membrane. In contrast to the filterable components including water, monovalent and some bivalent ions, low molecular weight alcohols such as ethanol, low molecular weight esters and a number of volatile flavor components, the non-filterable components mainly comprise sugars, usually polysaccharides;
    sugar alcohols, polyphenols, pentosans, peptides and proteins, high molecular weight alcohols, high molecular weight esters,
    BE2017 / 5872 partially multivalent ions, and mainly other mainly organic and highly divergent compounds that vary depending on the beer or cider type. Due to the complexity and discrepancies between different beer or cider compositions, the collective concentration of the non-filterable components is often described as (highly simplified and without being exact) sugar concentration or solid concentration and can be easily calculated from the mass balance considerations taking into account parameters such as density, viscosity, beer rheology, original weight or extract, real gravity or extract, degree of fermentation (RDF) and / or alcohol content. In brewing practice, the concentration of non-filterable components is routinely determined from density (real extract) measurements corrected for the density of the measured ethanol content, with ethanol being the most prevalent component with a density <1 g / cm 3 and thus the density measurement affects the most substantially. Such measurements are known in the art, are routinely performed by standard beer analysis systems such as the Anton Paar Alcolyzer apparatus, and thus can be performed quickly and easily by anyone skilled in the art of brewing beer.
    The amount of components dissolved in beer can also be expressed as the so-called specific weight (relative density) or apparent specific weight. The first is measured as the density (weight per unit volume) of beer divided by the density of water used as the reference substance, and the second as the weight of the volume of beer relative to the weight of the same
    BE2017 / 5872 volume of water. For example, a specific weight of 1,050 (50 points) means that the substance is 5% heavier than the same volume of water. The densities of water, and consequently also beer, vary with the temperature; therefore, for both specific gravity and apparent specific gravity, the measurement of the sample and the reference value takes place under the same specified temperature and pressure conditions. Pressure is almost always 1 atm equal to 101.325 kPa, while temperatures may differ depending on the choice of further systems for estimating beer density. Examples of such systems are two empirical dishes, the Platoen de Brix dish, which are commonly used in the brewing and wine industries, respectively. Both scales represent the strength of the solution in percentage of sugar by mass; one degree of Plato (abbreviated ° P) or a degree of Brix (symbol ° Bx) is 1 gram of sucrose in 100 grams of water. There is a difference between these units, especially since both scales were developed for sucrose solutions at different temperatures, but it is so insignificant that they can be used almost interchangeably. For example, beer measured at 12 ° Plato at 15.5 ° C has the same density as a water-sucrose solution containing 12% sucrose per mass at 15.5 ° C, which is approximately equal to 12 ° Brix, which is the same density as a water-sucrose solution containing 12% sucrose per mass at 20 ° C. The Plato and Brix dishes have an advantage over specific gravity in that they express the density measurement in terms of the amount of fermentable materials, which is particularly suitable in the early stages of brewing. Because both beer and wort are composed of more solids than just sucrose, this is of course not exact. The ratio between
    BE2017 / 5872 degrees Plato and specific gravity is not linear, but a good approximation is that 1 ° P equals 4 brewer points (4 x 0.001); so 12 ° Plato corresponds to a specific weight of 1,048 [1+ (12 x 4 x 0.001)].
    The term original specific weight or original extract refers to specific weight measured before fermentation, while the term final specific weight or final extract refers to specific weight measured on completion of fermentation. Generally, specific gravity refers to the specific gravity of the beer at various stages of fermentation. Initially, before alcohol production by the yeast, the specific gravity of wort (i.e., the ground malt before beer fermentation) is primarily dependent on the amount of sucrose. Therefore, the reading of the original specific gravity at the start of the fermentation can be used to determine sugar content in Plato or Brix dishes. As fermentation continues, the yeast converts sugars into carbon dioxide, ethanol, yeast biomass and flavor components. Decreasing the amount of sugar and increasing the presence of ethanol, which is noticeably lower in density than water, both contribute to reducing the specific weight of the fermenting beer. Comparing the reading of original specific weight with the reading of final specific weight can be used to determine the amount of sugar used and therefore the amount of ethanol produced. For example, for normal beer, the original specific gravity can be 1,050 and the final specific gravity
    1.010. Similarly, knowing the original specific gravity of a beverage and the alcohol content can be used to determine the amount
    BE2017 / 5872 consumed sugars during the fermentation. The extent to which sugar was fermented in alcohol is expressed by the term actual degree of fermentation or WMF, and is often given as a fraction of original specific gravity transformed into ethanol and CO 2 . Beer WMF is theoretically indicative of sweetness because beers usually have more residual sugar and therefore a lower WMF.
    Concentration steps may include any of a variety of techniques known in the art that allow for partial or substantial separation of water from the beer and thus retention of most of the components dissolved therein in a lower than initial volume. Many techniques currently used in the beverage industry rely on so-called membrane technologies, which provide a cheaper alternative to conventional heat treatment processes and include separation of substances into two fractions using a semi-permeable membrane. The faction comprising particles smaller than the pore size of the membrane passes through the membrane and, as used herein, is described as permeate or filtrate. Everything else that is retained on the supply side of the membrane as used herein is described as retentate.
    Typical membrane filtration systems include, for example, pressure driven techniques for microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis. As used herein, the term microfiltration refers to a membrane filtration technique for retaining particles with a size of 0.1 to 10 μm and larger. Usually microfiltration is a low pressure process that typically works at a pressure in it
    BE2017 / 5872 range of 0.34 - 3 bar 1 . Microfiltration allows separation of particles such as yeast, protozoa, large bacteria, organic and inorganic sediments, etc. As used herein, the term ultrafiltration thus refers to a membrane filtration technique for retaining particles about 0.01 μm and larger in size. Ultrafiltration usually retains particles with a molecular weight greater than 1000 Daltons, such as most viruses, proteins of certain sizes, nucleic acids, dextrins, pentosan chains, etc. Typical operating pressures for ultrafiltration are in the range of 0.48 - 10 bar. Furthermore, as used herein, the term nanofiltration is to be interpreted as a membrane filtration technique for retaining particles with a size of 0.001 μm to 0.01 μm and larger. Nanofiltration can retain bivalent or multivalent ions, such as bivalent salts, and most organic compounds greater than about 180 Daltons, which include oligosaccharides and many flavor components; through which water, ethanol, monovalent ions, and some organic molecules such as many aromatic esters can pass. A working pressure of 8-41 bar is characteristic of nanofiltration. Where nanofiltration occurs under inlet pressure in the upper end of this range, ie from 18 bar, it will be referred to as high-pressure nanofiltration as used herein. Finally, as used herein, the term reverse osmosis is to be interpreted as referring to a high pressure membrane process where the applied pressure is used to surpass osmotic pressure. Reverse osmosis usually permits the retention of particles of a size of
    Where the unit bar is 100,000 Pa according to the definition of IUPAC, [1 Pa = 1 N / m A 2 = 1 kg / m * s A 2 in S1 units.]
    BE2017 / 5872
    0.00005 μm to 0.0001 μm and larger, i.e. almost all particles and ionic species. Substances with a molecular weight higher than 50 Dalton are almost all retained without exception. The operating pressure is typically between 21 and 7 6 bar, but can go up to 150 bar in special applications.
    Furthermore, as described herein, the term volatile flavor components is to be interpreted as any of the substances present in beer that contribute to its complex olfactory profile, said substances having a boiling point lower than that of water due to their chemical nature. Examples of volatile beer flavor components include, but are not limited to, acetaldehyde, N-propanol, ethyl acetate, isobutyl alcohol, isoamyl alcohol, isoamyl acetate, ethyl hexanoate, ethyl octanoate, phenylethyl alcohol, 2-methyl-1-butanol, and many others.
    Detailed description of the invention
    The present invention relates to a method for preparing alcohol-enriched beer concentrate, said method comprising the steps of:
    a) subjecting beer (1) to a first concentration step comprising nanofiltration (A) or reverse osmosis to obtain a retentate (2) and a fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components (3), the retentate (2) being characterized by the concentration of non-filterable components higher than 20% (w / w), preferably 30% (w / w), most preferably 40% (w / w), as calculated by density measurement corrected for the alcohol content;
    b) subjecting the fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components to another
    BE2017 / 5872 comprising freeze concentration, fractionation, preferably distillation, or reverse osmosis, in order to form a concentrated fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components (4) and a
    c) subjecting the residual fraction (5) of the next concentration step to a fractionation, preferably distillation, an adsorption or a freeze concentration to obtain a second fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components and a second residual fraction.
    In an alternative embodiment, the present invention relates to a method for preparing alcohol-enriched beer concentrate, said method comprising the steps of:
    a) subjecting beer (1) to a first concentration step comprising nanofiltration (A) or reverse osmosis to obtain a retentate (2) and a fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components (3), the retentate (2) being characterized by the concentration of non-filterable components higher than 20% (w / w), preferably 30% (w / w), most preferably 40% (w / w), as calculated by density measurement corrected for the alcohol content;
    b) Subjecting the fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components to a subsequent concentration step (B) comprising an adsorption process in which volatile flavor components are adsorbed on a column and then washed out with a volume of water or alcohol
    in order to concentrated fraction of fleeting flavor components (4 ') and a residual fraction (5 ') to to gain.
    Figure 1 illustrates schematically the general
    BE2017 / 5872 diagram of the method for concentrating beer according to the present invention. As a first step, beer (1) is subjected to nanofiltration (A) through a semipermeable membrane that serves as a physical barrier for passage of most beer components with an average molecular weight (MW)> 150-200 Da, but permeable to water, the largest monovalent salts and beer flavor components. This retained on the input portion of the ethanol, a certain amount of first fraction which is at the end of the membrane is called retentate (2) and is collected, while the fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components is called permeate (3) and is directed towards a second concentration step (B). The second concentration step in this case comprises reverse osmosis and results in separation of the permeate (3) from the previous nanofiltration step (A) in two fractions: first a concentrated fraction comprising alcohol and flavor components (4), which is collected and mixed with the collected nanofiltration retentate (2), which results in final beer concentrate (10) or is recirculated to the supply of the nanofiltration (A) or kept separate; and, secondly, a larger aqueous residual fraction (5) which is then processed by a fractionation such as distillation (C) to obtain a fraction (6) collected at the top of the distillation column which mainly comprises alcohol and volatile flavor components and a fraction (7) collected at the bottom of the distillation column and which mainly comprises water and beer or cider extract. The fraction (6) can then be supplied to an adsorption column, in which selectively volatile flavor components are adsorbed that can be washed out to form a concentrated volatile
    BE2017 / 5872 flavor component fraction (8) which can be added to the final beer concentrate (10) or kept separate. The fraction (7) is preferably fed to a freeze concentration process where removal of pure water from this fraction is made possible at temperatures below zero in order to obtain a concentrated extract fraction (9) that can be added to the final beer concentrate or kept separate.
    The final beer concentrate (10) can now be stored or transported over distances and easily rehydrated to a reconstituted beer with a flavor profile that appears very strong or identical to that of fermented beer.
    In general, beer (1) that is subjected to nanofiltration (A) according to the invention is preferably clear beer that has been treated with any ordinary beer clearance technique to remove yeast and must from the other particles with a diameter greater than 0.2 μm. Such techniques are standard and known in the field of beer preparation. They include, for example, centrifugation, filtration through, for example, kieselguhr (diatomaceous earth) optionally preceded by centrifugation, or other types of standard microfiltration techniques.
    As can be seen from the present disclosure, the method of the invention is especially advantageous for obtaining low volume and high density beer or cider concentrates. The degree of concentration of the end product strongly depends on the degree of concentration of the retentate obtained via nanofiltration in step a). Therefore, the present invention provides a method wherein the retentate
    BE2017 / 5872 not only comprises the majority of beer (or cider) flavor components, but may also be characterized by a high concentration factor of 5, 10, 15, or even 20 or higher.
    As used herein, the term concentration factor is to be interpreted as the ratio of the beer or cider volume subjected to nanofiltration or reverse osmosis in step a) to the volume of the retentate obtained at the end of the nanofiltration or reverse osmosis in step a), ie the ratio of the supply volume to the volume of the retentate obtained in the step a) of the method of the present invention. In a specific embodiment, a method according to the preceding embodiments is provided, wherein the retentate obtained in step a) is characterized by concentration factor 5 or higher, preferably 10 or higher, more preferably 15 or higher, most preferably 20 or higher . A ratio between the concentration factor in the sense defined above and the concentration of non-filterable components that may be obtained in the retentate of step a) naturally depends on the type of beer or cider that was initially subjected to nanofiltration or reverse osmosis, that is demonstrated and can be derived from the graph presented in Figure 5, where each line represents a different drink (lines 1-4 were obtained for different beers, line 5 obtained for cider)
    Concentration factors of 10 and higher can, in terms of speed and performance, be advantageously obtained by, as used herein, high pressure nanofiltration, i.e., nanofiltration performed under a pressure of at least 18 bar. In preferred embodiments of
    BE2017 / 5872 the invention thus provides a method wherein the nanofiltration in step a) is high-pressure nanofiltration, defined as nanofiltration performed under a pressure in the range of about 18-41 bar, preferably in the range of about 20-35 bar, most preferably about 30 bar.
    In the case of cross-flow filtration, we can always obtain the concentration in one pass. But to make the operation more economical, a multi-phase operation is performed.
    In line with the above, the present invention is based on the finding that nanofiltration of beer, high-pressure nanofiltration in particular, not only allows the retention of the majority of important beer flavor components in the retentate, but also provides concentration that may substantially is superior to one of ultrafiltration or reverse osmosis, and potentially allows retentate to be obtained with a density between 20-50 ° P or higher, even after a single filtration throughput. In an advantageous economic embodiment, nanofiltration is performed as a multi-phase operation in which the retentate proceeds from one phase to the other as it becomes more and more concentrated. The preferred final density value of the retentate that can be obtained according to step a) of the present invention is between 30-80 ° P or higher, preferably between 50-70 ° P, most preferably about 60 ° P. Therefore, in a preferred embodiment of the invention, the retentate of step a) is obtained in a single nanofiltration passage, which is preferably a high-pressure nanofiltration, more preferably high-pressure nanofiltration performed under a pressure in the range of 18-35 bar, with the most
    BE2017 / 5872 is preferably between about 20-30 bar.
    It has been found that such a high concentration potential can be obtained more specifically with polymeric spiral membranes in the range of 150-200 Daltons or similar. Examples of such membranes include thin-film composite ATF (alternating tangential filtration, Refine Technology) membranes such as those currently available from DOW and Parker domnick hunter.
    After the nanofiltration step, the highly concentrated retentate is collected while the aqueous permeate is supplied to the second concentration step b) in order to selectively obtain ethanol and volatile flavor components, said step comprising freeze concentration, reverse osmosis or fractionation, preferably distillation, and / or a combination thereof.
    Distillation is a classic example of a fractionation technique that is known to be particularly suitable for separating alcohol and volatile component from water. The term distillation, as used herein, refers to the separation of the liquid mixture into its components by utilizing the difference in relative volatility and / or boiling point among the components by including their consecutive evaporation and condensation in the heating and cooling process. Examples of the distillation may include single distillation, fractional distillation, multi-phase distillation, azeotropic distillation, and steam distillation. In a preferred embodiment, a method of the invention is provided wherein the concentration in step b) comprises aromatic distillation, said distillation defined as distillation configured to provide a large collection of aroma-producing
    BE2017 / 5872 components. Figure 2 shows a specific embodiment of the general method according to the invention, wherein the second concentration (B) is carried out by fractional distillation, as schematically illustrated by the presence of a fractionation column.
    Distillation is part of a larger group of separation processes based on phase transition, generally described as fractionation. Other examples of fractionation include column chromatography based on the difference in affinity between stationary phase and the mobile phase, and fractional crystallization and fractional freezing both use the difference in crystallization or melting points of different components of a mixture at a certain temperature. In an advantageous arrangement of the present invention, method b) may include such a fractionation, preferably distillation, arrangement in which different fractions are analyzed for the presence of different components such as different volatile flavor component species and then selectively targeted to be brought together with the retentate from step a) or discarded, which would provide greater control over the flavor profile of the final beer concentrate of the invention.
    In a possible embodiment of the present invention, step b) of the method of the invention first comprises reverse osmosis; and then further comprises at least one additional treatment of the fraction comprising ethanol obtained after said reverse osmosis, said treatment comprising fractionation, preferably distillation, or reverse osmosis. In said embodiment, it becomes aqueous
    BE2017 / 5872 permeate that is the fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components first subjected to a step comprising reverse osmosis to obtain a fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components with a higher concentration than before the step comprising reverse osmosis and residual fraction, after which said fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components are further subjected to at least one further concentration step comprising fractionation, preferably distillation, or reverse osmosis, to obtain a concentrated fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components and a residual fraction.
    In a further development of the embodiments of the present invention, a method is provided wherein the reverse osmosis is a high resolution reverse osmosis, i.e., reverse osmosis performed under an operating pressure in the range of 60120 bar and a temperature of 0-12 ° C.
    According to an alternative method of the invention and as illustrated in Figure 2a, a method is provided in which fractionation and preferably distillation is carried out as a further concentration step
    b). The distillation (B ') results in obtaining a fraction (4') collected at the top of the distillation column that mainly comprises alcohol and volatile flavor components and a fraction (5 ') collected at the bottom of the distillation column and mainly comprising water and beer or cider extract. The fraction (5 ') can then be supplied to an adsorption column (S), in which selectively volatile flavor components are adsorbed that can be washed out to obtain a concentrated volatile flavor component fraction (6') that can be
    BE2017 / 5872 added to the final beer concentrate (10) or kept separate. The fraction (5 ') is preferably fed to a freeze concentration process (D) where removal of pure water from this fraction is made possible at temperatures below zero in order to obtain a concentrated extract fraction (7') that can be added to the final beer concentrate or can be kept separately.
    According to another alternative method of the invention and as illustrated in Figure 3a, a method is provided wherein adsorption (B ") is carried out as a further concentration step b). The adsorption column selectively adsorbs volatile flavor components of the permeate (3) that can be washed out to obtain a concentrated volatile flavor component fraction (4) that can be added to the final beer concentrate (10) or further concentrated by a freeze concentration process (C), thereby pure water from this fraction can be removed at temperatures below zero in order to obtain a concentrated volatile flavor component fraction (6) that can be added to the final beer concentrate or kept separate.
    According to an alternative method of the invention and as illustrated in Figure 4, a method is provided wherein freeze concentration (B *) is performed as a further concentration step b). Freeze concentration generally relates to the removal of pure water in the form of ice crystals at temperatures below zero. Freeze concentration has the advantage over distillation, for example, that it does not remove ash or extract (ions, organic components, etc.) from the permeate obtained by nanofiltration in step a),
    BE2017 / 5872 which is the case with distillation. It is therefore assumed that a beer or cider is reconstituted by the addition of water after concentration by:
    1) subjecting beer or cider (1) to a first concentration step comprising nanofiltration (A) or reverse osmosis to obtain a retentate (2) and a fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components (3), the retentate being (2) characterized by the concentration of non-filterable components equal to or higher than 20% (w / w), preferably 30% (w / w), most preferably 40% (w / w), as calculated by density measurement corrected for the alcohol content;
    b) subjecting the fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components to a subsequent concentration step comprising freeze concentration in order to obtain a concentrated fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components and a residual fraction;
    1) Subjecting the freeze-concentrated fraction 4 * to an adsorption process for selectively removing flavor components from the concentrated fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components.
    In a preferred embodiment, beer subjected to the method of the invention is beer with a specific gravity higher than 11 ° P, beer with a high specific gravity is defined as beer with an original specific gravity of 14-25 ° P or even higher. Concentration of high specific gravity beer is preferred for use in the method of the present invention in that such an arrangement provides a synergistic approach that results in final concentrates characterized by very high concentration factors, which cannot be obtained by a method up to is currently known in the art.
    BE2017 / 5872
    However, as will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, any beer of a commercial degree can be subjected to the process provided herein to obtain a beer concentrate of the present invention. In line with the above, in another preferred embodiment corresponding to the above embodiments, beer subjected to the method of the invention is any beer comprising an alcohol concentration between 2 - 16% ABV, preferably between 4 - 12% ABV, most preferably between 6-10%
    ABV.
    according to the present invention, a final concentration of non-filterable components (after addition of the concentrated ethanol fraction (4) to the nanofiltration retentate (2)) may be equal to or higher than that corresponding to the final concentration factor (calculated as a ratio of the starting volume of at least relative to the volume of it in the range of 4 to 6 or even 6.5.
    In line with this, in a preferred embodiment, the present invention provides an extract density equal to or preferably at least 20 ° P, more preferably at least 25 ° P or even higher.
    can now be stored at cost prices and transported to a desired destination, where they can easily be reconstituted into a final drink with olfactory properties that are very similar to or almost identical to normally brewed beer.
    In some embodiments of the present
    BE2017 / 5872, it can be advantageous to store and transport the highly concentrated retentate (2) obtained in the first concentration step a) on its own, without mixing with the ethanol fraction. In such an embodiment, the present invention also provides a liquid composition characterized by the concentration of non-filterable components obtained from beer or cider, said concentration being equal to or higher than 20% (w / w), preferably 30% ( w / w), most preferably 40% (w / w), as calculated from density measurement corrected for the alcohol content. In another similar embodiment, the present invention further provides a liquid composition characterized by the concentration of non-filterable components obtained from beer or cider, said concentration being equal to or higher than 30% (w / w), preferably 35% (w / w), most preferably 40% (w / w), as calculated from density measurement corrected for the alcohol content.
    The (concentrated) volatile flavor fractions and concentrated extract fractions obtained by processing the permeate of the nanofiltration process (A) can also be used as a component for beer, as a component in beer reconstitution or as a flavor component to be added to a beer or cider. When used as a component in beer reconstitution from a beer concentrate, the beer concentrate may be the beer concentrate obtained by the process of the present invention or another beer concentrate.
    In addition to the methods disclosed above, the beer or cider can be pretreated before being subjected to the first concentration step. The pre-treatment preferably comprises a removal of
    BE2017 / 5872 carbon dioxide from the beer or cider. Alternatively, the fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components (permeate 3) and / or the residual fraction (5, 5 ') can be treated for removal of carbon dioxide. Decarbonation from the liquid can be achieved by simply exposing the beer, the cider, the permeate (3) or residual fraction (5, 5 ') to a vacuum for a period of time sufficient to remove a desired amount of carbon dioxide from the respective liquid. Such a decarbonation process has the disadvantage that, in addition to carbon dioxide, volatile flavor components are also removed from the liquid. Therefore, removal of carbon dioxide is preferably carried out over a membrane, whereby beer, cider, permeate (3) or residual fraction (5, 5 ') is directed over one side of the membrane, while a vacuum or nitrogen stream is provided on the other side of the membrane, so that carbon dioxide is removed from the liquid through the membrane. Such decarbonation membranes are commercially available from, for example, 3M (Liqui-Cel Membrane Contractors). Ideally, decarbonation of the beer, cider, permeate (3) or residual fraction (5, 5 ') is carried out to a level where the carbon dioxide content of the liquid is equal to or lower than 1 g / l, preferably equal to or lower. then 0.5 g / l. The decarbonation of the beer, the cider, the permeate (3) or residual fraction (5, 5 ') to such a level is especially preferred when the beer, the cider, the permeate (3) or the residual fraction (5, 5') ) is subjected to freeze concentration. In other words, decarbonation preferably takes place to a CO 2 content of 1 g / l or less, preferably 0.5 g / l or less of the beer, the cider, the permeate (3) or residual fraction (5, 5 ')
    权利要求:
    Claims (7)
    [1]
    Conclusions
    Method for preparing beer concentrate, comprising the steps of:
    a) subjecting beer (1) to a first concentration step comprising nanofiltration (A) or reverse osmosis to obtain a retentate (2) and a fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components (3), the retentate (2) being characterized by the concentration of non-filterable components higher than 20% (w / w), preferably 30% (w / w), most preferably 40% (w / w), as calculated by density measurement corrected for the alcohol content;
    b) subjecting the fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components to a subsequent concentration step (B) comprising freeze concentration, fractionation, preferably distillation, or osmosis, so as to have a concentrated fraction of inverse comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components (4) and a
    c) subjecting the residual fraction (5) of the next concentration step to a fractionation, preferably distillation, an adsorption or a freeze concentration to obtain a second fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components and a second residual fraction.
    [2]
    Method for preparing beer concentrate, comprising the steps of:
    a) subjecting beer (1) to a first concentration step comprising nanofiltration (A) or reverse osmosis to obtain a retentate (2) and a fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components (3), the retentate (2) being characterized by the concentration of non-filterable components is higher than
    BE2017 / 5872
    20% (w / w), preferably 30% (w / w), most preferably as calculated by density measurement corrected for the alcohol content;
    Submitting the fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components to a subsequent concentration step (B) comprising an adsorption process in which volatile flavor components are adsorbed on a column and then washed with a concentrated volume of water or alcohol fraction of volatile flavor components (4 ') and a to obtain.
    [3]
    The method of claim 1, comprising subjecting the residual fraction of the next concentration step to a fractionation, preferably distillation, and subjecting the second of the fractionation to a freeze concentration process to obtain a concentrated extract fraction.
    [4]
    The method of claim 1, comprising subjecting the residual fraction (5) of the following concentration step to a freeze concentration process, and subjecting the second residual fraction of the freeze concentration process to an adsorption process, whereby at least a portion of the volatile flavor components from the second residual fraction is adsorbed and then washing out the adsorbed volatile flavor components in a volume of water or ethanol to obtain a concentrated fraction of volatile flavor components.
    [5]
    Method according to claim 1, comprising subjecting the residual fraction (5) of the next concentration step to an adsorption process, whereby at least a part of the volatile flavor components from
    BE2017 / 5872 the second residual fraction is adsorbed and then washing out the adsorbed volatile flavor components in a volume of water or ethanol to obtain a concentrated fraction of volatile flavor components.
    [6]
    A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the concentrated fraction comprising alcohol and volatile flavor components (4) is recirculated from the first concentration step to the supply of the first concentration step.
    [7]
    7. Use of a fraction comprising volatile flavor components or of a concentrated fraction comprising volatile flavor components obtained by a method as identified according to one of claims 1 to 6 as a component for beer or cider, as a component in beer or cider reconstitution or as a flavor component to be added to beer or cider.
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    同族专利:
    公开号 | 公开日
    WO2018100049A1|2018-06-07|
    EP3330362A1|2018-06-06|
    AR110289A1|2019-03-13|
    BE1025453A1|2019-03-01|
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    法律状态:
    2019-04-01| FG| Patent granted|Effective date: 20190305 |
    优先权:
    申请号 | 申请日 | 专利标题
    EP16201524.2A|EP3330362A1|2016-11-30|2016-11-30|Beer or cider concentrate|
    EP16201524.2|2016-11-30|
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