Ultrasound‐assisted production of alcoholic beverages: From fermentation and sterilization to extraction and aging

Abstract

Ultrasound is sound waves above 20 kHz that can be used as a nonthermal ''green'' technology for agri-food processing. It has a cavitation effect, causing bubbles to form and collapse rapidly as they travel through the medium during ultrasonication. Therefore, it inactivates microorganisms and enzymes through cell membrane disruption with physicochemical and sterilization effects on foods or beverages. This emerging technology has been explored in wineries to improve wine color, taste, aroma, and phenolic profile. This paper aims to comprehensively review the research on ultrasound applications in the winery and alcoholic beverages industry, discuss the impacts of this process on the physicochemical properties of liquors, the benefits involved, and the research needed in this area. Studies have shown that ultrasonic technology enhances wine maturation, improves wine fermentation, accelerates wine aging, and deactivates microbes while enhancing quality, as observed with better critical aging markers such as phenolic compounds and color intensity. Besides, ultrasound enhances phytochemical, physicochemical, biological, and organoleptic properties of alcoholic beverages. For example, this technology increased anthocyanin in red wine by 50%. It also enhanced the production rate by decreasing the aging time by more than 90%. Ultrasound can be considered an economically viable technology that may contribute to wineries' waste valorization, resource efficiency improvement, and industry profit enhancement. Despite numerous publications and successful industrial applications discussed in this paper, ultrasound up-scaling and applications for other types of liquors need further efforts.

Exploring the Power of Thermosonication: A Comprehensive Review of Its Applications and Impact in the Food Industry

“…Ultrasound technology has been proven to positively impact the characteristics of alcoholic drinks, such as their phytochemical, physicochemical, biological, and sensory properties. One notable effect is the potential to increase anthocyanin content in red wine by as much as 50% while reducing the aging process by more than 90%, thereby increasing production efficiency [ 102 ]. The influence of TS on the antioxidant properties of mango juice was also examined.…”

Yeast mannoproteins: Organoleptic modulating functions, mechanisms, and product development trends in winemaking

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“…As for other physical techniques, HPH produces significantly high pressure (up to 400 MPa) to break the yeast cells; meanwhile, sonication or ultrasound technology can confer cavitation effect by bring bubbles to collapse the structures of yeast cell with sound wave of high frequency (>20 kHz), these two techniques can cause mechanical disruption of yeast cells effectively. However, the nonselective destroying ability of these physical techniques on yeast cells lead to the corelease of various yeast components (Comuzzo & Calligaris, 2019; Gavahian et al., 2022), which cannot achieve an accurate organoleptic modulation of wine when these extracts are added directly into wines, and complicate purification processes are usually necessary for obtaining MPs of high purity and specific characteristics. Compared with the extraction techniques discussed above, PEF uses intermittent electric fields of high intensity (kV) within extremely short time (from μs to ms) to break the cytoplasmic membranes of cells and to render the cells permeable to endogenous enzymes (glucanase, protease), which can promote the access of these enzymes to the cellular constituents, thus facilitate the degradation of yeast cells and the release of MPs of high purity (Martínez et al., 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020).…”

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