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Beer Brewing with Immobilized Yeast

Abstract

Beer was brewed continuously with Saccharomyces uvarum immobilized in calcium alginate gel beads. When wort fermented for a short period, and containing 8.5 mg/l of dissolved oxygen, was pumped into the bottom of a 2.5 l column reactor packed with immobilized yeast beads (54 percent of the total column volume) at a flow rate of 120 ml/h, 2.25 mg/l of total diacetyl was formed. However, when the wort contained 0.04 mg/l of dissolved oxygen, only 0.05 mg/l of total diacetyl was formed. Based on these results, a new fermentation system incorporating an immobilized yeast reactor was developed for the rapid production of beer of excellent quality containing a low level of diacetyl precursors.

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Onaka, T., Nakanishi, K., Inoue, T. et al. Beer Brewing with Immobilized Yeast. Nat Biotechnol 3, 467–470 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0585-467

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