Development of a biosensoristics telemetric device applied to microbreweries in Sardinia

The beer is currently the most consumed alcoholic beverage in the world and the global beer production has had a rapid growth and gained great success also in the countries that are not traditional beer producers; more than 900 craft breweries are known just in Italy. Growing evidence supports the health benefits of moderate consumption of alcohol as part of a healthy lifestyle, whereas it is widely recognized that alcohol abuse exerts negative effects on health. A plethora of studies suggest that moderate drinking of beer is associated with lower rates of cardiovascular disease, neurodegeneration, cancer and osteoporosis. The positive association between moderate intake of beer and low risk for these diseases is due to several substances with antioxidant properties present in the barley and in the hop. Also, hop contains some volatile oils which show antibiotic activity. The nutraceutical property of the beer is preserved if it is manufactured by a minimal invasive procedure like the brewing craft is. In order to stabilize the composition, the industrial procedures use high temperatures and filtrations techniques but resulting in a poor nutritional and health properties. However, the wholemeal composition of handcraft makes the product more susceptible to contamination throughout the brewing process, putting at risk the success of the final product. Analytical techniques such as HPLC, GC, GC-MS are widely used for the monitoring the main analytes that take places under the manufacturing process conditions. However, they are time-consuming and laborious and, in some of them, the sample pre-treatment is required. Methods based on biosensors could be a good alternative to these classical methods. They offer fast analysis, easy and direct analytes detection and low cost production. Amperometric biosensors seem to be the most commercially successful devices to this purpose. Amperometric biosensors applied to beer production have been investigated in our research labs. They are able to detect the main fermentation compounds like glucose and ethanol with high sensitivity and repeatability. Microbial contaminants such as lactic acid can also be detect below the thresholds of perception (100-400ppm). Furthermore, a remote control has been designed. The wireless technology allows to send in real time the signals obtained by the analysis performed in situ without having to send the sample to the outside of the craft brewery. Thus, the microbrewery can check and modify the process conditions in an easier, faster and less expensive way.