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» » Quality ControlAll aspects of quality control in the brewing of craft beverages
In the beginning of a brewery’s life span, the ownership and employees juggle several tasks and responsibilities across departments. Using the proper tool to store your data will take you a long way in your growth. But what you started using in the beginning may be missing the mark now.
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Production data is one of the most under-utilized assets in craft brewing. With a relatively minor amount of work, this data can be used to increase throughput, efficiency, raw material extraction, and beer quality. Learn how to utilize your production data through statistical process control, and turn it into something valuable.
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No matter how often we drink a beer, it’s not often we actually taste it. Our palates are the most critical instrument at our disposal, yet they are often underutilized or misused. How can you use lab techniques and instrumentation in conjunction with your senses to develop a quality assurance program for your brewery?
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My favorite part of any brewery tour is seeing the lab. It’s not that I’m a science nerd or even particularly conversant in what goes on in these scientific sanctuaries. A lab is a sign that a brewery takes quality serious enough to invest resources in pursuit of it.
Brewing is the perfect mix of science, creativity and craftsmanship. For many brewers, creating and improving on recipes, while maintaining a high quality product is a big part of their daily work. When brewers start to collect ongoing fermentation data across multiple batches over time, they can compare how small tweaks in the recipe or outside conditions can change the overall outcome of the fermentation.
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This presentation focuses on giving a deeper dive into an often times misunderstood and undervalued part of the brewing process – the grist. Preparing the grist for mash in is the first step in the brew day and is a vital part in ensuring that the system is as efficient as possible from the very beginning. We will talk about the tools needed to do a grist analysis, how to go about doing the grist analysis to get accurate results, interpreting those results, and what to do with the data once you have it.
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The make-up of water will vary, over time, with any municipal water system. To ensure good consistent brewing water that will produce a better product and a consistent product, knowing what is in your water is essential. Today, knowing that you can control the water make-up, right before brewing, allows you to control the taste and look of your brews.
For brewing, removal of unwanted chemicals through filtration, is step one. Control of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) levels is step two. The last step is the safety process of running your water through a UltraViolet (UV) light to remove the possibility of water contamination. All of this is possible with today’s technology.
The following are definitions and terms that all municipal water reports use. You can review your municipal water report by going to the web, searching “Water Report 11111” using your Zip code in place of the example “11111”.
Malt cleaning
Prior to milling it is highly recommended that malt undergo a cleaning process including a magnet to take out iron/metal materials.
Malt cleaning or polishing machine can be oscillating sieve type machine with aspiration to remove the dust particles and dirt. Some older machines are equipped with soft brushes.
When wet mills or malt conditioning systems are in use it is necessary to use a malt-cleaning machine. A de-stoner is also recommended which typically is combined with the malt-cleaning machine. When buying in bulk this is especially a concern. Typically bagged malt will be cleaned prior to bagging, but bulk malt can have small debris or pebbles that can damage the mill. Powerful rare earth magnets will collect this matter, attracting metal bits and attracting the iron in pebbles.
By Greg Noonan
You are a serious grain brewer. Whether you brew professionally, as a hobby, or as an obsession, you take pride in your beer. You do everything you can do to reproduce each of your recipes accurately from brew to brew. Or do you?
Like most serious brewers, you probably adjust your hopping rates to reflect the alpha-acid content of each new lot of hops you purchase, but do you adjust your grains for changes in color, moisture, and extract potential? Do you know that a mere 2% increase in the moisture content of a new lot of malt accompanied by a matching drop in the extract potential can drag the density of a 12 °Plato (S.G. 1.048) wort down to 11.5 °P (S.G. 1.046) or increase the cost of malt 31/2%? Do you know that the color of dark-roasted malts commonly varies by 25-50 °L from lot to lot, or that one maltster’s “dark crystal malt” may be 40-45 °L while another’s is 80-90 °L and someone else’s is 120-130 °L?
by Andrew Tveekrem
Of all the refillable beer containers currently in use, the modern beer keg is certainly one of the most difficult to analyze with standard quality control methods. Other refillable beer containers – bottles, growlers, serving tanks and bright beer tanks – are all relatively easy to inspect internally.
Even the old-style beer kegs had the filling port on the side through which an inspection lamp could be inserted. The modern keg, alas, has no such feature. This leaves the brewer in a bit of a quandary when it comes to verifying the effectiveness of his keg cleaning system.
By Robert M. Halcrow
J. E. Siebel Sons’ Co., Inc., Chicago, IL
Published in April 1962
From time to time significant variations occur in analytical data pertaining to the chemical and physical composition of beer from a given plant. In this discussion, we shall dwell mainly on the chemical changes that are sometimes encountered, and shall review some of the checks a brewer can make in his plant with the aid of outside assistance, if necessary, that will help identify the source or sources responsible for these real variations in his product.
It should go without saying that it is not our aim to thoroughly discuss each variable that occurs, but rather it is our intent to review some of the many factors that can bring about variations in beer analysis values. Practical causes rather than theoretical causes are stressed.
by Christopher White
Most brewery fermentations are carried out with reused yeast, but the question of how to store and maintain it frustrates even the most skilled brewers. It actually is not as difficult as some believe, and there are techniques that brewers can use to significantly lengthen the life span of their yeast.
The fact that we can take a byproduct of beer production – yeast – save it, and reuse it in successive fermentations is quite unique. We can do this because yeast is still alive and healthy after most beer fermentations. The low alcohol level in beer prevents the yeast from dying, as yeast does in wine production. The problem for most brewers, then, is not whether to reuse yeast but how to store it and keep it healthy for future brewing sessions.
by Michael J. Lewis
There are many definitions of quality; some are quite long. They fall into two general categories: (1) those definitions that refer to “excellence or fineness” and (2) those that simply refer to “defining characteristics.”
Naturally you are drawn to the first sort of definition but promptly run into the problem of what is “excellence or fineness” and who gets to decide. You soon realize that “excellence or fineness” very much reflects a personal bias or one’s life experiences and so has serious limitations as a definition for use in the working world of beer making. The second sort of definition avoids that pitfall and, although intrinsically duller, is more workable. Indeed the first definition of quality in Webster’s dictionary is “an essential distinctive property, characteristic, or attribute.” No nonsense about “fineness” there!
by Jamie Martin, Brewmaster, Dells Brewing Co.
The cleaning process and chemicals a brewer chooses vary widely from brewer to brewer and worksite to worksite; many factors contribute to the costs involved in this very important and essential aspect of brewery operation.
Chemical and equipment requirements are determined by the personal preference/training of the brewer as well as; mandated health/workplace code requirements, type of surface, contaminate (soil), and brewery environment.