Some points that are interesting to me, and warrant further investigation:<p>1) Milling of malts is no longer required. As a microbrewery operator, now I don't need to come in the day before to run the mill for a planned brew. Massive win on scheduling and convenience.<p>2) "Concerning mashing and sparging, the new equipment allows to eliminate
sparging altogether since the pulverization of cavitating malts ... prevents practically any starch to remain trapped into the grains". Again, from a microbrewery operator's perspective, another few hours of labour saved per brew, since I don't have to run a few sparges over my grain.<p>3) Since cavitation apparently sanitizes the wort, we don't need to do a boil. This saves another 1.5 hours on a brew, removes the need for a boil vessel, and some other equipment in my brewery (steam boiler to heat the boil vessel, a bunch of plumbing for said steam).<p>4) related to 3, the hops can be isomerized without boiling. I've had great success with low-boil techniques like the hop stand, so I'd assume that CHC beer would capture a lot more of the volatile aromatics from hops. This could lead to some great IPAs.<p>I'd love to figure out what the MVP is for this rig, and whether it could be replicated at homebrew scale, as it seems to simplify the process massively.
Ok, so there has to be a comedy plot in there where two guys trying to make beer with hydrodynamic cavitation end up discovering a viable cold fusion reaction but keep drinking the experiment results :-)<p>That said, I found their off hand mention of using it as an alternate to high temperature pasteurization as much more intriguing. Mostly because I detest the "cooked" taste of ultra-pasteurized cream but have been finding it harder and harder to find cream that hasn't been over pasteurized in this way. Find me some cream that is "cold pasteurized" and tastes like cream, I'll be really happy.
I'm highly skeptical of the claim that such a system can plausibly "preserv[e] beer’s organoleptic qualities". The claim is repeated in the conclusion in a Trumpian fashion: "We anticipate that the new CHC brewing process affords beer of taste, flavor, body and color comparable with state-of-the-art craft beers, while offering further advantages, beyond the discussed ones, that will be the subject of a forthcoming study."<p>Somehow, though, that's the only mention of the flavor profile of the beer produced. They do describe measuring some key properties with a BeerLab, but those numbers hardly tell a complete story.<p>Given the horrid state the mash ends up in, and the fact that it isn't removed until the water has reached 78C, I'd expect plenty of tannins to be swept along in the race to efficiency.<p>I'd also briefly like to complain about the sad charts in this paper. What order are those bars in? Where are they drawing the conclusions in the text from? Why are the data points collected so inconsistent?
An MITech-review article:<p><a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602464/this-technology-is-about-to-revolutionize-beer-making/?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post" rel="nofollow">https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602464/this-technology-is...</a>
My main concern is, like others below, the opaque beer. I've always known that to be the undesirable effect of "pulverizing" I think of it as maybe twice ground beef can be cooked more evenly than a steak, but the crust and raw elements are what make a steak better. That's an unscientific way to say it, but as a homebrewer I know that efficiency is NOT quality. "Cold brewing" or brewing with CHC may have advantages in releasing/ preserving flavor in hops, but the study doesn't support this claim. I don't care if I get 30% efficiency based on original alphas to extracted alphas if something else is lost. (Like taste, sensory effect or mouth feel) I'm thinking this may be more comparable to "dry hopping", which can be used to give hop forward bitterness instead of the dregs that hops boiled for an hour provide. (Like the difference between the aromatic taste of fresh salsa versus the nearly coppery taste of cooked all day tomato sauce. I love fresh salsa, but you can't replace that "dregs" almost umami flavor brought out in Marinara. Compare Bell's Two Hearted to 3F Zombie Dust. IBU's don't tell the whole story. I'm not discounting these methods, but I don't think that the research is comprehensive enough or takes into account taste enough to talk about completely converting a brewery to these methods.
Reminds me of "Extracts from the club diary".[1]<p>[1] <a href="http://www.antipope.org/charlie/fiction/coffee.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.antipope.org/charlie/fiction/coffee.html</a>
They talk about the use of ultrasonic vibrations in the use of creating cavitation in fluid. Why would that not work in this case? Why did they opt for a centrifugal pump?
I really only skimmed this very quickly, but it seems as though they are using a RIMS system for their cavitation based approach and an infusion mash (or maybe step controlled??? I'm not familiar with the Braumeister setup and their website is ridiculously slow) for their traditional approach. RIMS is already known by homebrewers to be dramatically more efficient than most other approaches. As interesting as it looks, I'm taking this with a huge grain of malt.