Designing New Yeasts for Craft Brewing: When Natural Biodiversity Meets Biotechnology
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper from Iaticci and coworkers gives an excellent overview of new trends in the brewery. It highlights the importance of Saccharomyces yeasts and their different physiological and genetic characteristics for beer production. The manuscript is excellently written and can be published in this form after some minor corrections.
Pictures: Numbers and explanations are usually subtitled. This journal makes probably no exception.
Line 141, Figure 3: quality and clarity appears somewhat poor. Suggest replacing it with a table showing the main genetic differences (sugar utilization, tolerances) between the different Saccharomyces yeast types (wild yeast and industrial strains).
Line 177: MAL1 or MAL31?
Line 526: Table 2 something wrong here
Line 541-543: Funding & Acknowledgements incomplete
Author Response
RESPONSE TO CRITICISMS ARISEN FROM R1
We thank very much Reviewer 1 (R1) for his/her valuable suggestions. We have corrected manuscript point by point, as described below.
1.1. Pictures: Numbers and explanations are usually subtitled. This journal makes probably no exception.
Answer 1.1. Thanks, we modified titles and subtitles of pictures.
1.2. Line 141, Figure 3: quality and clarity appear somewhat poor. Suggest replacing it with a table showing the main genetic differences (sugar utilization, tolerances) between the different Saccharomyces yeast types (wild yeast and industrial strains).
Answer 1.2. We apologize for the lack of clarity in explaining Figure 3. Figure 3 depicts marker-assisted selection of novel starter culture. Deciphering the genetic basis of brewing traits in high performant starter cultures can drive the development od novel brewing yeasts. We modified text and caption to better explain this point.
1.3. Line 177: MAL1 or MAL31?
Answer 1.3. We referred to as Gonçalves et al 2016 which found expansion of MAL31 genes in brewing strains.
1.4. Line 526: Table 2 something wrong here
Answer 1.4. I’m sorry, we added appropriate caption.
1.5. Line 541-543: Funding & Acknowledgements incomplete
Answer 1.5. We apologize for this typo. We corrected funding section and deleted Acknowledgements.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This review provides an overview of the currently available studies about the application of starter cultures for beer production. Both the advantages and limitations to improve novel craft beer production are explored. The topic is very interesting and references are updated.
The review is exceptionally long. The authors don’t provide logical explanation and critical analysis of cited works.
Abstract should be reduced and focused on the aim of review.
The first part is very boring since it reports well known concepts and the approach is scholastic. The main criticism is the absence of critical analysis.
Author Response
RESPONSE TO CRITICISMS ARISEN FROM R2
We thank very much Reviewer 2 (R2) for his/her valuable suggestions. We have corrected manuscript point by point, as described below.
2.1. The review is exceptionally long. The authors don’t provide logical explanation and critical analysis of cited works.
Answer 2.1. We tried to remove some redundant parts of the manuscript. We also provided a more critical perspectives on works discussed in the text.
2.2. Abstract should be reduced and focused on the aim of review.
Answer 2.2. We shorted the abstract.
2.3. The first part is very boring since it reports well known concepts and the approach is scholastic.
Answer 2.3. We shorted the introduction by delating the most conventional concepts. However, we think that some basic notions are required to introduce and explain the topic to readers not specifically working on brewing sector.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper has been improved.
