Commercial Comparison of Fermentable Sugars in Alcoholic and Non-Alcoholic Beers via High-Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC-RI)
Document Type
Oral Presentation
Department
Chemistry
Abstract
The ever-growing wellness trend has led to a marked increase in the popularity and availability of non-alcoholic beer. Due to the difficulty of achieving both an ethanol content below 0.5% and a taste similar to alcoholic beer, this research has the potential to positively impact the brewing industry by improving the understanding around fermentable sugars in non-alcoholic beer. The objective of this project was to see if there is a difference in the concentrations of the fermentable sugars maltotriose, maltose, glucose, and fructose in commercially available non-alcoholic beers and comparable alcoholic beers. Non-alcoholic brewers utilize either a physical method of dealcolization ( filtration, distillation, etc.) or a biological method (grain bill selection, yeast strain selection, etc.) to control the ethanol content in their final product.To characterize sugars in these beers, HPLC was used. This data was then analyzed to compare commercially available alcoholic and non-alcoholic counterparts by comparing the concentration (%) of each sugar. Preliminary results show that non-alcoholic beers tend to have significantly higher concentrations of maltose and maltotriose than alcoholic beers which would cause the non-alcoholic beers to have lower ethanol content due to those sugars not being fermented.
Commercial Comparison of Fermentable Sugars in Alcoholic and Non-Alcoholic Beers via High-Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC-RI)
The ever-growing wellness trend has led to a marked increase in the popularity and availability of non-alcoholic beer. Due to the difficulty of achieving both an ethanol content below 0.5% and a taste similar to alcoholic beer, this research has the potential to positively impact the brewing industry by improving the understanding around fermentable sugars in non-alcoholic beer. The objective of this project was to see if there is a difference in the concentrations of the fermentable sugars maltotriose, maltose, glucose, and fructose in commercially available non-alcoholic beers and comparable alcoholic beers. Non-alcoholic brewers utilize either a physical method of dealcolization ( filtration, distillation, etc.) or a biological method (grain bill selection, yeast strain selection, etc.) to control the ethanol content in their final product.To characterize sugars in these beers, HPLC was used. This data was then analyzed to compare commercially available alcoholic and non-alcoholic counterparts by comparing the concentration (%) of each sugar. Preliminary results show that non-alcoholic beers tend to have significantly higher concentrations of maltose and maltotriose than alcoholic beers which would cause the non-alcoholic beers to have lower ethanol content due to those sugars not being fermented.
