Novel Perspectives in Gushing Analysis: A Review

Abstract

The phenomenon of gushing, characterized by the spontaneous overfoaming of carbonated beverages directly after opening a bottle (or a can), can still be a problem for the brewing and beverage industry worldwide. Due to its sudden and partly eruptive character, gushing can be detrimental to the image of the industry when it occurs in the hands of the consumer. Gushing is a complex phenomenon, induced by a variety of gushing factors of the raw materials and in the production process. A reliable methodology to avoid gushing is not yet available. Nevertheless, the obvious measure to prevent or at least minimize gushing is to assess the raw materials for their risk of gushing before they are processed further in production. Thus, the investigation of gushing analysis plays a particular role in the industry to prevent gushing and also in research to get more cognition on this phenomenon. This article gives a review of gushing with the focus on analysis. In current gushing tests, the overfoaming amount of bottled and carbonated extracts of the examined raw materials is used to determine the extent of the gushing potential. However, these analytical methods have disadvantages. The overfoaming amount can fluctuate, making it difficult to quantify the gushing potential precisely and the performance of these tests takes time (some days), which can lead to the unfavourable situation where the raw materials have already been processed before gushing could be detected. Therefore, the thematic priority of this review article is to present new ideas to quantify gushing more precisely and novel analytical approaches for the prediction of gushing by applying combined particle analysis.

The Gushing Experience—A Quick Overview

“…Besides the financial problems, the customer's desire to completely change the brand after a gushing experience contributes to the overall negativity towards this phenomenon. Note that gushing is not limited to only beer, but is a well-known occurrence in the carbonated beverages industry (fruit sodas, sparkling wines, champagnes, lemonades, and mineral water) [3][4][5][6].…”

Malting and Brewing Industries Encounter Fusarium spp. Related Problems

“…Fusarium species are known producers of mycotoxins, but they also excrete hyrophobins that cause gushing [35,[76][77][78][79][80][81]. Gushing can be described as uncontrolled, eruptive foaming of beer after a bottle has been opened, without previous shaking or any agitation (Figure 4).…”

Comparative studies about fungal colonization and deoxynivalenol translocation in barley plants inoculated at the base with Fusarium graminearum, Fusarium culmorum and Fusarium pseudograminearum

“…Most of FCR studies were focused on wheat, however, also barley through the years increased its importance, in parallel with the increase of the economic relevance of malt industry with the establishment of new microbreweries, especially in Italy (The Brewers of Europe 2015). Fungi belonging to the genus Fusarium represent unwanted microorganisms for the quality of final malt and beer as well as for beer consumers' health due to mycotoxin contamination related to their presence (Sarlin et al 2005, Wolf-Hall 2007, Christian et al 2011, Oliveira et al 2013, Bertuzzi et al 2011, Hückelhoven et al 2018. Furthermore, one of the main concerns of the malt industry is the gushing phenomenon (Garbe et al 2008), which, as reported by some authors, seems to be influenced by the presence of hydrophobins produced by FHB pathogens (Sarlin et al 2005, Nielsen et al 2014.…”