Method of producing a bright, yeast fermented beverage

A method of producing a bright, yeast fermented beverage, the method comprising:

• a. mashing a particulate, starch-containing and optionally malted raw material with water,
• b. heating the resulting mash and enzymatically hydrolysing the starch to fermentable sugars;
• c. continuously producing a fermentable wort from the heated mash by executing the following steps in a continuous fashion:
• (i) removing spent grain from the heated mash to produce a mash extract;
• (ii) converting mash extract into wort by heating said mash extract to a temperature of 60-140° C. for 5-120 minutes;
• (iii) removing organic volatiles from the wort by reducing pressure and/or by stripping the wort with a gas or steam;
• (iv) removing trub from the wort by centrifugation in a centrifuge that is operated at a centrifugal force of a theoretical capacity factor (Σ) of at least 1,000 m2 at a flow rate of 1 m3/hr;
• and
• d. introducing the wort into a fermenter to ferment the wort in the presence of biologically active self-aggregated yeast cells;
• e. transferring the fermentate from the fermenter to a sedimentor to produce a low-yeast fermentate having a yeast content of not more than 20 g/1 by removing yeast from the fermentate by means of sedimentation;
• and
• f. clarifying the low-yeast fermentate at a throughput of more than 4 hl/hr/m2 with a pressure increase of not more than 0.3 bar/hr to produce the bright, yeast fermented beverage by:
• (i) processing the low-yeast fermentate in one or more separators prior to filtration to remove suspended material, wherein the separators are selected from the group consisting of centrifuges and decanter centrifuges, and wherein the processing is conducted at a theoretical capacity factor (SIGMA value) of at least 1,000 m2 at a flow rate of 1 m3/hr;
• and
• (ii) filtering the processed fermentate;
• wherein at least a part of the yeast that is removed from the fermentate by means of sedimentation is recirculated to the fermenter, and wherein the low-yeast fermentate is maintained at a temperature of less than 10° C. for at least 12 hours before the processing in the one or more separators.