CHROMATOGRAPHY, Vol. 33 (2012), No. 3, pp. -167

Responding to increasing consumer demands for food safety, food and brewing makers have to present possible risks of contaminating their products, based on analytical data. There are various substances that can threaten the food safety, such as pesticides, mycotoxins, and veterinary medicines. LC-MS/MS analysis is a prevailing technique for the detection of these substances in food. Mycotoxins are especially frequent contaminants of agricultural products, and brewers are concerned that they can give serious damages to their products. In this study, a multi-residue method for the analysis of fourteen mycotoxins without any carry-over was developed. Using this method, the fates of mycotoxins in the courses of beer were investigated. The ground malt was artificially contaminated with the fourteen mycotoxins and was brewed on a laboratory scale. The samples taken at certain key stages in the brewing processes were analyzed by LC-MS/MS. Through the processes, many of the mycotoxins showed a reduction in concentration, and some of these resolved during the fermentation. This result suggests that the risks of contaminating beer with mycotoxins were reduced remarkably after the brewing.