Estudo computacional da etapa fermentativa da produção de cerveja e proposta de uma estratégia de controle para o processo

Abstract

Beer is the oldest alcoholic beverage in the world, and its processing has been evolving along the time. Nowadays, beer trading occupies an important position in the economic market since it is the most consumed beverage in Brazil and around the world. Due to this economic significance, the search for more efficient processes that are able to keep the sensorial attributes to the final product represents a great interest for breweries. Fermentation is an important stage of the beer process since in this stage the products and by-products resulted from the yeast metabolism are formed. The detailed study of the fermentative stage of the beer production allows analyzing how the main process variables influence the fermentation and the way they interact each other. To reach this goal, mathematical modeling and computational simulation, were used in this work as a tool for studying the fermentative process. The goals of this study were: i) Select and reproduce through computational simulation, phenomenological models that describe the brewing process; ii) Investigate the effect of manipulate process variables (temperature, pressure and/or flows) over the dynamic behavior of the products and by-products of interest, and; iii) Propose a control strategy that be able to implement optimal temperature profiles in the beer fermentation process. A few dynamics mathematical models that describe the fermentation process were found in the literature. Based on the experimental validation and on the process variables considered, three phenomenological models were selected for the development of this work. It was observed that the manipulate process variables usually affect the dynamic of the fermentation temperature and, as a consequence, the dynamic of the other process variables. A simple control strategy, capable to heat up and refrigerate the fermentation vessel according to the process needs, was proposed in this work to better drive the fermentative process. The proposed control strategy shows very efficient, providing to the process operator facilities to the application of optimal temperature profiles in order to obtain a satisfactory fermentation and leading to a final product with appropriate sensorial attributes for the customer.