Determination of Furfural in Beer by High- Performance Liquid Chromatography with Solid-Phase Extraction

Mei Li^1,2, Zhaoxia Yang¹, Mei Yang¹, Lianju Shan¹ and Jianjun Dong¹
¹ Research Center of Tsingtao Brewery Group, Qingdao 266061, Shandong, People’s Republic of China.
² Corresponding author
E-mail: limei@tsingtao.com.cn.

J. Inst. Brew. 115(3), 226–231, 2009 | VIEW ARTICLE

ABSTRACT
Furfural is a sensitive indicator of beer staling. A new solidphase extraction (SPE) column PEP-SPE (Polar-Enhanced Polymer, 500 mg/6 mL) was used to develop a method for extraction of furfural from beer. The PEP-SPE column retains furfural with higher selectivity than the commonly used C18-SPE column. Satisfactory precisions were obtained with %RSD (n = 6) less than 2.2% for peak areas. Recovery rates were in the range of 99.7–100.1% due to the simple treatment and good resolution. The detection limit was 5 μg/L. Furfural concentration ranged from 10 to 32 μg/L in twelve fresh beer samples. A noticeable increase in furfural content was found after beer samples were kept at 35°C for seven days. The calculated correlation coefficient between taste panel scores for beer freshness and the furfural content of aged beer samples was –0.65, which showed a good inverse correlation between freshness marks and furfural content.

Key words:
beer freshness, furfural, HPLC, SPE.