KU Undergraduate Research
HPLC Analysis of Hops
Travis Danenhower, Leyna Force,
Ken Petersen and Dr. Tom Betts
Hops have been used for centuries
to flavor brewed beverages. The compounds present in hop flowers that are
responsible for imparting bitter flavors to these beverages are a class of
compounds known as alpha-acids.
The
alpha acids contained in hop flowers are not extremely bitter, but when they
are heated in boiling wort, a portion of the alpha-acids are isomerized (undergo
a structural rearrangement) to extremely bitter compounds known as iso-alpha-acids.
In
order to brew beverages consistently, many variables must be controlled. One
of those important variables is the amount of alpha-acids that are added to
the wort. Most published methods for the analysis of hops by high performance
liquid chromatography require approximately 30 minutes to run one sample. We
wanted to analyze hops as a lab in one of our analytical courses, so Travis,
Leyna and Ken worked on developing and testing a method to analyze hops by HPLC
in a much shorter time frame. They were able to reduce the analysis time from
approximately 30 minutes to under 7 minutes!
The
results of this research by Travis, Leyna and Ken have been accepted for publication
in the Journal of Chemical Education.
