Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Products per se – or processes of preparing or treating... – Hop derived ingredient – including hopping of wort
Reexamination Certificate
1997-11-18
2001-06-05
Sherrer, Curtis E (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Products per se, or processes of preparing or treating...
Hop derived ingredient, including hopping of wort
Reexamination Certificate
active
06242038
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
Readily-dispersible FFA-containing lipidic hop extracts for improving hoppy aroma and flavor in beer; their preparation using an excess of alkali.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION AND PRIOR ART
In order that brewers might have more control of the consistency and uniformity of their product, many have gone to the use of hop extracts to maximize control over the extremely variable aroma and taste characteristics of raw hops. Hop extracts have been used to flavor malt beverages for some years and offer a level of consistency and economy not attainable with raw hops. To prepare such extracts, the raw hops or hop pellets are commonly extracted with an organic solvent such as hexane or ethanol. Subcritical or supercritical carbon dioxide is sometimes used as the extraction solvent. Alpha and beta hop acids, present in the raw extract, are then preferably removed for further processing to manufacture bittering agents for beer, as in Todd U.S. Pat. No. 4,002,683, Guzinski et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,200,227, and Stegink et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,296,637. The remaining lipidic organic alpha and beta acid-free hop extract (i.e., the non-acidic resin) contains waxes, tannins, vegetable oils, and the hop essential oils, and is virtually insoluble in water. It can be added at kettle boil as in Todd U.S. Pat. No. 5,073,396. Hop oils are essential to beer if it is to have a desirable hoppy aroma and flavor.
Hop extracts used for bittering beer post-fermentation typically have an inadequate aroma component to impart a hoppy aroma or flavor to beer. Hop oils and lipidic flavor and aroma components in the hop extract, remaining after the removal of alpha and beta acids, are difficult to reincorporate back into the beer due to their lipidity and virtual insolubility in water. If the lipidic oils are added directly to the kettle boil, they normally float out and are usually lost to evaporation or become lost with trub removal. The utilization of the hop oils is also very low with hop cones, hop pellets, and hop extracts when they are added to the boiling wort, since few if any of the lipidic hop aroma and flavor components are dispersed through the wort.
Efforts to overcome the problem of reintroducing the hop oils into the wort have been made in recent years by preparing emulsions of these oils using emulsifiers such as polysorbate 80, or by dispersing them on fumed silica (Todd et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,647,464). Each of these procedures has its shortcomings. Although polysorbate does effectively disperse the hop oil throughout the wort during the kettle boil, these emulsions introduce polysorbate, which can become rancid and add undesirable, objectionable flavors to the beer. Brewers are also concerned that their beer does not contain materials which must be labelled as additives. On the other hand, the fermentation process, which modifies hop oils, is considered to develop desirable hop aroma and flavor by the action of yeast on the oils.
To produce a light-stable beer, which does not form a mercaptan aroma upon exposure to light, a reduced hop isoalpha acid which does not contain unreduced isoalpha acids may be used. (Stegink et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,296,637; Worden, U.S. Pat. No. 3,923,897; Hay, U.S. Pat. No. 5,013,571). These reduced acids 30 are made by separating the alpha and beta acids from the whole hop extracts and reducing these acids to light-stable forms (i.e., di, tetra, and hexahydroisohumulones). The remaining hop extract, free of alpha and beta acids, can be used in the kettle to impart a hop aroma and flavor. However, Goldstein (U.S. Pat. No. 4,759,941, U.S. Pat. No. 4,324,810) has disclosed that non-isohumulone, light-unstable products exist in hop extracts, and these may still be present in the extract from which the hop acids have been removed. Goldstein discloses a method for their removal if they carry through into the reduced iso-alpha acids. He discards the non-acidic resin portion of his extract, thereby losing the benefit of the hop oils contained therein. A critical and unpredictable result of the current invention is that none of Goldstein's unstable substances are present in the lipidic alkali-treated extract of the invention, thus making it suitable for the production of light-stable beers. Because Goldstein's light-unstable extract has been reduced with borohydride, it is even more unexpected that the alkali-solubilized lipidic hop extract products of the present invention should be light stable. The present invention therefore provides a method and composition for greatly increasing the effectiveness of a hop extract, which is used only for imparting hop aroma and flavor, and which is compatible with all forms of hop extracts used for bittering and with all methods of hop addition.
Accordingly, a composition and method for imparting hop aroma and flavor to beer, by which an improved and readily-dispersible lipidic hop extract can be reproducibly and economically provided and added to the wort without introducing non-hop constituents or resulting in objectionable flavors or light sensitivity, will be of great advantage to the art of brewing. It is an object of this invention to provide such a readily-dispersible hop extract and advantage.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has as an object the improvement of the utilization and dispersion of hop flavor and aroma in beer by addition before fermentation of a lipidic hop extract having improved water dispersibility. Another object is the provision of a readily-dispersible lipidic hop extract, made by treatment of a hop extract with excess alkali and optional application of heat, which consists essentially of hop oils and aroma compounds in a matrix or environment derived entirely from hops, said matrix or environment containing at least 10% by weight, preferably at least 15% by weight, and most preferably 30% to 60% by weight, of free fatty acid (FFA) substances (as defined and identified by A.O.C.S. Method 5A-40) which are derived from the excess alkali treatment of the starting hop extract.
This particular assay is based upon titration to about pH=9 using phenolphthalein as the indicator. The hop extracts are taken into hexane by addition of acid and desolventized to prepare the extracts for assay. It should be noted that the phrase “lipidic substance”, as used herein, does not include hop bitter acids, such as dihydro-isoalpha acids or beta acids, which may be present in the extract at the beginning of the treatment and which are not affected by the process, or hop acids added following the treatment process. These hop bitter acid substances are likewise not included in the definition of “lipidic phase” and must be removed from the extract prior to determination of the Free Fatty Acid Value.
The readily-dispersible lipidic hop extract is preferably produced from a hop extract which is essentially free of hop alpha and beta acids, although this is not critical to all aspects of the invention, but which is essential when a light-stable beer is desired. Heating is the preferred method of accelerating the treatment, whereas high-shear mixing and cosolvent addition may also be employed but are less preferred.
Unexpectedly, the method of preparation of the solubilized hop extract does not damage the quality of the hop flavor and aroma thereof, nor do the free fatty acids (which are liberated in the process, nor do other resulting hydrolysis products create off flavors in the beer or interfere with normal fermentation by yeast. The dispersibility of the lipidic hop extract is improved to such a large extent, over that of the hop extracts presently employed in the brewing industry, that it is even possible to blend in additional hop oil or usual hop extract to further enhance its flavoring potential.
Still other objects of the present invention will become apparent as this disclosure proceeds, and additional objects of the invention will be apparent to one skilled in the art.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
What we claim and believe to be our invention, then, inter alia, comprises the follow
Guzinski James A.
Schulze Mark H.
Kalamazoo Holdings, Inc.
Sherrer Curtis E
The Firm of Hueschen and Sage
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