Production and Quality of Regular and Gluten-Free Lager Beers

By Dr. Sergio O. Serna Saldívar

Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico

Tuesday May 9th, 2017 at 10:00 (Mexico City, MX; UTC -05:00)

Beer is the main alcoholic beverage consumed worldwide with an annual production that exceeds 1,620 million hectoliters. It is essentially composed by malt, brewing adjuncts, hops, water and yeast metabolites. European beers are produced following four sequential major processes: malting, mashing, hop addition and fermentation and are classified as regular, light, dark and low alcohol. Produced regularly with barley, it is unsuitable for patients with celiac disease due to the presence of storage proteins known as hordeins. Several strategies have been recognized as suitable gluten-free brewing procedures: by using non-gluten grains, non-grain sources such as sugars, syrups and honey and enzymatic and microbial treatments of barley worts to reduce to non-significant levels the peptides which trigger celiac disease. Since the traditional brewing process is established with barley, the use of other grains, such as rice, maize or sorghum involves differences in mashing procedures. Sorghum has been recognized for its potential to substitute barley but compared to barley malt lacks of sufficient diastatic power due to the lower synthesis of both α and β amylases. The presentation will focus in the conventional process of production of lager beers and alternative processes in order to generate gluten-free counterparts.