Yeast production
Alfa Laval's involvement in industrial fermentation began in the 1890s with the development of a centrifuge for harvesting baker's yeast. Today, we support every step of the yeast production process—from molasses pretreatment and yeast fermentation to dewatering and waste disposal. Whether you're operating at laboratory scale or in a large production plant, we guarantee product quality, operational reliability, and maximum efficiency for all baker's yeast, fodder yeast, and yeast extract needs.
Maximize yeast production efficiency
- Optimized pretreatment
- Superior yeast extraction
- Cost-effective design
- Flexible scalability
- Sustainable solutions
Efficient yeast production is crucial for various industries, including baking and brewing. Alfa Laval's comprehensive yeast production solutions ensure optimal performance at every stage—from molasses pretreatment and fermentation to yeast extraction and concentration. Our advanced equipment, including membrane filtration, heat exchangers, and high-speed separators, guarantees product quality, operational reliability, and energy efficiency. With Alfa Laval, you benefit from reduced operational costs, sustainable practices, and the flexibility to adapt to evolving production needs. Alfa Laval’s global expertise in yeast production and fermentation processes helps you achieve consistent results while maintaining the highest industry standards.
Yeast Production Process
Efficient yeast production begins with the crucial pretreatment phase, where the removal of suspended solids—such as sand, mud, and clay—is vital. Proper removal with equipment such as strainers and hydrocyclones ensures that sugar losses are minimized, preventing the need for additional wash water later in the process, which can add unnecessary costs. Alfa Laval’s molasses pretreatment systems are expertly designed to integrate key equipment from our core product areas, including fluids handling, separation, evaporation and heat transfer. Leveraging Alfa Laval’s extensive experience and process expertise ensures that you achieve superior product quality, operational reliability, and maximum efficiency.
Heating, Cooling, and Temperature Control
Throughout the entire yeast production process, Alfa Laval heat exchangers are essential for precise heating, cooling, and maintaining steady temperatures. Our heat exchangers are specifically designed to meet the stringent demands of the yeast production industry, featuring sanitary designs, close temperature control, rapid response times, minimal product hold-up, and full clean-in-place (CIP) capability.
Yeast Extraction Process
Yeast Extract Concentrate
Alfa Laval’s advanced yeast extraction solutions are ideal for manufacturing yeast extracts from baker's yeast or recovered brewer's yeast. During controlled autolysis, yeast cell proteins are solubilized, and cell walls are separated and cleaned using high-performance centrifugal separators, ensuring maximum product recovery. Membrane filtration systems can be employed for polishing and pre-concentration before the final concentration by evaporation. The resulting yeast extract concentrate is typically dried and sold as a powder, meeting high industry standards for quality.
Industry Standards
Since the early days of the yeast industry, Alfa Laval has been a pioneer in developing cutting-edge separation technologies. Today, our equipment is the industry standard for both baker’s yeast and yeast extract production. With proprietary features such as Vortex nozzles, pneumatic actuated discharge, and complete CIP capabilities, Alfa Laval equipment delivers unmatched performance. Our membrane technology, when combined with traditional high-speed separators, further enhances product quality by selectively removing soluble components and improving downstream processing efficiency.
Cost and Space Efficiency
Alfa Laval’s AlfaVap and AlfaCond units offer superior cost efficiency and space savings compared to conventional shell-and-tube evaporators and condensers. These systems deliver significantly higher thermal efficiency, requiring much less heat transfer area, which results in lower investment and maintenance costs without compromising reliability or safety. The compact and flexible designs of AlfaVap and AlfaCond save valuable space and reduce erection and installation costs, while allowing for easy capacity adjustments by adding or removing plates. With over 1,500 installations worldwide, the success of these systems speaks for itself.
In addition to the benefits of AlfaVap, further cost savings can be achieved by using our custom membrane technology solutions for the concentration of yeast extracts and effluent treatment (vinasse). This technology can be implemented as a pre-concentration step before evaporation, offering cost savings for new production lines and enabling the de-bottlenecking of existing processes.
Sustainable Production
Alfa Laval is committed to sustainable production practices. Our membrane technology is designed to reduce environmental impact and effluent treatment costs by concentrating evaporator condensate, producing a clean water stream for reuse, and minimizing waste streams with high BOD/COD loading. This approach not only supports environmental sustainability but also enhances overall process efficiency.
Other Alfa Laval Fermentation Applications
Alfa Laval’s expertise and equipment extend beyond yeast production, serving a wide range of fermentation applications. Our solutions are also used in the production of algae, amino acids, fodder yeast, organic acids, polysaccharides, vitamins, enzymes, and single-cell proteins, making us a trusted partner in the fermentation industry.
