Interesting......accelerated fermentation technique

[Burt de Ernie]

https://munchies.vice.com/en/articles/college-students-have-found-a-way-to-brew-beer-nine-times-faster

 

[Matplat]

Doesn't give much away as to the method by which they achieve this.... "increasing the surface area of wort sugars exposed to yeast" how do you do that to something that is dissolved???

 

[sponge]

Probably from rehydrating dried yeast



h34r:

 

[Mardoo]

Anheiser-Busch does this by filling ferment tanks with sanitised beechwood chips. The yeast falls on the surface of the chips. This creates a vastly greater surface area than the top of a yeast cake so every volume of wort is effectively exposed to more yeast, with the same size pitch as normal. Don't know about these guys though.

 

[Feldon]

Here's a news report that goes into a little bit more depth on how the Fermento technology speeds up fermentation.

…it involves droplet micro-fluidic fabrication technology.

Put simply, that means using ultratiny plumbing to dispense millions of ultratiny droplets of liquids, each containing only 100 picoliters of fluid, Issadore said. In beer terms, he offered, that's less than one-billionth of a pint.

It's an emerging technology starting to be used in the pharmaceutical industry, where such small volumes allow experiments that involve extraordinarily expensive ingredients to be carried out inexpensively and in enormous numbers.

and

Converting sugar to alcohol - fermentation - is determined by how fast yeast can find and eat sugar in water. While adding more sugar seems logical, that would change the kind of beer that would result, possibly to the point of its not being beer at all. Adding more yeast could result in a destructive overpopulation because it constantly multiplies.

"The only thing left to do is reduce the amount of water they're suspended in," the team wrote in an email.

"Enter microfluidics, which can mix all the ingredients into microdroplets with much more precisely controlled ratios than can be achieved in tanks. . . . Because the yeast can find the sugars faster in these microdroplets, you can start with comparatively more yeast than you can in big tanks. They'll produce the amount of alcohol you want before hitting the overpopulation threshold."

http://articles.philly.com/2016-02-17/business/70673841_1_beer-industry-fermentation-applied-science

 

[Bribie G]

I can see a future thread:

MicrofluidicMaster owners problems hints and tips.

 

[Black n Tan]

Not sure maths is their strong point because i don't think 9 times faster is the same as 70% quicker, but may be I am missing some nuance (may be maturation is even faster??). "College Students Have Found a Way to Brew Beer Nine Times Faster" then they say "were able to accelerate the rate at which yeast converts sugar to alcohol by 70 percent."

 

[Mardoo]

Questions about oxidation come to mind.

 

[Feldon]

The link to the story I posted says, "Speeding up the fermentation process of beer by about three times".

 

[Black n Tan]

The link to the story I posted says, "Speeding up the fermentation process of beer by about three times".

that seems more consistent with the 70% improvement claims in the first article

 

[Dan Pratt]

I read this a while ago and laughed.

I found a way to increase fermentation - pitching into a yeast cake and fermenting at higher temps(22c). h34r: I reduced lag from 12-24hrs to <4hrs and SG to FG reduced from 4- 5 days to 36hrs!

Due to the lag/growth phase being so short as there is already enough yeast to get to work no esters are formed into the beer when initial fermentation happens (first 12hrs)

 

[Feldon]

Reaction from a US micro brewery:

"Speeding up the fermentation process would allow breweries to produce more of their staple beers, thus increasing their profitability. However, it could also lead to producing off flavors within the beer.

“The more that a batch is rushed and stressed, the less time the yeast has to try and clean up some of the off flavors,” Jake Koenemen, co-founder of Central State Brewing, told me. “Stressed yeast/processes lead to errors.”

While macro breweries and the larger craft breweries, like Boston Beer Company or Sun King Brewing, could benefit from this technology, small batch breweries, like Central State, likely wouldn’t benefit much, if at all.

“Central State, however, takes a much more traditional and old world view of fermentation and like to allow our yeast to perform their magic in the time they need, which creating an environment for them to do their work happily,” Central State co-founder and head brewer Josh Hambright told me via email. “We give the yeast a lot of freedom in our brewery and they get to call the shots a bit more than most brewers allow their yeast to express themselves so this new technique isn't something we are looking at very closely for our production environment.”
http://www.indianaontap.com/news/could-a-college-project-be-the-next-advancement-in-fermentation

(OT: Central State is a interesting brewery.

Central State is building a 100% Brett brewery concept in order to find the edges of a new frontier in craft brewing. The science on Brett is growing, but it’s still unpredictable and under-utilized, and full of promise for new flavors.
http://www.centralstatebrewing.com/home )

EDIT: Brewbound magazine takes a contrary view to Central State Brewery's concerns about the yeast stress issue:

Fermento technology ferments beer by introducing precise amounts of liquid sugars directly to individual yeast cells — reducing stress levels from lack of food.
http://www.brewbound.com/news/last-call-10-barrel-eyes-san-diego-north-carolina-teamsters-protest-eden-brewery-closure

 

[TheWiggman]

"... finding a way to speed up the most time-consuming part of the beer-making process—fermentation"
Clearly they've never made a lager or barley wine. I switched from 3724 Belgian Saison to 1084 Irish ale and successfully fermented 9 times faster. I call the process 'microsaisonruined'.