Clearing the haze

A filtration enzyme that removes haziness from beer, developed by DuPont, has been approved for use in Australia. While specifically invented for brewing barley, DuPont says it can work on all cereal types. This article was first published in Food & Drink Business July/August 2020.

DuPont’s Laminex MaxFlow 4G filtration enzyme helps maximise beer flow, especially with barley, it says. The enzyme uses a combination of ß-glucanase and xylanase and can be used with all types of separation equipment. 

DuPont says the enzyme is highly efficient at reducing high-molecular weight ß-glucan and pentosan levels in all types of wort. This makes mash separation and beer filtration easier and faster due to reduced wort viscosity. 

For DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences global product manager for brewing enzymes Jens Eiken, it provides a great solution for high-gravity brewing. “If you aim for a production output of several hundreds of thousands of hectolitres of beer, you really need a solution to keep things flowing. This solution is very favourable for high-gravity brewing,” Eiken says. 

Improving mash separation and beer filtration enables brewers to increase brewhouse yield and reduce energy and water associated with filter cleaning, he says. As a result, brewers can reduce the use of water in the brewhouse and the supply chain. 

The benefits of using Laminex MaxFlow 4G include approximately 0.10 percent higher brewhouse yield, 0.15 percent lower beer losses and 17.5 percent higher throughput at beer filtration.

Eiken says it can minimise the risk of off-flavour in the finished beer compared to other filtration enzymes on the market and the level of ferulic acid is markedly lower.

Better beer filtration and the reduced risk of filter cake collapse also means cleaning operations are needed much less frequently. 

It allows brewers to reduce the number of time-consuming and costly production stops and secure “right-the-first-time”-approach.