Production of Clear Malt Beverage Utilizing Membrane Filtration

In January, 2005, the US Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) adopted a final rule requiring no less than 51% of the alcoholic content of beer and flavored malt beverages (FMB) be derived from malt based fermentation. The details of this regulation, often referred to as the "51/49 standard", are located in 27 CFR 7.11. This standard significantly changes the process of manufacturing FMB's. Traditionally, a majority of the alcoholic content in FMB's was derived from the addition of flavorings that contain distilled spirits. Since the malt base is now a larger component of the final beverage, existing production systems must be expanded in order to accommodate the increase in malt base usage. Additionally, it is now more important to produce an alcohol stream that is free of unwanted colors and flavors.

There are several methods that can be used individually, or in sequence, to produce a clear malt base. One of these methods is membrane filtration. Membrane filtration is an economical unit operation that can separate alcohol in the malt base from unwanted materials such as sugar, salts, and large color and flavor components. This essentially clarifies the ethanol and water in the stream. Membrane filtration is also ideally suited to process the large volumes of malt base required due to the new regulation.

A typical process description for production of a flavored malt beverage is reviewed below.

Fermentation: Malt and other brewing ingredients are fermented to produce beer, which is used for the alcoholic malt base.

Separation: Yeast and other suspended material are removed by centrifugal, dead end, or crossflow membrane filtration.

Membrane Filtration: Malt base is processed by membrane filtration. Alcohol and water permeate through the membrane while large and potentially non-desirable components, such as sugar, salts, color & flavor compounds, are retained by the membrane. Permeate collected is a purified stream of alcohol and water.

Secondary Separation: The permeate can than be processed (if necessary) by additional separation methods to further purify the alcohol and water. Examples could be carbon filtration or ion exchange.

Beverage Formulation: Flavorings and other ingredients are added to produce the desired flavored malt beverage.

Bottling: The FMB is bottled for distribution.

In the scenario outlined above, membrane filtration is an integral part of the process, as it removes a majority of the unwanted components.

For more information regarding the use of membrane filtration in alcohol applications, please contact GEA Filtration.