Bitter acid and antioxidant rich ella hop extract

Abstract

Hops (Humulus lupulus L.) and their products are widely utilized in the brewing industry, added primarily to provide the characteristic beer bitterness, aroma and taste. Besides the extensive use in the brewing industry, novel applications of various hop products, including mainly extracts, in food, agricultural, pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and cosmetic industries are fuelled by the research on the beneficial health effects of hop phytochemicals. The hop essential oils, bitter acids, polyphenols have numerous reported bioactive properties such as sedative, neuroprotective, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-carcinogenic, antimicrobial activities etc. In order to meet the demands of the functional food, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries, hop extracts with different properties and bioactive compound assemblies will be required. Therefore, this work presents the pilot-scale production of extract from dual purpose hops cv. Ella via optimized supercritical CO2 extraction (SFE-CO2) combining high yield and bitter acid recovery with strong oxygen radical scavenging capacity. Since the infrastructure for hop processing into SFE-CO2 extracts is already available, therefore, the manufacturing of hop bioactive compound-rich extract can be upscaled as well.