New Paper on Metabolomics of Beer!
The study of fermentation and brewing has a long history of pioneering discoveries that continue to influence modern industrial food production. Since then, numerous research endeavors have yielded conventional criteria that guide contemporary brewing practices. However, the intricate open challenges faced today necessitate a more exhaustive understanding of the process at the molecular scale. In their newest paper Pieczonka et al. have developed an ultra-high-resolution mass spectrometric analysis (FT-ICR-MS) of the brewing process that can rapidly and comprehensively resolve thousands of molecules. This approach allows to track molecular fluctuation during brewing at the level of chemical compositions. Employing biological triplicates, the investigation of two brewing lines that are otherwise identical except for the malt used revealed over 8,000 molecular descriptors of the brewing process. Metabolite imprints of both the similarities and differences arising from deviating malting temperatures were visualized. Additionally, traditional brewing attributes such as the EBC-value, free amino nitrogen, pH-value, and concentration curves of specific molecules were translated into highly correlative molecular patterns consisting of hundreds of metabolites. These in-depth molecular imprints provide a better understanding of the molecular circumstances leading to various changes throughout the brewing process. Such chemical maps go beyond the observation of traditional brewing attributes and are of great significance in the investigation strategies of current open challenges in brewing research. The molecular base of knowledge, along with advancements in technological and data integration schemes, can facilitate the efficient monitoring of brewing and other productions processes.
Find the publication here.
Image: Chemical Space of the Brewing Process.