The Applications of Carrageenan in Beer and Fruit Wines

Beer and fruit wines often contain some colloidal substances and are cloudy, causing difficulties in filtration and affecting the clarity of the final beer's fruit wine, so clarifying agents must be added to remove the cloudy substances. However, it is difficult and time-consuming to remove these substances completely with normal clarifying agents. Wort clarification can be effectively achieved by using the reaction of carrageenan with proteins.

Carrageenan is used as a clarifying agent in the beer production process.

The principle is that carrageenan with anionic group and hydrophilic polymer proteins with positive charge in wort form a bond through electrostatic interaction, and rapidly promote the coalescence of various tiny proteins, lipids, dextran and other molecules into large flocs to speed up the settlement, and these flocs settle by gravity, thus achieving the purpose of beer clarification.

Carrageenan can remove turbidity and make the liquid bright and shiny, and is a high-quality beer clarifying agent.

However, carrageenan also has a relatively weak aspect, that is, the gel formed is brittle, less elastic, easy to dehydration shrinkage, need to be compounded to solve this shortcoming, carrageenan and konjac gum compounding can solve this problem. Konjac gum and κ-carrageenan have a strong synergistic effect, can significantly enhance the gel strength and elasticity of carrageenan, reduce the water secretion of carrageenan, its effect is stronger than locust bean gum, in the food industry has a wide range of applications.