Purer genius
At the recent Drinktec exhibition in Munich, brewers' familiar and apologetic responses to accusations of being a conservative bunch were starting to wear thin.
Yes, many like to think in terms of evolution rather than revolution. Maybe, too, the brewers were simply reflecting the wariness of their consumers when it comes to innovation.
But in fact, many of the newer technologies are offering a purer, more appealing product, plus cost and energy reductions for the brewer. The larger groups in this rapidly consolidating industry are starting to recognise the benefits.
Take pasteurisation. At Parker Hannifin firm Domnick Hunter, food and beverage product manager Kris Holmes highlights the roles of the clarification, pre- and final-stabilisation stages in processing beer, wine and other products. Often, he says, flash pasteurisation has been seen as the only option when producing a fully stabilised beer, for instance.
"Taking out the spoilage organisms this way allows you to achieve a shelf-life measured in months or even years," he says. This is important given the internationalisation of beer markets, and the growing role of long-distance export. Beer with an ultra-clean bill of health is particularly popular in the Far East.
An alternative route promoted by Domnick Hunter is the use of membrane filters to extend shelf-life by removing particles such as yeast and detrimental micro-organisms.
Of course, what is new here is not filtration itself, but the ability to analyse and validate the effects of the separation process. Knowledge of the materials and types of filter that will consistently achieve results has also improved.
"Two of the UK's leading breweries are using this kind of filtration, or cold sterilisation, to improve their beers," says Holmes. "The taste characteristics of the beer change, with less of the stale, oxidised taste associated with the heat process. It's a gentler system, and produces a fresher-tasting beer."
The company says it has carried out its own organoleptic trials, applying heat and cold sterilisation to beer from the same batch, in order to back up its claims. But the process is equally applicable to wine and water, it adds.
The liquid is forced through a cartridge filtration unit using a positive pressure pump. This results in a typical throughput for wine of around five litres a minute, says Holmes. "This technology means you can avoid the high capital cost of installing a flash pasteuriser, as well as the ongoing energy costs."
German manufacturer Handtmann also offers different levels of stabilisation and filtration, focusing on the brewing industry.
There are 10 of its Combined Stabilisation Systems (CSS) installed in breweries as far afield as Australia and Brazil, it says.
Handtmann explains that, positioned after the clarification stage, the CSS can stand in for both silica gel and polyvinyl polypyrrolidone (PVPP) filters, while being more economic to use. This stabilisation stage uses an adsorbent insoluble polysaccharide within the CSS module to remove proteins and polyphenols from the beer. Organoleptic and other qualities in the beer are said to be unaffected.
For an even finer threshold of sterile filtration, Handtmann offers its Multi Micro System. This deep-bed filtration can remove bacteria and yeast from beer, wine or fruit juices. The firm claims that running costs are lower than with a membrane filtration system.
Pulsed light treatment
There are other cold alternatives to pasteurisation. French pulsed light specialist Claranor commissioned a decontamination challenge test on sugar syrup. This confirmed spore removal with a decontamination rate of over 3 log with each flash.
Key account manager Gérard Gatt says: "We've also validated the fact that the syrup retains the same sensory qualities as in the heat process." But its ability to attack thermo-resistant spores, as well as those commonly tackled by heat, means that it could potentially help firms avoid the use of preservatives and produce clean-label soft drinks, he adds.
"There are almost certainly cost benefits," says Gatt. "At the most, the cost could come out the same as for pasteurisation. But with optimisation, such as the energy requirements of each lamp, that could be further reduced."
The qualities of sugar syrup mean that pulsed light can only decontaminate it in a stream of up to 1cm depth. A four-lamp system can process up to 10m3 of syrup an hour.
Meanwhile, GEA Wiegand is talking about energy savings of a very different sort in another corner of the drinks industry. The firm, which has distillation as one of its areas of specialisation, says it has installed systems using traditional steam technology in "several Smirnoff vodka distilleries" around the world.
Project manager Gerd König says concerns about heat management and energy saving mean that plant designers are more interested in Wiegand's recompression technology.
This works on the 'heat pump' principle, which applies mechanical recompression to boost existing steam. This can be more cost-effective than the generation of new steam. As König says: "Steam can be expensive to generate but, depending on the type available, electrical energy might be cheaper."
Wiegand UK sales director David Scheiby says: "We're trying to establish recompression more and more as the technology of choice for future plants." This includes whisky distilleries in the UK, he adds, where the technology has been "accepted" but so far not installed.
GEA has other divisions dedicated to filtration and separation (GEA Westfalia Separator). The former offers options from reverse osmosis through nanofiltration and ultrafiltration to microfiltration.
When it comes to centrifugal separators, commonly used in the brewery and dairy sectors, there has been another technological shift this time towards direct-drive units.
Since the drive is located directly under the bowl, and requires fewer parts, there are maintenance and space-saving benefits, says Westfalia Separator. But for most customers, this is likely to be about saving energy.
While GEA's separator division cites 15% energy savings with the new machine design, competitor Alfa Laval says its direct-drive separator can offer up to twice that level.
Communications manager Tom Thane Nielsen says: "This is a modular platform. We will have no fewer than 40 variants available by the end of the year." That total will have more than doubled by the end of 2010, he predicts.
Another Alfa Laval application of centrifuges is the decanter. This can be used in breweries, wine clarification and juice processing, to replace soft or filter presses. "You can run it as a continuous rather than a batch process, so more economically, while extracting more solids and drier requirements and industries, from breweries to wineries, dairies and soft drinks solids," Nielsen explains.
The company says it has large versions of its decanter units operating in wineries globally.
Control technology
When it comes to control technology, Rockwell Automation has a full range of fluid routing options for beverage manufacturers. As industry technical consultant Axel Kather explains, the basic type of static routing suits only the simplest plants with the smallest number of products.
"The more products you have, the more complex the routing system needs to be," says Kather. A higher level of control can be established, whereby business rules are preprogrammed into the system. These can ensure, for instance, that operators are not routing product through an uncleaned pipe, or directing light-coloured product through a pipe still contaminated with dark residues.
Now Rockwell has added a third level dynamic routing which takes decisions completely out of the hands of operators. The system selects routes according to preset rules: the shortest or the cleanest, for instance.
Importantly, says Kather, the system runs directly from the process controller, with no need for a server. "Our controller is fully scaleable," he says. "It's smart enough to do everything that a server would offer but without the additional cost."
Also delivered on a control platform, Rockwell's digital blending technology offers control of incoming raw materials, as well as diagnostics. Its software is combined with Coriolis flow meter hardware from partner Endress+Hauser for simpler installation and "seamless integration", says Rockwell.
Ultimately, "seamlessness" is what everyone wants to discuss. But perhaps the ability to cope with the 'seamier' side of processing differentiates innovation from novelty.
