Your Basic Guide to Pasteurizing Hard Seltzers
BEVERAGE MAKERS GUIDE TO
PASTEURIZATION OF HARD SELTZERS
It's summertime and the heat feels like you live
in an oven! At the end of a long, hot day, all you want is a cool fizzy drink
to quench your thirst.
Hard seltzer
manufacturers aim to take over a good part of the adult beverage market.
Between the Spring and Fall of 2019, the number of adults who drank hard
seltzer at bars and restaurants increased by 73%!
A key element in many
beverage processes is pasteurization and that includes bottling hard seltzers.
What Is Pasteurization
A French microbiologist
named Louis Pasteur invented the process later named after him, way back in the
1800s.
There's a wide range of
pasteurization techniques these days. Some of these techniques include
heat, high-pressure processing (HPP), and Low Temperature, Short
Time (LTST). Most companies that process food and beverage products use
some form of heat pasteurization before selling to consumers.
These days, many foods
(both packaged and unpackaged) go through some form of pasteurization before
hitting the shelves. For beverages, a batch pasteurizer treats a up to 2,400 bottles or 3,000 cans, 12 ounce size,
pasteurized to 12 pasteurization units in an 8 hour shift. The largest
single-deck tunnel pasteurizer can pasteurize up to 1,800 bottles or 2,000 cans per minute in
ballpark numbers.
Why You Should Pasteurize Hard Seltzers
So do you need to
pasteurize a hard seltzer?
The short answer is yes,
you should! Here are the two main reasons you should pasteurize your hard seltzers:
Increased Shelf Stability
As Pasteur discovered,
killing off the dangerous microbes with pasteurization makes it shelf-stable
for much longer than without pasteurization, allowing your customers more time
to enjoy it before the product degrades!
Preventing Popped Tops/Bulging Cans
Another benefit of
pasteurization is that it helps to de-activate any remaining traces of active
yeasts. If you leave any yeast in your hard seltzer bottle or canm it will
continue to feed off of the sugars and produce carbon dioxide. With the yeast
de-activated, you eliminate the continued production of carbon dioxide and
prevent the trapped carbon dioxide from making the bottle tops pop off or
having the cans bulge.
As we mentioned earlier,
there are many ways to pasteurize consumables. We're going to touch on the
oldest and most common form of pasteurization, the heat method.
The key to
pasteurization using heat is to hit the target temperature for the right amount
of time. A
proper profile of time and temperature must be created for the elimination of
microbial growth and stabilization, to insure optimal taste and shelf life. When
purchasing a pasteurizer from PRO Engineering, small samples are tested in a
batch unit and the profile is recommended by PRO Engineering.
Different Types of Spiked Seltzers Available
So far this year, many
Americans have tried these new, refreshing adult beverages Some retailers
report a 40% to 50% increase in their sales since the
beginning of the year!
Here are the two most
popular types of hard seltzers on the market right now.
Wine Flavored Seltzers
One way to flavor hard
seltzer is with wine! For those who love a good glass of wine to wind down at
the end of the day, red, white, or rosé flavored seltzers may be a unique
taste.
Fruit Flavored Seltzers
Another popular hard
seltzer flavor is fruit flavoring. Fruit flavorings in seltzer recipes can make
your hard seltzer taste like biting juicy fruits.
Sangria Flavored Seltzers
For the best of both
worlds, a Sangria flavored seltzer could hit the spot. Not only does Sangria
please the wine lovers, but it also has an extra boost of fruit too! For those
who want a fizzy refreshment full of fruity flavor, look no further than a Sangria
flavored hard seltzer.
We hope you enjoyed reading
this article. If you have any questions about this article or if you're looking
for batch or tunnel pasteurizer, contact us!
For more information on tunnel and batch pasteurization contact PRO Engineering/Manufacturing, Inc. at sales@prowm.com or call (414) 362-1500 and ask for Ed Michalski, CEO.
Edward A. Michalski Bio
Ed Michalski started his career in the beverage industry by designing stainless steel, higher flow, spray headers for Pabst Brewing. Along with the header design, he also developed a process to produce the new headers. Ed, along with his brother David, formed PRO Engineering/Manufacturing, Inc.
Based on what they learned by re-designing and refurbishing other manufacturers’ pasteurizers, Ed and PRO started to offer the pasteurizer marketplace superior new pasteurizers.
PRO Engineering/Manufacturing has been designing and manufacturing great pasteurizers for over four decades.
ABOUT US:
PRO Engineering/Manufacturing was established in 1977 by Ed and Dave Michalski as a steel fabrication shop. For more than 40 years, PRO Engineering/Manufacturing, Inc. has been delivering solutions for beverage product shelf stability and consumption safety. As leading innovators in post-fill pasteurization, our skilled team offers the best in high-quality pasteurization equipment.
CONTACT US:
Phone: 414-362-1500 | Email: sales@prowm.com
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