Clarification and Separation in Beer Brewing

Inorganic membranes have also been used in the clarification of other fermented alcoholic beverages such as beer and vinegar in recent years. Two important applications of membrane filtration for beer production are the removal of bacterias and beer recovery from the so-called tank bottoms. They are treated in the following. 

Microfiltration with inorganic membranes is a promising alternative. As early as 1964 porous silver membranes (composed of permanently molecular bonded pure silver particles) in the disk form were commercially available. Silver membranes with a maximum pore diameter of 1.2 pm were tested successfully on the pilot scale for cold sterilization of beer to remove any organisms that can cause spoilage in closed 

Beer rccoYcry from tank bottoms and yeast rccQYcry in beer production, yeast is recovered after fermentation. This is normally done by centrifuging but potentially can be accomplished by dead-end or crossflow microfiltration inorganic membranes. 

Meunier [1990] tested the feasibility of this new approach with 0.8 pm alumina membranes under a transmembrane pressure of 3 bars and a crossflow velocity of 3 m/s at 5 C. The initial permeate flux declines to a level of about 20 L/hr-m.  

Beer clarification by ceramic membrane crossflow microfiluation has not been commercially practiced yet. But the ongoing application research and development efforts in this area and the potential savings in the diatomaceous earth cost will undoubtedly drive the technology to commercialization. 

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