Application of Lactic Acid in Beer Brewing

November 14, 2024

Lactic acid as a food additive is an organic acid with the chemical formula C3H6O3. It is often found in food items and is used as an acidifier and preservative. Lactic acid also plays an important role in the beer brewing process. We’ll look closer at the use of lactic acid in beer here.

Lactic Acid in Beer Brewing

Lactic acid is an important ingredient in the beer brewing industry. It also helps give beer its taste, stability, and overall quality. In addition, lactic acid is found to be significantly competitive with edible acids such as citric acid, phosphoric acid, and malic acid, especially in the food and beer brewing fields.

From controlling pH to controlling microbial activity to specific flavor profiles in beer brewing, lactic acid is a versatile acid.

We’ve discussed a bit about lactic acid used food additive, now it’s time to look at its uses in beer brewing.

Further reading： Lactic Acid in Food: Discovering Its Role in Everyday Food

The Role of Lactic Acid in Beer Brewing

Lactic acid is of extremely important and irreplaceable significance in beer brewing. Now let us illustrate this more vividly for easier understanding.

1. pH Control and Adjustment

Lactic acid in beer brewing plays a significant role in adjusting the pH. This organic acid provides the necessary delicate balance for favorable fermentation, influencing both the flavor and stability of beer. In general, the pH needs to be corrected from the beginning of the brewing process. Lactic acid tends to offer an effective lowering of wort pH, thus offering an avenue that is in agreement with yeast activity. The effective control paves the way to higher yeast performance and, therefore, faster fermentation, consequently a better flavor profile of the beer. Besides pH control, lactic acid plays its role in every step of the brewing process with pH adjustment. Breweries use it to adjust the levels of pH in various stages of brewing. It ensures stability in enzymes and prevents the growth of unwanted microorganisms. Besides, the right dosage of pH optimizes the clarity and stability of beer with lactic acid, an indispensable component in contemporary brewing.

We, therefore, have to understand the lactic acid for pH adjustment aspect comprehensively.

Mash pH Adjustment: There is the use of lactic acid to reduce the pH of alcohol to the required level as we have discussed above. Reduced mash pH enhances enzymatic action that has a role to play in the conversion of starch into fermentable sugars. This leads to a cleaner finish product that would enable the final product to meet the required standard as far as hygiene is concerned.

Sparge Water Acidification: The sparge water that is used in the beer brewing process if its pH is above 6. 0 begins to extract unwanted tannins from the grain husks. This results in the formation of astringent in the beer. Nevertheless, the use of lactic acid even helps to control the level of the pH which prevents tannin extraction.

Final pH Adjustment: Thirdly, lactic acid is used to adjust the pH by reducing its pH to standard desirability. It is shown that a decrease in pH may cause a lesser improvement in the degree of perfection of freshness and acidity in beers.

Better Alternative than Other Counterparts: Finally, the current way of automation in beer production involving the use of phosphoric acid to adjust the pH has its problems. Some of them are poor taste, weak flavor, poor product stability, and short shelf life. Even more importantly, the use of phosphoric acid for pH regulation poses the problem of meta bolite control of beer yeast during the fermentation process, which enhances the level of diacetyl in the beer, and becomes allopathic to control. In this way, the beer brewing domain shows a high connection to lactic acid as an efficient pH controller and regulator.

2. Flavor Enhancement

The second way lactic acid is used in beer making is in flavoring the beer which is as follows. It plays a vital role and gives extra attributes and identity to various beer types, especially sour beer and wild ales. It is perhaps worthwhile to look into them in more detail.

Sour Beers and Lactic Acid: First of all, lactic acid which defines the souring of the beer contributes to the presence of tartness. Some of the typical sour beers include Weizenbock, Kaeis, blaugies, Berliner Weiss, goes, and Rauchbier which make use of lactic acid production during the fermentation process as a source of sourness. The acid gives the beer flavor that is sharp, close to being sour, but overall gives a good complement to the beer-specific flavors such as malt, sweetness, and bitterness from the hops among others.

Balanced Acidity: Secondly, brewers also cherish lactic acid given the fact that it gives a softer and rounder note on acidity as compared to acetic acid which has sharp, pungent, and what may be described as the ‘vinegar’ characteristics. Therefore, lactic acid is well suitable and very useful for tweaking the beers’ acidity without masking other tastes.

Flavor Complexity: Finally, lactic acid also contributes a certain degree of body to a beer, and this is a very important characteristic of beer. For example, the addition of a smooth sour tone as the main undertone can give a sharpness to the branched and unique undertones of a beer.

3. Increases the Shelf Life of Beers

The lactic acid is also used to enhance the shelf life of the beers. In our experiment, beer samples with lactic acid have a considerably higher shelf life as compared to the samples where lactic acid was not added-that is when the addition of lactic acid is near about 0.01 percent. The extent of independence, the participants, and the results also vary but at 01 percent the effect and the results are as good as it gets. The climax is that in terms of shelf life, we anticipate that the sample will have a months longer shelf life than the beer sample that contains lactic acid.

Also, breweries employ edible-grade phosphoric acid or hydrochloric acid in the moderation of saccharified wort. But the incorporation of excessive inorganic acid goes against the trend of making beer green and healthy. And, arguably the most disappointing thing is that it also affects the bitterness of beers. Phosphoric acid shall also bring early rapping of yeast and the change of the taste of beer. Nevertheless, the lactic acid that is generated in beer brewing by biotechnology substitutes the inorganic acid in setting the wort’s pH level. It not only can endue the body of beer full, mellow, and refreshing feeling, but also prolong the shelf life of beer.

Finally, adding lactic acid to beer reduces aging flavor during shipping and storage, improving its shelf life and quality.

4. Microbial Control and Prevention

The lactic acid additive is also very useful in the microbial management of beer according to a study. Some of the ways through which lactic acid acts as a controller of microbes are:

Selective Inhibition: In the process of brewing lactic acid the pH level of the wort significantly decreases dramatically during the brewing process. This restricts the development and increase in populations of undesirable organisms for instance several sorts of wild yeast and bacteria.

Shelf Stability: Those beers with a low pH and beers that have been purposely acidified with lactic acid are less sensitive to microbial activity. This prolongs the shelf-life of the beer while the use of an acid in brewing enhances the beer’s shelf-life too.

Hygiene Brewing: The use of lactic acid in beer – brewing process also helps to make the process including hygiene and safety point of view more comprehensible. Lactic acid produces a clean and acidic atmosphere and thus there is a check and all the brewers can be able to guarantee the safety and standards of the beer.

Conclusion

Therefore, let us draw the curtain on this brief, enlightening article on the mobile role and uses of lactic acid in beer production. Starting from the enhancement of beer flavor, and preparation of mash/pH adjustment to lengthening beer shelf life, lactic acid in beer brewing is one of the most crucial building blocks. Contact Mondstar for more information on buying lactic acid.