Two ways to pasteurize craft beer?

Most of you are probably wondering, how exactly is pasteurization used in the craft beer industry? Today our winemaker will talk about this topic.

There are two pasteurization methods for craft beer: one is instantaneous sterilization, and the other is sterilization after beer is bottled—tunnel spray sterilization.

1. Instantaneous sterilization

Instantaneous sterilization is a method of rapid sterilization of wine before bottling, also known as high-temperature short-term sterilization. Typically, the beer is heated and cooled by a set of plate heat exchangers. During the instantaneous sterilization process, the beer is rapidly heated to 68-72°C in the plate heat exchanger, the holding time is about 50-30 seconds, and then rapidly cooled to the initial temperature. Quick sterilization has higher requirements on the hygienic state of beer bottles and filling technology, that is, aseptic filling is required, which is difficult for many small beer companies.

2. Tunnel spray sterilization

Tunnel spray sterilization is one of the most widely used pasteurization methods at home and abroad. It is a tunnel sterilizer composed of several boxes. The fuselage is divided into several water spray areas with different temperatures; the bottled wine enters the sterilizer continuously, passes through different temperature areas, preheats, keeps warm, sterilizes, and cools down to achieve the predetermined sterilization. After the effect, the sterilizer outputs continuously.

Different from instant sterilization, the tunnel spray sterilizer sterilizes the beer together with the packaged packaging container (glass bottle); that is, the glass bottle and the contained beer are heated to the required sterilization temperature and kept at this temperature for a period of time. time. time, and then cooled to room temperature. Obviously, the reliability of this sterilization method is very high. Therefore, the tunnel spray sterilization method is the first choice for my country's beer production enterprises.

The sterilization process of the tunnel spray sterilizer generally takes about 45 to 60 minutes. It is also the largest equipment in the entire filling production line; the average production capacity is 1000 bottles/hour, and the area is as high as 3~3.5m2.

During the operation, the heating and cooling stages of bottled wine should not be too violent, and can be divided into three stages: 4-30°C, 35-50°C, and 55-62°C.

The above is the relevant content of the pasteurization method in craft beer. Welcome to discuss the relevant knowledge of craft beer with us.