| Abstract: | The variability of results using actidione media for the identification of beer spoilage bacteria has been shown to be due to the heat sensitivity of this reagent. Critical evaluation shows that with a particular brewery yeast, media containing 0·06 p.p.m. allow the growth of a single brewing strain but inhibit others. This permits the rapid classification of yeast strains in this pitching yeast. In a further brewery, media containing 0·16 p.p.m. differentiate brewing yeast strains from beer spoilage yeasts and this permits the quantitative assessment of these for process control at all stages of brewing. In a particular instance where a culture yeast strain is not inhibited at 0·16 p.p.m. but is p-aminobenzoic acid dependent, a differential medium incorporating this low level of actidione and omitting the vitamin allows the identification of beer spoilage yeasts in process control. These results illustrate the potential of this approach for microbiological control in specific brewery problems. |
