The effect of the multi-stage process of wheat beer brewing on the behavior of pesticides according to their physicochemical properties

Abstract

Cereal grain as an output product in beer production might be contaminated by pesticides used for crop protection, which are then transferred into beer. Therefore, the aim and novelty of this comprehensive study was the multistep assessment of the herbicide, fungicides, and insecticides transfer from unprocessed wheat grain to malt, mash, boiled wort, wort boiled with hops and beer according to pesticide physicochemical properties. The results indicated that the highest reduction of the herbicide prosulfocarb (86 %), insecticide cypermethrin (79 %), and fungicide thiophanate-methyl (88 %) were noticed during malting. The highest processing factor in mash was determined for benzimidazole fungicide (0.61). Triazoles and strobilurin were degraded to the greatest extent in beer (96 %). The principal component analysis revealed that molar mass and octanol-water partition coefficient are the most correlated with the effectiveness of pesticide reduction. The results of this study are crucial in the beer industry and enable an increase in consumer safety.