GEA steps out in refreshingly different style at BrauBeviale 2019

Flexibility, performance, uptime and sustainability are critical to ensuring that customers can produce food safely and efficiently. To meet these goals, GEA develops, manufactures and supports plants and processes that can be digitally controlled, monitored and intelligently managed, that use resources sparingly, and are as reliable as they are durable. All of this is very much part of the “Refreshingly different” GEA approach, which fuses technology and creativity in order to respond to customer wishes with forward-looking, unconventional engineering solutions.

The GEA Craft Yeast Propagator, which GEA announced at BrauBeviale 2018, will take the stage this year. With capacities ranging from five to 25 hectoliters, the propagator has dimensions compatible with GEA’s 25- to 125-hectoliter brew-size CRAFT-STAR® and COMPACT-STAR® brewhouses. 

Yeast is the most important component in beer production, impacting taste, quality and filterability. “All the more reason for brewers to select the right strain, maintain and propagate healthy cells as well as utilize the surplus yeast,” GEA Product Manager Torben Bauch says. In recent years, the yeast expert notes, the growing number of varieties available on the market have led to increasingly extensive technical automation. “But this is precisely where craft brewers’ views diverge from those of larger breweries. That’s why we have downscaled our YEAST-STAR® – a high-capacity fully automated solution – to create a simplified version,” Bauch says. “Designed for smaller budgets and capacities, it offers all the same functionality as its bigger brother, providing gentle homogenization, optimum aeration and adaptable temperature control.” 

London-based Fourpure Brewing Co. will be the first customer to benefit from the new propagator. The craft brewery was impressed with how the unit as a whole had been slimmed down and that certain high-tech functions have been tailored for manual operation and independent control.

As the non-alcoholic beer trend is also spilling over into the craft beer market, it is also a focal topic at the GEA stand. These creative artisanal brews don’t need alcohol to expand their fan base. A case in point is the Ghost Ship Citrus Pale Ale 0.5% produced by Adnams in Southwold, UK, which sailed to gold-medal success at the 2019 World Beer Awards. Adnams began producing a low-alcohol version of its popular Ghost Ship Citrus Pale Ale 4.5% about a year ago using the GEA AromaPlus dealcoholization unit. The system relies on reverse osmosis, which filters out the alcohol at the end of the brewing process, leaving 100 percent of the flavor but just 0.5 percent alcohol.

GEA’s membrane filtration specialist Ralf Scheibner explains, “For all their efficiency in removing ethanol from beer, thermal processes can compromise taste – which is something we simply could not accept. At GEA, we firmly believe that reverse osmosis is the best method for producing great, honest-to-goodness beer with authentic flavors.” In this regard, he agrees with brew masters who view adding sugar, wort or any other ingredient to improve taste after technical dealcoholization as a no-go.

“The separation solutions we are showcasing at BrauBeviale are primarily targeting craft brewers who want to raise their production to a professional level,” says Wolf Herberg, Head of Separation Sales at GEA. Designed to meet the craft brewers’ practical needs, the GEA Plug & Win 180 separates undesirable solids, such as yeast and trub, from beer. The high-performance, compact centrifuge can immediately be put into action and is very easy to operate. “Compared to other clarification processes, our solution reduces losses drastically, cuts storage time by a third and lessens overall brew times.” 

Another product of this philosophy is the new GEA separator skid for brewpubs, developed especially for tavern and pub micro-breweries that produce on site. At BrauBeviale, GEA will premiere its most compact and cost-effective variant, which boasts the same efficiency advantages as larger GEA separators in a stripped-back unit. “Our brewpub version shows what GEA means by practical innovations,” Herberg says. “Basic automation, extended service intervals and a compact skid design – these are all game-changing features for brewers who have to pay close attention to their operating costs.” Thanks to the centrifuge, a beer’s clarity or turbidity can be precisely calibrated and reproduced. Mounted on an immediately installable skid, the brewpub separator needs only be plugged in and it can get straight to work. 

Customers in the craft beer segment are particularly interested in space-saving, flexible and sustainable solutions that pay dividends at medium speeds and capacities. So GEA’s booth showcases the highly flexible, monoblock GEA Visitron Filler ALL-IN-ONE, which can switch between filling bottles, cans and PET containers. It not only handles the most varied formats, beverages and lid types with ease, but also slashes the filling block’s format and product changeover times from a number of hours to 20 to 30 minutes. With these features, the filler responds to issues that are currently top of mind for beverage manufacturers, as Jakob Šalamun of GEA VIPOLL confirms: “Our product development is driven by customers’ desire for efficiency, not only in terms of CAPEX and OPEX, but also in procurement, production and distribution channels. It’s all about using resources sparingly in view of the growing focus on sustainability.”

In cooperation with a mid-sized brewery in Europe, GEA has been installing its GEA clearamic Beer Filtration system as an alternative to conventional kieselguhr and cross-flow filtration with polymer membranes. Using inert and long-lasting ceramic membranes, the alternative solution employs the cross-flow process. Although ceramic filtration with GEA Membraflow elements is already standard in yeast beer recovery and fruit juice filtration, GEA is for the first time transferring the technology to beer filtration on industrial scale. This plant integrates a filtration block with membrane modules, a retentate buffer tank, media connection and a dedicated CIP rail, which sanitizes the clearamic system independently of other cleaning programs. Depending on the type of beer and other requirements, a filtration loop of this kind can produce 100 to 150 hectoliters of filtered beer per hour.

The ceramic membranes do not transfer any substances to the filtrate. Thanks to their extreme resilience, such membranes can be sanitized to the highest hygienic standards using caustic solutions at high temperatures and without the need for expensive enzymatic cleaners. GEA estimates the stable membranes’ service life at ten years or more. “According to our OPEX calculations, the low operating costs quickly pay for the system,” Product Manager Sonja von Lieres says. “The break-even point can be as little as some five years compared to kieselguhr filtration, and as fast as three years or so compared to polymer membranes.” Here, product safety and sustainability clearly pay dividends.

In contrast to static dry hopping, this process employs a low-shear agitator in conjunction with a pump to keep the pellet hops suspended and in motion. The solids are separated via sedimentation and remain in the extraction vessel. An additional fine filter catches smaller particles. Since extraction and sedimentation can be repeated in varying cycles, brewers have excellent control over contact time and the extracted hop oil fractions. Thanks to increased extraction efficiency, brewers save on hopping costs and beer losses are reduced to less than 3 percent. At this year’s BrauBeviale 2019, GEA will exhibit the tenth HOPSTAR Dry® plant. After projects in Europe, North and South America, GEA commissioned the first cold hopping plant at a German brewery this summer.

Although BrauBeviale focuses on brewing, GEA will also be addressing other beverage industry topics at the trade show. These include GEA’s 360-degree solutions for the production of plant-based beverages. Bean- and cereal-based convenience products such as drinks have gained popularity all over the globe, riding high on health- and environment-conscious dietary trends. “GEA makes the vegetarian segment into one of its focal areas for development. Not only is demand high around the world but GEA’s extensive project experience and technology portfolio allow us to support customers every step of the way, through to service in ongoing operations,” says Colm O’Gorman, GEA Business Manager Plant-Based Beverages. 

GEA’s separation experts have been active in this market for decades, during which time they have refined their decanter into a lean, mean machine. A GEA model will be on hand at the trade show to demonstrate the two-step decanting process, which results in 10 percent higher yields. That means more protein from soy, and more starch from rice, almonds and oats. In line with the highest hygienic standards, GEA decanters feature a very high flexibility of the operating parameters such as the differential speed, wear-resistant parts, extended lifespans and convenient service intervals. The patented hydrohermetic system seals off the process chamber from the environment and prevents oxidation. Running the centrifuge on different products is easy, no change in set up is required.

GEA’s processing technologies and capabilities to design integration process lines from raw material handling, separation via decanter, enzyme inactivation, aroma control, blending and homogenization to aseptic filling and packaging means that customers can rely on GEA to provide the full solution from raw material to final packaged product. Being able to combine technologies with engineering expertise, project management and commissioning know-how as well as ongoing support long after the process has been put into operation is a new and unparalleled addition to the market. O’Gorman adds: “We are spotlighting our strength as a process integrator that also offers all the core elements necessary for extraction technology.”