The present invention relates to solid salts of hop acids. More particularly, it relates to solid sodium and potassium salts of hop acids.
Hops have been used for centuries to flavor beer and are considered, along with water, yeast and malt, to be an essential ingredient. Since the sixties, following elucidation of the structure of the hop bittering compounds in the fifties by Rigby and Verzele, various forms of modified hop extracts have found their way into commercial applications.
A goal of present brewing technology is to make reproducible brews. Difficulties are encountered at every step in the brewing process: unwanted variations in yeast cultures, in hops, in malt, in adjuncts, and even in times, temperatures and the human element of the brewhouse. Beer presents a subtle combination of carbonation, foam, mouth feel, bitterness and aroma when tasted and swallowed. Whatever can be done to improve the reproducibility and control of even one variable--yeast, hops, malt, adjuncts--is exceptionally important.
Hop flavors have attracted widespread interest in recent years for use in controlling and standardizing the flavoring of beer and ale especially through the use of post-fermentation injection techniques.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,340,763 issued Jul. 20, 1982 refers to a process for producing hulupones by oxidizing lupulones in an aqueous, alkaline medium and precipitating out the hulupones as the sodium or potassium salt.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,002,683 issued Jan. 11, 1971 refers to a process for transforming an alpha acid into an iso-alpha acid by contacting the alpha acid with an aqueous solution of a metal salt, with preferred metal salts being calcium and magnesium.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,013,571 issued May 7, 1991 refers to a process for converting alpha acids to hop flavors by exposing the alpha acids to an environment capable of simultaneously isomerizing and reducing the alpha acids to tetrahydroisoalpha acids or hexahydroisoalpha acids.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,013,572 issued May 7, 1991 refers to a method of purifying tetrahydroisoalpha acids and hexahydroisoalpha acids by steam stripping the impurities.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,918,240 refers to a method for removing hydrogenation catalyst impurities from beta acids.