Department of Biochemistry

Permanent URI for this community

https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/214

Browse

Browsing Department of Biochemistry by browse.metadata.advisor "Axcell, B."

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Investigation of malt factors that influence beer production and quality
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2005-03) Van Nierop, Sandra; Rautenbach, Marina; Axcell, B.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Science. Dept. of Biochemistry.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: A number of relevant brewing industry issues associated with malt quality were examined. These included beer foam quality, premature flocculation of yeast during fermentation and antimicrobial factors in malt. The cause of poor foam at a brewery relative to other similar breweries was identified as being related to the boiling temperature during wort preparation and the associated conformational changes of the abundant foam protein lipid transfer protein 1 (LTPl). The temperature range of 96 to 102°C was revealed to be critical. At the higher temperature the denaturation of LTP 1 was more extensive and its effectiveness as a foam protein was reduced. In addition, it was shown that the prominent role of LTPI with respect to foam was as a lipid binding protein, forming a lipid sink and protecting foam from lipid damage. The occurrence of malt associated premature yeast flocculation (PYF) during fermentation was induced in malt by the addition of extra-cellular fungal enzymes to the malt husk or by micro-malting barley in the presence of fungi. In addition, treating malt husk with commercial xylanase or adding commercial arabinoxylan to the fermentation also impacted on yeast flocculation. It was proposed that a range of molecular weight arabinoxylans formed by the enzymatic breakdown of the major barley husk component (arabinoxylan) resulted in PYF. Antimicrobial activity against brewing yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), other fungi and bacteria was found in barley, malt and malt derived wort trub. Wort trub is the non-specific precipitate of protein, polyphenols and lipids formed during wort boiling and which is, to some extend, carried over in the wort to the fermentation. Antimicrobial activity appeared to increase during malting. The growth of brewery collected yeast was inhibited in the presence of brewery production wort when compared to the same wort filtered to remove the trub. Brewery yeast was found to be more sensitive to inhibition than laboratory propagated yeast of the same strain. Different strains of S. cerevisiae were also found to differ in their sensitivity to inhibition. Investigation revealed that the activity originated from the inside of the barley grain and impacted on yeast sugar uptake. However, there was no direct correlation detected between levels of antimicrobial activity in malt and fermentation performance. At high concentrations the factors were microcidal causing cell lysis. Partial characterisation of an antimicrobial extract from malt revealed the presence of a factor between 5 and 14 kDa, containing a cationic peptide component. The optimum pH stability was ±5 when it was also most cationic. The factor easily and irreversibly lost activity at extreme pH and when exposed to certain reagents but was heat resistant in accordance with its survival in wort trub. Preliminary results showed the presence of LTP1 associated with other peptides in the active cationic fraction from the one malt tested. The occurrence of malt related PYF and malt antimicrobial factors are associated with microbial contamination of the grain. The fungi generating the PYF factors from the barley husk while the barley's defence mechanism generates antimicrobial factors to cope with the pathogenic effect of the fungi. In addition there is a potential link between the foam protein LTP 1 and malt antimicrobial activity as LTP 1 or LTP 1 in association with another component(s) is potentially antimicrobial.