Spoilage Detection in Beverages

MICROBIOLOGY QUALITY CONTROL FOR BEVERAGES AND WATER: SAFE AND SPOILAGE ORGANISM-FREE DRINKS

Figure 1. Beverage spoilage testing solution

Contamination can alter the odor, flavor, or turbidity of a beverage, so spoilage organism testing is crucial to enable the safe release of drinks to the market. Spoiled ingredients or finished products can have a huge impact on your business, leading to financial losses or, at worst, product recall.

Our microbiology safety testing solutions include a full range of culture media and rapid tests covering the most important spoilage organisms to ensure the microbiological quality of your beverages.

• Culture Media and Tests for Beverage Spoilage Detection
• Media Fill Simulations for Beverage Bottling
• Rapid Spoilage Organism Detection

CULTURE MEDIA AND TESTS FOR BEVERAGE SPOILAGE DETECTION

Culture media and tests are used to check the presence or absence of undesired microorganisms such as yeasts and bacteria in your beers, wines, soft drinks, water, and juices.

We offer a large range of culture media in a variety of formats to test the relevant spoilage organisms for water, beer, wine, or soft drinks.

In addition, we have a full range of media such as our GranuCult^® dehydrated culture media, ReadyPlate™ agar plates, and ready-to-use ReadyTube^® media which are all quality controlled by ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accredited laboratories and are certified to be fully compliant with EN ISO 11133:2014, as well as with individual standards.

Figure 2. GranuCult^® dehydrated culture media

Our media covers a large range of spoilage organisms specific to your needs:

• Wine spoilage organisms: wild yeasts (e.g., Brettanomyces), lactic acid bacteria such as Lactobacillus, Leuconostoc, Oenococcus, Pediococcus, or acetic acid bacteria from the genus Acetobacter and Gluconobacter.
• Beer spoilage organisms: wild yeasts, bacteria from the genera Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, Pectinatus and Megasphaera.
• Soft drink spoilage organisms: acetic acid and lactic acid bacteria, e.g., Acetobacter or Leuconostoc, acidophilic heat resistant bacteria, e.g., Clostridium pasteurianum or Ethanol producing bacteria e.g., Zymomonas.
• Organisms to test for in water: E. coli, Coliforms, Enterococcus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Clostridium perfringens, along with Total Viable Count.

Media is available as powders, granules, ready-to-use liquid, or agar plates. Visit our webpage to explore our products.

Figure 3. Linden Grain medium

MEDIA FILL SIMULATIONS FOR BEVERAGE BOTTLING

When producing low-acid aseptic beverages, all filling equipment needs to be sterilized to ensure that there is no contamination from spoilage bacteria, yeasts, or molds. This can lead to the loss of a huge number of products, but any contamination can result in considerable reprocessing, disposal, and product-recall costs, as well as damage to brand reputation and consumer confidence.

Developed in collaboration with Coca-Cola HBC AG, Zug, Switzerland, our high-quality granulated Linden Grain medium comes ready mixed in 5 kg and 25 kg sizes for media fill simulations.

Find out more about our high-quality granulated Linden Grain medium.

Rapid spoilage organism detection

If you are looking for a rapid method for the detection of spoilage organisms in your beverage products, our HybriScan^® test is a simple, sensitive, and inexpensive method that could help lead to a faster and easier product release.

Accurate results can be obtained after only 2 hours of testing, and with this two-probe method for the detection of microbial rRNA, false positives are almost impossible.

Learn more about our HybriScan^® Test System.