Quality Control and Beer Science at Jack’s Abby Brewing Kate Steblenko Microbrew Quality Control and Beer Science at Jack’s Abby Brewing Kate Steblenko

Jack’s Abby Brewing Started in 2011 New Brewery opening this winter 2011 – 500 bbls 2012 – 1,500 bbls 2013 – 6,000 bbls 2014 – 14,000 bbls 2015 – 22,000 bbls 2016 – 50,000 bbls? New Brewery opening this winter ~5X bigger Lab space 60 ft2  270 ft2

The New Space Jack’s Abby Instagram

QA/QC team The highest in quality

Kate Steblenko Beer Scientist UVM 2013 graduate BS in Biochemistry and molecular genetics Resident nerd

Tim Wilson Quality Manager Siebel Institute of Technology & Doemens Academy – 2007 Runs sensory program Enjoys Corona

Sarah Pott QA/QC Technician Part time kegger Part time lab rat Full time push up champion Graduate of Drop-In’s American Brewers Guild program

Tasks Daily Weekly/Monthly Forced fermentations Cell counts Microbiology Fill heights Dissolved Oxygen Sensory Education Grist analysis

Forced Fermentations Naturally carbonated beers Bung timing Batch to batch consistency Wort quality Yeast health Conducted day after brew (as soon as entire batch is in tank if possible) Run for 1-2 days, until yeast floccs Bung tanks 1.1 plato above forced ferm gravity allows enough natural carbon dioxide evolution, goes into beer, gives us 2.4-2.7 co2 Compare wort fermentation between batches – change malt bill Monitor beers that have slowed or stalled

Cell Counts Current Future Adequate pitch Lager – 1.5 x 107 cells/ml/ Underpitching and overpitching Yeast health, growth, and viability Yeast propagation system Slurry counting Appropriate pitch 1.5 x 106 cells/ml/°P OG Flow meter on prop system  pitch exact volume needed Underpitching is a big problem beer won’t ferment well – off flavors and other bad stuff, might not finish at all Overpitching is also a problem ***off flavors related to overpitching Yeast health – monitor growth, viability – had a beer that was stalling, not doing what we wanted yeast had stall out, not replicating although we had an adequate pitch to start, it didn’t grow  stressed yeast  stressed beer Working on establishing a procedure to count yeast slurry currently cone to cone yeast pitching will be able to pitch the RIGHT amount, not simply “enough”

Microbiology Media Frequency HLP WLN/WLD Sampling Plating Anaerobic in 15 ml conical tubes Detects lactobacillus and pediococcus WLN/WLD Brewery related organisms Add cycloheximide to inhibit Saccharomyces species Sampling Day 1 Day 7 Brite tank Finished Product Plating Every 1-2 days Hu’s Lactobacillus Pediococcus media contains thioglycollate to scrub O2 out of solution Wallerstein Nutritional/differential media

Aseptic Technique You do not NEED a sterile hood! (although it REALLY helps!) Requires an undisturbed air space Limit movement in the air space as well as people moving around it Flame everything I can talk more about this later if anyone needs, if the workshop doesn’t teach it http://files.shroomery.org/files/13-20/874348262-Aseptic_Convection.gif

Plating – Past and Present Plate 1 mL of beer in process onto large petri dish Allow time to soak into plate Filter ~25 ml packaged beer through a 0.45 µM membrane Use autoclavable, glass filtration system Invert and incubate 4-6 days at 30°C, 10% CO2 Filter 10 ml of beer in process through a 0.45 µM membrane Biosart 100 monitors Plate onto small petri dish Invert, incubate anaerobically 4-6 days at 30°C, 10% CO2 Larger sample size means results are more reliable Peace of mind – filtering removes most bacteria, not missing anything Filter, funnel, and membrane in one From Weber - $1/each Completely sterile

Anaerobic Incubation Systems BD GasPak™ EZ Pouch System BD GasPak™ EZ Container System Avoid scary, expensive false positives Container reusable still need to buy saches ($70/20) for o2 removal can fit more, larger plates usually $300/box Pouch high quality ziploc bag fits fewer plates we can fit 16 small plates, or 4 larger plates ~$90-100/20 packs (slightly more than replacement saches (70-80) for boxes) we fill one pouch every 2 days ONCE SYSTEM HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED, CANNOT OPEN TO ADD MORE PLATES Eventual box systems maybe, once we have some more splash cash www.bd.com

A busy day in the hood Only WLD plating shown here Tools needed/used: sterile beer samples (ours in Whirl-Pak bags) 2 plates WLD media for each beer to be plated 1 sterile biosart 100 monitor flame source (we use blazer hand torch) tweezers in alcohol – flame before each use, allow to cool vacuum pump attached to hose **secondary flask for catching beer – our manifold replacement extra membranes sterile 10 ml serological pipetts

Fill Heights At least 3 months of data for TTB Use weights, final gravities, and math Adjust filler accordingly Underfill – unsellable Overfill – loss of product Total Packaged Oxygen 5 ml of overfill x 600 cases/run = 250 bottles of overfill 5 ml of underfill… bigger problems if someone comes knocking Goal fill height = 355 ml

Dissolved Oxygen Centrifugation Before bottling Adjust clamps, gaskets Before bottling Compare to post centrifuge levels Assess oxidation levels Purge with extra CO2 Throughout the bottling run Adjust FOB

Sensory Monthly sensory training Employee education Off flavors Warm aged bottles from time-points over the past few months Employee education Intentionally spiking hoponius union with off flavors from siebel determine thresholds of detection there are industry specs, but we want to see what our employees can do start with way above threshold, work our way back down Warm age 4 bottles from each run, test for shelf stability in worst case scenario www/pinkbootssoiety.com

Grist Analysis Analyze each new silo delivery Test sieve USA Standard test sieve No. 10 (2.00 mm) – No. 100 (150 µm) Still establishing specs Industry specs are one thing, but what matters is what works on your system We tried adjusting for some baseline industry specs after doing an analysis, ended up being too fine for our needs Brewery by brewery basis

Sizing up the Program Out with the old In with the new!

Our First Investment Tuttnauer 2450 Fits 4-6 500 ml media bottles

Future Improvements Liquid media Larger hood space Saves time, money, resources Only works with Biosart 100 monitors Larger hood space Less turbulence More room to move Permanent hood installation Manifold for vacuum pump Multiple samples at once Currently using solid agar media – time to pour, solidify, takes up hood space and time, wrapping, fridge space Hood space – less movement, less chance of contamination, more room to move – less chance of knocking stuff over, especially if doing HLP and WLD at the same time Manifold – can buy them, we’re in the process of making one adaptors available for Biosart 100 monitors, we found tubing that had the right diameter

New Lab, New Tools UV-Vis Spectrophotometer Alcolyzer IBU Color Diacetyl Alcolyzer Alcohol percentage Density pH Calories Dissolved O2 and CO2 meters ca.hach.com www.antonpaar.com uk.hach.com

Cheers! Kate Steblenko kates@jacksabbybrewing.com