Yeast Biocapsules - a completely natural yeast immobilization technique for wine production

Yeast immobilization techniques aim to confine cells in a support in order to preserve their biological activity, allowing better control of sequential inoculations and helping to solve frequent problems such as fermentation stops or difficult filtrations. However, its use in wineries is not very widespread, possibly due to the concept that adding synthetic material to wine is not positive.

The use of yeast biocapsules (YB) is a totally natural form of immobilization where the support is an inert multicellular fungus, considered as a GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) substance. However, this technique presents a lower number of immobilized cells compared to other immobilization systems. To solve it, recent studies have been carried out in order to increase the level of immobilization.

In her presentation on the occasion of Enoforum Web, Minami Ogawa describes the results obtained in her research work, which has recently received several awards, such as the "2018 ASEV Best Paper" and the "2019 Emilio Botín" award, arousing great interest within the wine industry.

Video of Minanmi Ogawa's presentation on the occasion of Enoforum Web (May 5-7, 2020)

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