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Maintaining yeast viability in continuous primary beer fermentation
Author(s) -
Pires Eduardo J.,
Teixeira José A.,
Brányik Tomás,
CôrteReal Manuela,
Vicente António A.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of the institute of brewing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.523
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 2050-0416
pISSN - 0046-9750
DOI - 10.1002/jib.111
Subject(s) - yeast , fermentation , brewing , primary (astronomy) , food science , chemistry , biology , microbiology and biotechnology , biochemistry , physics , astronomy
Continuous fermentation is a long known and vastly studied process. The use of immobilized cell technology (ICT) is exploited in a significant number of studies owing to the associated high volumetric productivity, time savings and low capital demand. This work was aimed at solving one of the most relevant obstacles to implementing ICT on a large scale in beer fermentations, namely the control of biomass and the maintenance of cell viability in a gas‐lift bioreactor. For this purpose, foam fractionation by skimming was proposed as a tool for control of continuous biomass concentration. The consequences of foaming on lignocellulosic yeast carrier losses were assessed and discussed. A steady consumption of sugars from wort, as well as consistent ethanol production, were achieved. The viability of the suspended cells in the reactor was compared with that of the cell population in the foam using flow cytometry. Results suggest that foam might be used as a promising tool to skim non‐viable biomass out of the gas‐lift reactor, thus ensuring the maintenance of a cell culture with optimum viability. Copyright © 2014 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling