Avaliação do tempo de absorção do amargor em cervejas utilizando o isooctano

Abstract

In view of the great economic and social importance that beer presents to Brazilians, a series of researches have been developed in order to quantify and monitor the characteristics of this widely consumed beverage. Attributing personality to beer, bitterness is one of the attributes with the greatest organoleptic impact, and the study of its properties is extremely important. Therefore, the research analytically quantified the ideal minimum time for maximum absorption of the compounds that add bitterness to beer, using isooctane as an absorbing agent, in order to optimize the bitterness tests developed at Cervejaria Ambev Cuiabá. The study was developed using Skol brand beer produced daily at the Cuiabá brewery, as a test sample. To quantify in Bitterness Units (BU), the samples were read in a UV-VIS spectrophotometer at an absorbance of 275 namometer (nm). From the tests, it was observed that as the exposure time was high, the more compounds that add bitterness to the beer were being absorbed, with the time of 15 minutes being the most satisfactory, due to the low variation in the amount of absorption of the compounds that attributes the bitterness when compared to the group with the longest time. Therefore, it can be concluded that the amount of bitterness determined is influenced by the exposure time, and the time of 15 minutes is the most appropriate for the development of tests in the applied methodology.