2.

Processing of Beverages
Processing
Pulping/juice extraction
Either the juice or the pulp from fruit is the starting material for the manufacture of soft drinks and
wines.
Pulping
Soft fruits, such as papaya, can easily be pulped by hand or by using a pestle and mortar. A wide
range of hand-operated pulpers are available, or if electric power is available, multi-purpose
kitchen-scale equipment such as blenders can be used. At an industrial level, this process is
normally carried out in pulpers which brush the fruit through a sieve and eject the skin and stones.
Smaller models of this machine can be manufactured and are commercially available.
Extraction
Juice can be extracted from fruit in several ways.
· With a fruit press, fruit mill or hand pulper/sieve.
· By crushing/pulping with a mortar and pestle and then sieving through muslin cloth or plastic
sieves.
· By steaming the fruit.
· Citrus fruit juices need to be extracted by reaming (squeezing) the fruit, and once again,
comparatively simple equipment is available for this purpose.
Fermentation
As mentioned previously the process for achieving fermentation differs considerably depending
upon the product. The following paragraphs describe the basic processes for the production of
both beer and wine.
Beer
The process for making beer is often referred to as brewing. Brewing actually consists of three
stages - mashing, boiling and fermentation.
Mashing involves the use of hot water (approximately 68°C) to extract the soluble materials from
the malted grains. This produces a liquid called wort. The process is carried out in large vessels
which may be made of wood or stainless steel.
The wort is then subjected to a process of boiling.This process involves the addition of hops.
Boiling takes place in a similar vessel to the tubs used for mashing except that it is flask-shaped,
with the neck being elongated in order to carry away the steam, and to prevent over-boiling.
Prior to inoculation (addition of the yeast), the wort is cooled. This is because if added to the hot
wort the yeast would be inactivated. The degree to which the wort is cooled differs according to
the type of beer to be produced. For example, fermentation for lager is conducted at 12-15°C
using the yeast Saccharomyces carlsbergensis. In other cases, the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae
is used at a temperature of 20°C. During fermentation, the beer is held in fermentation vats or
food-grade plastic fermentation bins. When fermentation is complete, the process of packaging
will depend on whether the beer is to be sold in draught form (e.g. in a keg), or if it is to be bottled
and corked. If it is to be draught, the beer is not filtered and small amounts of yeast are left in it in
order to keep it slightly carbonated. In the case of bottled beer, it is filtered and pasteurized.
Pulping juice
Wine
In wine-making, the fruit juice or pulp is mixed with yeast and sugar and held in a fermentation
bin. Again this may be made from food-grade plastic. This is left for about ten days during the first
fermentation stage. Within 48 hours, fermentation becomes vigorous and there is frothing and
foaming. It is important to keep the fermentation vessel closed to prevent bacteria and fungi from
infecting the wine. After ten days the fermenting wine is racked. This is done by scooping it up
together with the solids using a sterilized mug, cup, or jug, and passing it through a muslin or
nylon straining cloth. The cloth should have been sterilized and rinsed beforehand, and placed in a
funnel. The wine is transferred into narrow necked fermentation vessels. These may be plugged
with wads of cotton wool, or specially-designed vessels fitted with a airlock (known as a
demijohn) may be used.
Ideally, fermentation is then continued at a temperature of 18°C. The whole process can take from
three weeks to three months. The end of fermentation can be judged when it is seen that there are
no more bubbles rising to the surface. At this stage, the wine is filtered, in order to remove the
sediment from the wine and then syphoned into narrow-necked or food-grade plastic vessels, and
stored for the minimum period in the recipe to allow the wine time to clear and mature before
bottling. After this period of maturation, the wine is siphoned off into bottles and sealed with a
sterilized cork-stopper or screw cap.
Carbonation
This involves the addition of carbon dioxide into a drink. The most usual way of achieving this is
to use a pressurized cylinder or tank which contains a mixture of water and carbon dioxide. In the
case of soft drinks, the bottle is filled to a certain level with the flavoured syrup, the bottle is
positioned under the cylinder head and carbon dioxide is released. The bottles are capped
immediately. Cylinders for holding carbon dioxide are available for both large-scale production
and in smaller sizes for use at the household level.
Pasteurization
Liquid products such as drinks may need to be pasteurized if they are to have a shelf-life of more
than a few days. Pasteurization involves heating the product to a temperature of 80-90°C and
holding it at that temperature for between 0.5 and 5 minutes before filling into clean sterilized
bottles. Pasteurization is best carried out over a direct heat in stainless steel pans.
Some products can be pasteurized in their bottles. The filled bottles, with the lids loosely closed,
are stored in a large pan of boiling water with the water-level around the shoulder of the bottle.
The time and temperature required for pasteurization will depend on the product and the bottle
size.