Preliminary Study of the Effect of Short Maceration with Cherry and Oak Wood Chips on the Volatile Composition of Different Craft Beers

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript “ Effect of short maceration with cherry and oak wood chips on the volatile composition of different craft beers “ describes an interesting study about volatile component profile of different beer style, and the influence of wood chips maceration. This study is increasing knowledge about volatile component profile of  beer and the opportunity to shape the sensory profile during the beer making process.

The study is quite well described in all the sections, however more specific results should be reported in the different results section beside the tables: a specific comment has been reported for Line 255, but should be applied in principle to better describe the Results. Moreover, the manuscript will increase in clarity after an English mother tongue revision.

Detailed comments are added below: 

Line 90-91: Please add information about malt used for each beer, and mashing program (for the repeatability of the experiment. 

Line 98: in relation to “IBU”, please spell out the full term at its first mention. 

Lines 112-113: please add information about the beer carbonation process. 

Lines 156-158: this first sentence seems residual from the journal template, please delete. 

Lines 158-162: it is in the opinion of the reviewer that will be better to start the results paragraph with actual results and leave this part for the discussion. 

Line 188: Please add the mentioned references.

 Line 195 , 200 and 227 and in other part: the word “level” is used very many times, often in a less appropriate way, please check along the all manuscript and amend using different words. 

Line 218-220: In which range are the “long chain fatty acid esters” measured in this study, in relation to this statement? 

Line 221: Please add a reference in support of this statement. 

Line 223: in relation to “minor ethyl esters, it is not clear if the  Authors meant all the esters measured in the study or specific one. Please add the name of the specific name of the esters defined as “minor” 

Line 239-240: What do the Authors meant with “previous commented knowledge”? Please clarify. 

Line 244: “their” It is not clear if the Author are discussing the amount of acetic acid or the amount of beverage. Please clarify

 Line 244-249: This paragraph should be re-written in order to better clarify the fact under discussion, and the difference between the present study and the literature finding. 

Line 255-256: The results should described not leaving compound name and amount only to the table content. 

Line 263-271: It is not clear why the Authors are discussing acetaldehyde presence, since this compound was not detected in the study. Please clarify. 

Line 264-265: Please the Authors clarify the meaning of “degree of aging” 

Line 266-269: This sentence is not clear, please rephrase it. 

Line 280: Please add references 

Line 288: please add example of the “other” compound that can be derivative of the terpens and add the relation to possible derivative found in this study 

Line 292: in relation to “total level” please specify the specific grouped compounds or the category name.

 Line 321-322: please add information about the study/studies the Authors are talking about

 Line 323 Please change “Respect to” with “In respect of”

 Line 329-330: the word “beers” was repeated twice. Please modify the sentence.

 Line 361: Please change “equitable” with “equal”.

Table 1: please correct “Bana” with “Banana”

 

Quality of English can be improuve by a moderate Editing 

Author Response

Please see the attachment document containing all referee comments and authors answers.

All changes were made according to the referee sugestions.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The subject of the manuscript “Effect of short maceration with cherry and oak wood chips on the volatile composition of different craft beers” is interesting and useful for brewers who want to approach to the use of wood aging. I think the experimental design is a bit poor: a comparison between the untreated control and both woods for all types of beer would have been more useful. I recommend it for a  later work. In this case the experimental design cannot be modified, but I still think the results obtained, as a preliminary work, are interesting. I would therefore change the title to indicate that this is a preliminary study.

In the text there are two points to modify: the volume used in cardinal number (128) and linalool in table 2.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. All changes suggested by the referee were made and included in revised version of the manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

 Below are the comments and remarks to your manuscript

 Line 39 - do you man Lagers, not larger?

 Line 41 - Sentence suggest that beer is complex beverage, because it has many styles? I don’t think that it is the reason.

 Line 42-44 - It seems reasonable to mention the complexity of malts available for the production of beer, not only ‘barley’.

 Line 56 - beer style does not change beer volatiles. The brewing process, yeast and materials change the volatiles, so the beer would have an aroma typical for the beer style. Sentence suggests that just by changing beer style, the volatiles would be changed, which is not correct.

 Line 81-83 Ale and Lager are not ‘beer styles’ per se. This just shows whether the beer was fermented by top-fermenting yeast or bottom-fermenting yeast. Rephrase that part of the introduction. Porter is an Ale beer style.

 Section 2.1. What kind of malts were used and in what amount? Were there differences in the beer brewing technology? What was the temperature and time of the fermentation? What kind of hops and how long were they boiled? And, most of all - how it is possible to make Lager type beer using Safale S-04 yeast? It is Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast, top-fermenting. This is a huge flaw in the paper. You have produced an Ale and called it a Lager beer.

 Section 2.2. Aging Lager at 18 degrees? Why were bottles of beer stored at ambient temperature? Bottling was performed with refermentation or with addition of CO2? How much and in what way was CO2 added?

 Line 156-158. Please, read that section and erase it.

 Table 1.

 Various ethyl esters have fruity and floral aroma in lower concentration. It is not mentioned in the table.

 Table 2. The first letter in the homogenous groups should be given to the highest, not the lowest concentration.

 Line 257 Stout is an Ale.

 Line 289 different mechanisms, such as…? Please, add information.

 Line 301 And, very importantly, malt mashing.

 Figure 1 is described as Figure 2, please, correct it. Also, larger font size could be used to describe points on the PCA, as they are not readable very well.

 Further comments

Dear authors, please, don’t write “wood chip species”. These are species of trees, not species of wood chips. It sounds unprofessional.

 

Discussion and results sections are good, the introduction and Material and Methods section need to be improved. Also, please, rephrase “ale”, “lager” and “porter” throughout the manuscript, as the ales and lagers are not, precisely, beer styles but much larger groups. Also, actually, in the beer styles, there is no single “porter” style but various porters. If you insist in using beer styles, choose the proper one adequate for beer you used in the study.

 

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment containing all referee sugestions and authors answers. All changes were included in revised version of the manuscript according to the referee suggestions.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

 

thank you for making all the corrections. I believe that the manuscript is now of acceptable quality to be published in Beverages journal.