New varieties of barley for brewing industry

In the post-war Finland of the 1940s, VTT’s food industry laboratory had the task of inspecting and monitoring the quality of foodstuffs. The task was a demanding one, as the food shortage caused a flood of product substitutes into the market. The food industry laboratory’s grain quality research determined, for example, the baking quality of wheat flour.
VTT’s brewery laboratory, on its half, researched the quality and properties of Finnish malting barley. The research allowed the successful development of new varieties of barley, providing the Finnish brewing industry to achieve a raw material self sufficiency.

Functional foods

Today, VTT operates in cooperation with the industry, developing, for example, functional foods.  VTT has developed and patented a method for producing oat fraction to be used as food additive with a cholesterol-lowering effect. Hosokawa-Alpine AG acts as VTT’s industrial partner.

Efficient brewing process

VTT knows from what and how good beer is made. VTT has been the primary research partner of beer brewers’ cooperation organisation Panimolaboratorio Oy since 1959.

The research cooperation has, for example, made the beer brewing process more efficient: in the 70s, the normal processing time for beer was 10 weeks; thanks to process development, beer is now finished in a couple of weeks and is of even quality.

Analysing of shipwreck beer

In autumn 2010, the Åland provincial government gave VTT some beer bottles from an early-19th-century shipwreck found in the Åland archipelago.

VTT is currently analysing the contents of the bottles with the goal of recreating the original recipe.