Tasks of improving product quality in the brewing and distilling industries

Food safety means finally that food must not contain any chemical components harmful for human health, on the one hand, and must meet similar requirements also from a microbilogical point of view, on the other. In this aspect short drinks and refined alcohol cannot cause any problem deriving from the technology of manufacturing or from composition. Thus, in case of these products such chemical components are essential for food safety as may be harmful for the human organism. The possible components are: - technological components which may get into the product in the course of manufacture; - volatile components deriving from raw materials or their volatile decomposition products; - by-products of a possible harmful fermentation; - toxic componets that may be dissolved from packaging materials, such as: plastic bottles, plastic or cork stoppers. In case of beer heavy metal contamination deriving from the raw material containing carbohydrate and toxins produced by moulds deserve special interest. Numerous international tests have proved that fumonisins, ochratoxin-A, aflatoxin, zearalenone, and their metabolites often contaminate the final product. Microbiological contamination may cause defects in flavour and turbidity, shorten the time of storability and increase the concentration of biogenic amins. As for the present aituation in the field of the products of the brewing and distilling industries of Hungary, it can be asserted that they are conform to the rules of the Hungarian Food Book which meet EU regulations. A number of companies is endeavouring to introduce the TQM system which analyses product quality not in an isolated way but in connection with problems of raw material and energy consumption, and environmental pollution. In order to obtain high-quality products, yeasts used in manufacture must be selected for osmotic resistance, alcohol tolerance, good flocculation, freezing and cooling resistance, killer properties, etc. In respect of analytics the detection of mycotoxins and their metabolites deserves special interest. In the field of fruit brandies preparations must be made to origin protection and certfication, as well as to fast and reliable detection of falsification