Page 61 - FoodFocusThailand No.210 SEPTEMBER 2023

SMART PRODUCTION

Low Oxygen Pickup in Beer Filling:

State-of-the-art Filling Technology

the Answer to Familiar Challenges

This factor lies between two and three for normal containers
and filling temperatures. Modern filling machines achieve
measurement values for dissolved oxygen that in agitated
containers even lie below those taken upstream of the filler. In
comparison, measurements in unagitated containers yield
information on the efficiency of the essential foaming prior to
closure or on the construction and configuration of the
undercover gasser on a can seamer.
This comparison reveals that on modern filling systems the
filling process as such is only accountable for 10 to 20% of the
total oxygen content in a filled and sealed container. Oxygen
pickup during filling is always to be seen in relation to the inert
gas consumption required for this process. Whereas in the past
such low oxygen pickup was impossible even with high
consumption levels – or was possibly considered unnecessary
– considerable improvements have since been made.
Development of Sustainable Technologies for
Outstanding Beer Quality
In beer production breweries obtain reliable quality with a low
Brewers are all too aware of the fact that beer is oxygen content with the help of cutting-edge technology. First
probably the beverage that reacts most sensitively and foremost, this makes the use of additives such as bisulphite
to oxygen. What is known as the oxidation off-flavor or ascorbic acid as oxygen scavengers superfluous. So, the
occurs if there is too much oxygen pickup. Trend beers world’s leading manufacturers of filling and packaging systems
made using the rediscovered cold or dry hopping for the beverage and liquid food industries has developed
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technique quickly alter their taste with oxygen pickup. filling technology that gives it low oxygen filling on a scale
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Standard light beers are also especially sensitive to unprecedented in this form .
oxygen, however. Dark beers, on the other hand, often Less oxygen, Lower CO Consumption
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display considerable flavor tolerance to an oxygen The new plant engineering lets less oxygen into the beer – and
content of above and beyond 0.1 mg/l. in doing so consumes not more but less CO than its
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predecessor. During bottle filling a new hollow probe filler
enables greatly reduced CO consumption on the one hand
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and even lower oxygen pickup on the other. The container is
Avoiding or reducing oxygen pickup is the most important first evacuated through the vacuum channel and then purged
step in achieving the longest possible flavor stability. To this with CO gas. The container is then pressurized to filling
end, tanks are pressurized with inert gas, for instance, and pressure with the inert gas as usual. This makes an extremely
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often cleaned in the presence of this gas to prevent any loss low total oxygen pickup of 20 ppb possible at a CO consumption
of it. If the inert gas is CO , only acidic cleaning is possible on of 160 g/hl. Further reducing the CO consumption to 110 g/hl
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retention of this gas. If N is used, the amount of dissolved N 2 for example – half of what was usual to date – also facilitates
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in the beer must be observed to achieve an undisrupted filling a very low oxygen pickup of 40 ppb. The required total oxygen
performance and not generate any untypical foam structures pickup can therefore be selected as needed, meaning that a
for the consumer. Alternatives such as argon would be range of automatic product type conversions can be set with
prohibitively expensive. maximum CO savings for an especially oxygen-sensitive,
Almost 40 years ago, master brewers Uhlig and Vilachá cold-hopped beer, a dark beer insensitive to oxygen or even
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from the Polar Brewery in Caracas, Venezuela, developed a for totally different filling products such as soda pop, for
formula that, using an oxygen measuring device for dissolved instance.
oxygen and by determining the temperature and head space Lots of breweries have to buy in their carbon dioxide for
and filling volume, was also able to establish the total packaged their production. Due to rising prices, this is a growing cost
oxygen (TPO) with high precision. For this purpose, the factor. The lower the consumption for the filled bottle, the more
containers are brought into a state of gas equilibrium by efficient the production process – and the lower the oxygen
agitation. This method has the great advantage that all process pickup, the better the product quality. So, the filling system has
steps in beer production and filling can be monitored by a single been developed by a combination of both of these issues.
mobile device; with it, even gas-in-gas measurements are now Furthermore, digital and automated systems synchronize the
possible, with only an additional piercing device with an inert filling processes and thus considerably boost efficiency.
gas supply needed for measurements taken from bottles or
cans. The dissolved oxygen of a beverage in a state of gas
equilibrium in a bottle or can must then be multiplied by a
calculated factor to obtain the TPO. More Information Service Info C007
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