Team Sorgholi Develops Gluten Free Beer for Capstone Project
Chemical Engineering students Mike Flaherty, Eric Gilmore, Nancy Ho and Nicholas Woodward developed Sorgholi, a 100% gluten-free beer company using greener energy practices. The capstone project was impressive for being locally sourced and environmentally conscious.
Team Sorgholi successfully developed a primary novel trade secret formulation that utilized all gluten-free ingredients (to be later refined for optimized flavor profiles). Sustainability initiatives included designing the plant's electricity needs to be fully met with onsite solar, implementing a CO2 recovery system, and utilizing a boiler heat recovery system. Their economic analysis predicted a positive net present value after four years. The toughest challenges the group faced involved developing a tasty gluten-free beer formulation, and including the company's green energy practices into the process flow diagram.
The team name “Sorgholi” was inspired by the sorghum plant genus, the extract of which is a key component of their gluten-free beer recipes. The inspiration for the project idea came to the team over the summer, when they all agreed that gluten free beer would be a powerful project idea.