Ukrainian Food Journal (May 2015)
Influence of the constituent alpha acids of Ukrainian varieties of hops and hop preparations on quality indicators of mash and beer
Abstract
Introduction. The aim of the study is to establish the dependence of the bitterness of mash and the beer intoxication on the quality and quantity of the homologues of alpha acids in the Ukrainian varieties of hops, and on the content of cohumulone in alpha acids in particular. Materials and methods.Aromatic and bitter hop sorts of Ukrainian selection with different content of cohumulone in alpha-acids were investigated and so was the beer, made of these components. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to determine the amount and composition of bitter hop substances and their transformation products in the brewing process; also there were spectrophotometric methods for quality control of bitterness of hopped mash and finished beer in use. Results and discussion. The composition of bitter substances of aromatic and bitter hop sorts of Ukrainian selection was analyzed and so the beer, made of them. It was noted that the alpha-acids of the analyzed sorts incorporate a wide range of cohumulone content rated from 16.7% in the Kumyr sort to 44,1% in the Ruslan sort. The dependences between the quality and quantity of the bitter hop sorts and bitterness and quality of hopped mash and beer were established. The content of cohumulone in alphaacids of hops has to be less than 28% to obtain quality bitter beer. The role of the beta-acid compoundsin the formation of bitter mash, hopped with aroma hop varieties with a ratio of beta to alpha acids acids around one, is much more important compared to the bitter varieties. Conclusions. The conducted researches show that in applying the bitter hops with different compositon of alphaacids for mash intoxication, this usage is more effective in the sorts that have a large content of cohumulone.
