Production of low-alcohol or alcohol-free beer with Pichia kluyveri yeast strains

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9580675-B2
Application number	US-201414773239-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 7, 2014
Priority date	Mar 7, 2013
Publication date	Feb 28, 2017
Grant date	Feb 28, 2017

Abstract

It has unexpectedly been found that a low alcohol or alcohol-free beverage, with a flavor profile very close to a beer of at least 4% (vol/vol) alcohol, can be produced by using Pichia kluyveri yeast strains. In particular, Pichia kluyveri yeast strains only use the glucose in the wort, and have the ability of converting this substrate into a high concentration of specific flavor compounds, which are normally produced by Saccharomyces ssp. yeast strains used for the brewing of beer. In this way the Pichia kluyveri yeast strains can be used to produce either a low alcohol or alcohol-free beverage, depending on the glucose levels in the wort. The main flavor compounds produced by Pichia kluyveri in the fermentation of wort are isoamyl acetate, isoamyl alcohol, ethyl butyrate, ethyl hexanoate and ethyl octanoate.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method of preparing a non-alcoholic beverage comprising:
fermenting wort with a Pichia kluyveri yeast strain that ferments glucose but not maltose and maltotriose to thereby obtain a non-alcoholic beverage, wherein the only yeast species used to prepare the beverage is Pichia kluyveri that ferments glucose but not maltose and maltotriose,
wherein the method does not include a step of physically removing alcohol from the beverage,
and wherein the non-alcoholic beverage has no more than 0.5% v/v alcohol and has an isoamyl acetate concentration of at least 0.5 mg/L.

2. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising adding at least one hop variety to the wort prior to fermenting the wort with the Pichia kluyveri yeast strain.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the fermentation of the wort with the Pichia kluyveri yeast strain is carried out for at least 7 days.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the fermentation of the wort with the Pichia kluyveri yeast strain is carried out at 18-22° C.

5. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising bottling and bottle pasteurizing the beverage.

6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the method comprises fermenting the wort with more than one Pichia kluyveri yeast strain.

7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the Pichia kluyveri strain is selected from the group consisting of Pichia kluyveri strain PK-KR1 having accession number V06/022711 and Pichia kluyveri strain PK-KR2 having accession number V06/022712.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the beverage has an ethyl octanoate concentration of at least 10 μg/L.

9. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the beverage is a beer.

Assignees

• Chr Hansen As

Inventors

• Saerens Sofie
• Swiegers Jan Hendrik

Classifications

• C12C12/006

  Yeasts (processes for seeding C12C11/02) · CPC title

• C12C12/04 Primary

  Beer with low alcohol content (methods for reducing the alcohol content after fermentation C12H3/00) · CPC title