PRODUCTION OF INDUSTRIAL BEVERAGES

BY: RAHUL ANDHARIA (MSIWM001)

Introduction:

• Any fluid consumed for drinking purpose can be called as a beverage.
• Beverages consist of diverse range of food products, mostly liquids like water, soft drinks, fruit beverages, etc.
• Beverage like water is most essential for human body as it helps in excretion of food and digestion assimilation. Roughly, 60% of human body is made up of water.

History and origin of Beverage Industry:

• The origin of beverage industry is linked with the antique civilization period.
• Soft drink got its name in the year 1798, and is the combination of word ‘Soda Water’.
• Major developments in Beverage and Food industry began in 19^th century after development of Canning process by Nicholas Appert and process of pasteurization (process of heating at lower temperatures) by Louis Pasteur.
• Mead which is a fermented beverage usually made from honey and water was the first ever beverage made as per reports. It is an alcoholic beverage. (Origin-7000 BC, china).

Classification of Beverages:

1. Natural and Synthetic. (Contains artificial sweeteners).
2. Carbonated and Non-carbonated.(example- club soda)
3. Alcoholic and non-alcoholic.
4. Stimulating and non-stimulating (beverages raising physiological activity) examples- coffee, tea, water.

Soft Drinks Processing/Production steps:

1. Concentrate (removing all the water) preparation is the very first step in the preparation of any carbonated soft drink.
2. Sugar syrup clarification: mixture containing sugars, essence, flavoring agents and water forms syrup. It is done to retain particles and crystals from syrup.
3. Water and microbial stabilization: largest portion of the beverage is accounted by water.  Pre-filtration step is crucial as it ensures good economics of filter train, protects final filter and reduces initial bioburden. Final filtration step removes micro-organisms and makes water contaminant free.
4. Carbonation: carbon dioxide is added to the beverage. Carbon dioxide injected should be microbe free.
5. Bottle blower and bottle washer: using PET bottles bottle blowing can be done in any beverage. Air used to turn pre-forms to final PET bottle must be contaminant free. Quality of container must be maintained and it should be microbe free in order to produce good quality beverage.
6. Bottle filler: for filling process, the filler bowl is pressurized and the gas used has to be microbiologically stable.

Production of Fruit Juices:

• Variety of fruits can be used for making fruit juices. Fruits like orange, citrus, apples, grapes, cranberries, mangoes and so forth are used.
• First, the fruits are washed properly and then graded to remove damaged ones. Then, according to the size fruits are separated and transferred to juice extractors.
• In the juice extractor, oils are extracted from peels and the fruits are squashed to extract the juice.
• Juice is then screened to remove seeds and pulp (pulp contains all the fiber, essential for controlling blood sugar levels).
• In the next step, Juice is then sent to evaporators to remove most of the water by heat and vacuum.
• The juice is then chilled and used as frozen concentrate. Chilling process generally removes oils and essence which are added back before adding to juice packager.
• Filtered water is used to dilute the concentrate and then it is pasteurized and packaged under sterile conditions.

Production of stimulatory beverage: TEA:

• Tea leaves are blended and dried to produce tea bags.
• After the blending process, the tea is sent to tea packaging machines, where it can be packaged as individual packs or in bulk.
• For powdered tea, tea leaves are blended and brewed using hot water. The liquid tea concentrate is spray dried and stored in drums.
• Tea powder is packaged in jars and blended with sugars or sugar substitutes.
• Flavoring agents can also be added to enhance taste and to elevate fragrance. Example- lemon.

Production of coffee process:

• Coffee beans are extracted and stored in large containers.
• Removing the endocarp layer is important from wet processed coffee and hence Hulling machineries are used for this process.
• Then, grading and sorting according to the size is done.
• Coffee beans are then selected and blended in a large blender system.
• Roasting of coffee beans. At 205 degree Celsius beans pop up and they expand in size. This is called as light roast (first crack). To reach dark roast levels, coffee beans are heated at 240 degree Celsius.
• After the roasting process, the roasted beans pass through transporting screw into an elevator. Through elevators, beans are passed into large grinder machines where grinding of beans takes place.
• Next step is packaging.
• Coffee beans can also be exported, as in most of the western countries; beans are used and are added directly into instant coffee maker machines, where they can be blended.
• Coffee can also be made in powdered form and packaged.

Production of Distilled Spirits:

• Based on preparation mode, alcohol beverages are fermented beverages (beer) and distilled beverages (Whiskey and brandy).
• Materials used in  preparation of distilled beverages includes, fermented cereal mash, fermented fruits, molasses, juices, honey and so forth.
• The phases in distilled spirit production are: receiving of grain, milling, cooking, fermentation, distillation, storage, blending and bottling.
• Grains are received by grain elevator and the grains are weighed in the elevator.
• Grains necessary for mash bill are grinded in the milling process.
• Meal from the mill is received by cookers along with slurries with backslop, water and ammonia. Solubilization of starch takes place using steam-jet cooking.
• Resulting mash is cooled at fermentation temperature.
• In the fermentation process sugar is converted to alcohol by using yeast (Saccharomyces Cerevisae). Fermenters are used for the process of fermentation.
• For cognac and scotches production, pot still distillation is used.
• By-product is recovered (centrifugation, evaporation, drying and mixing).
• Whiskies, brandies need to be stored for longer periods for better taste. Charred oak barrels are used for storage. After storage and product maturation(few years), they are

Blended, filtered and packaged as finished products.

Production of Beer (fermented beverage):

Few steps are involved in beer production:

1. Malting: barley grain is used for beer preparation and is made ready for brewing. In malting process, malt goes through a very high temperature drying in a kiln, called Kilning process.The process is continued with gradual increase in temperature for few hours. After kilning, grains are called malt and are crushed to expose cotyledons, rich in carbohydrates.
2. Mashing: starch conversion to sugars takes place in mashing process. Milled grains are mixed large vessel called mash tun. Sugar rich liquid called ‘Wort’ is generated in mashing process.
3. Lautering: process of separating the wort (liquid with sugar obtained during mashing) from barley grains.
4. Boiling: large tanks like kettle are used to boil the wort with herbs or sugars. In this step, flavor, color, aroma of the beer is decided. Hops are used which add flavors to beer.
5. Whirlpool: whirlpool vessel is used to separate out solid particles in the hopped wort.
6. Wort cooling: cooled at 20-26 degree Celsius and yeast is also added during this process.
7. Fermentation: cooled wort is added to large fermentation tanks where upon action of added yeast fermentation process is carried out.
8. Conditioning (beer aging/maturation): after fermentation process, beer is transferred to conditioning tank. In this process beer ages, smoothens.
9. Conditioning process is done for several weeks and after that beer is filtered and force carbonated for Bottling (packaging of beer into bottles).