Brewer's Spent Grain Mixing for Uniform Nutrient and Flavor Profiles
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Solution Overview
Problem
The brewing industry faces challenges in producing uniform brewer's spent grain (BSG) products due to variations in nutritional composition, flavor, and color from different breweries and beer production types, making it difficult to upscale and customize BSG products reliably, and leading to potential delivery issues and waste.
Innovation Solution
A method involving a system with receptacles containing BSG, a database for nutrient, flavor, and color information, and a controller with input means and delivery devices to meter and mix BSG based on user inputs for specific compositions, ensuring uniformity in nutrient content, flavor, and color regardless of the source.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If BSG from multiple breweries and beer types is used to increase supply reliability and avoid waste, then the availability and sustainability of BSG products improve, but the uniformity of nutritional composition, flavor, and color deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments BSG from different breweries and beer types into separate batches, each characterized and stored individually. This allows the system to maintain distinct identities of different BSG sources while combining them through controlled mixing to achieve target compositions, thus preserving supply reliability while managing composition uniformity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the composition parameters of BSG mixtures by adjusting the proportions of different BSG batches. Through database-driven calculations and controlled mixing, the system transforms variable input BSG sources into consistent output products with uniform nutritional composition, flavor, and color matching user specifications.
2Stability of the object's composition
If BSG from a single brewery is used to ensure uniform composition, then the uniformity of nutritional composition, flavor, and color is maintained, but the vulnerability to delivery problems and production scale changes increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system merges multiple BSG batches from different breweries and beer types into unified mixtures. By combining these diverse sources according to calculated proportions, the system creates products with consistent composition while reducing dependency on any single brewery's delivery reliability and production capacity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a universal mixing platform that can accommodate BSG from any brewery and any beer type. This multi-functional approach allows the system to source BSG universally from multiple providers while still producing uniform products, thereby eliminating vulnerability to single-source delivery problems.
3Productivity
If BSG from different breweries and beer types is mixed to utilize all available BSG and avoid waste, then the efficiency of BSG utilization improves, but the complexity of managing variable compositions increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs self-service through automated database-driven calculations and controlled mixing processes. The database automatically determines optimal mixing ratios based on BSG characteristics and user specifications, eliminating the need for manual composition management and reducing operational complexity while maximizing utilization of available BSG resources.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback through database storage and retrieval of BSG composition data. By continuously characterizing BSG batches, storing their properties, and using this information to adjust mixing ratios, the system automatically manages variable compositions and ensures consistent product quality despite the diversity of input materials.
4Ease of manufacture
If manual mixing methods are used to prepare BSG products, then the simplicity of the process is maintained, but the precision of achieving target nutritional composition, flavor, and color deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system replaces manual mixing operations with automated delivery devices controlled by a database-driven system. This substitution of mechanical control with automated systems based on stored composition data enables precise achievement of target nutritional composition, flavor, and color while maintaining ease of manufacture through standardized automated processes.
Data Source
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AI summary
The present invention relates to a method of preparing a mixture of brewer's spent grain having a composition corresponding to a requested user input. In particular, the present invention relates to a method for preparing uniform mixtures of brewer's spent grain from different compositions of brewer's spent grain having different nutrient content, flavour and colour, and said uniform mixture of brewer's spent grain corresponds to a user request. Further, the present invention relates to a mixture of brewer's spent grain and use of the mixture of brewer's spent grain in food products.