FDSN Seminar Series: Devanshu Mehta

The Department of Food Science and Nutrition presents its fall 2023 seminar series featuring guest speaker Devanshu Mehta, scientist for Impossible Foods’ innovation team, who will give a presentation on “Introduction to Brewing: Beer Fermentation Process.” This seminar is open to the public and will take place on Zoom from 12:45–1:45 p.m. on Thursday, October 5.

Abstract

Beer is an alcoholic beverage that is produced by the fermentation of the sugar extracts of malted barley during the mashing process by yeast. The major steps in the brewing process include wort production, fermentation, carbonation, and packaging. The quality of beer produced is dependent on varieties of factors such as malt type, sugars present, fermentation time and temperature, yeast type, and finally, storage. Another interesting phenomenon which occurs during the fermentation process is the ability of yeast to settle to the bottom. This process is known as yeast flocculation. It is an inexpensive way to attain a filtered beer. This talk will highlight the various steps in a beer fermentation process and impact of various processing parameters and ingredients on the final product.

Bio

Devanshu Mehta, graduated from Illinois Tech’s Institute for Food Safety and Health (IFSH) in 2014 with an M.S. in Food Processing Engineering. He worked with John L. Koontz on the determination of diffusion coefficients of organic compounds released from PET and Nylon food packaging materials using a dynamic vapor permeation analyzer system. His early industrial experience was at Bemis North America (now Amcor) where he worked on various food packaging solutions including antimicrobial packaging, HPP and food and package migration. Later, he pursued his Ph.D. in Food Science from University of Florida with a focus on fermentation. He also interned at PepsiCo in the R&D Seasonings team before moving to Impossible Foods as a scientist in their innovation team. 

Mehta’s major roles is focused on process scale up and formulation for new plant-based technology. Apart from work and academia, Mehta is a Liverpool soccer fan. He also enjoys traveling and exploring new cuisines. 

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