Non-alcoholic beer with maltose negative yeast strain Saccharomycodes ludwigii

Abstract: Non-alcoholic beer is gaining more attention in the brewing industry due to the negative health and economic consequences of alcohol consumption, even smaller microbreweries are showing interest in the production of non-alcoholic beer. Producing non-alcoholic beer has been restricted to the large breweries due to the special equipment needed and the high investment costs, but by using biological methods the process can be adapted to a traditional brewing setup. This involves using the special maltose negative yeast strain Saccharomycodes ludwigii and changed mashing step. The pure strain DBVPG 3010 has shown promising results in a screening study, producing high levels of desirable sensory compounds to mask the off-flavors usually a consequence of limited fermentation. This yeast will be compared with the commercially available yeast S. ludwigii WSL-17. The aim of this master thesis is to develop a method for producing non-alcoholic beer customized for traditional brewery equipment and to test the produced beers in a sensory evaluation to judge the potential of the method. One of the primary objectives was to develop a method to produce a starter culture with adequate cell concentration and ensuring viability. The results show that a suitable starter culture can be made using malt extract fortified with fructose with a magnetic stirrer and calculating cell concentration with a microscope and Burker chamber with methylene blue straining. The sensory evaluation gave positive results, from both expert panel and difference test, indicating that S. ludwigii DBVPG 3010 has high potential in small scale non-alcoholic beer production.