BY NATHAN SANBORN AND HALEY CAMPBELL RISING TIDE BREWING COMPANY

Quality Control for the Little Folk: SIMPLE THINGS THAT SMALL BREWERIES CAN DO TO

HAVE CONFIDENCE IN THEIR BEER

Overview

● History of Rising Tide Brewing Co. ○ Experience of a Beer Recall ○ Our Early Program

● Why QA/QC? ● QA/QC Program ○ Standard Operating Procedures ○ Record Keeping and Traceability ○ Data Analysis ○ Sensory Program ○ Laboratory Work

● Costs, Time Requirements, and Difficulty

A Quick History

A Quick History

● Founded October 2010 ● 12 yrs homebrewing

experience ● 1 BBL nano ● 145 bbls first full year

A Quick History

● Expanded spring 2012 ● 15 bbl brewhouse ● 2x30, 1x7 FVs ● First hires ● First beer shipped out of

state ● 500 bbls in 2012

Experience of a Beer Recall

● Just before New Year’s 2014, <<RING RING>>: Broken Ursa Minor bottles in the market

● Testing showed refermentation in the bottles

● Recall? Recall. ● Going out of business?

Our Early Program

● Standardized procedures ● Testing of solutions ● Sensory ● Basic lab analysis ○ Forced fermenations ○ Wort stability ○ Beer spoilers

Original Business Plan QA/QC

Why QA/QC?

Why QA/QC?

● COMPETITION ● RESPONSIBILITY ● CONFIDENCE

Our QA/QC Program

● Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) ● Record Keeping and Traceability ● Data Analysis ● Sensory Program ● Laboratory Work

Standard Operating ProceduresI’ve been

brewing for 8 years and I still have to check

the SOPs!

Standard Operating Procedures

● Every task at the brewery should have a written SOP, and the SOPs should be organized and easily accessible to all.

Record Keeping & Traceability

Record Keeping & Traceability

● Well-organized, informative record keeping procedures are necessary to promote real-time and long-term quality

A second person signs off on the malt for each batch

Mash data including panel vs sample temps

Batch data for traceability

Final runnings & kettle gravity, volume, pH

Kettle additions

Whirlpool and KO dataGravity/pH to FV

Tracking actual times throughout the brew process is important data.

Sheet is designed to capture all the important data.

Organized around the way OUR brew process runs.

Record Keeping & Traceability

Mark weighed and milled. Jared checked the weights. Questions? We know with whom to check.

Spence averaged temps from 3 samples. Mash temp was 2 degrees low from target. Will inform expected attenuation.

No final runnings data. Why?

Efficiency well off expected. Too much sparge water remaining in MLT? Slightly higher than optimal pH? Lower mash temps? We have data to compare to other brews.

Record Keeping & Traceability

Yeast information is recorded for every batch

Forced ferment results can be useful on certain batches

Expected cellar schedule is listed here.

Graph of gravity over time allows you to see how fermentation is progressing

Record Keeping & Traceability

Cell counts and viability are done in the lab and did not get transferred here. Missing data!

Regular cell counts of fermenting beer are a goal but out of reach at this time due to time constraints. House yeast beers are very predictable, however.

Diacetyl test results. More on this later.

This is a very typical fermentation curve for our IPA. We can easily compare batches visually and we monitor the progress of these curves closely.

Record Keeping & Traceability

Record Keeping and Traceability

• Yeast brinks all have detailed coding

Record Keeping & Traceability

Beer Library ● A physical record of all

your beer with identifiable coding over the course of its shelf-life

GOOD

WHAT?

● How important is record keeping and traceability? ● With UM recall, first reported data was sketchy,

appeared to indicate batch 176. ● Batch 176 tested within spec. ● Suspected bad glass, got glass supplier involved. ● Wait… More reports…. Better batch data… The

batch was actually 168.

Record Keeping & Traceability

UM 13-1 168 10/7/13

● Packaged gravity was 1.018 ● Tested at -1.005 s.g. from package gravity ● RECALL!

Record Keeping & Traceability

Data Analysis

QUARTER

Data Analysis

FERMENTATION LENGTH BY SEASON

Data Analysis

DAYMARK AMERICAN PALE ALE

URSA MINOR WEIZEN STOUT

Days

Spec

ific

Gra

vity

Days

Spec

ific

Gra

vity

Fermentation Profiles

Cell

coun

t (m

illio

ns)

Generation

Data Analysis

Sensory Program

Sensory Program

Goals ➢ True to Type (TTT) recognition ➢ Off-flavor recognition and identification ➢ “Rising Tide” character familiarity ➢ Ingredient familiarity ➢ Discover (in)sensitivities and personal preference

Sensory Program

Implementation ➢ Training ➢ Dedication ➢ Repetition ➢ Variety ➢ Feedback and reward

Sensory Program

Materials ● Beer! ● Off-flavor kits ○ Siebel Institute of

Technology ○ Aroxa ○ FlavorActiv ○ Make your own

● Information ○ ASBC, MBAA, literature,

other breweries

Laboratory Work

Laboratory Work

Wort Sterility Test ● A sterile sample taken

from the heat exchanger that is incubated or allowed to sit at room temperature and visually examined for any signs of fermentation

Laboratory Work

Cell Counting ● The single most important

thing you can do for your beer!

Laboratory Work

COUNTING CELLS IS EASY!

Laboratory Work

Gravity/Temperature/ pH Monitoring

● Should be done on every fermenting beer every day!

Laboratory Work

VDK Force Test ● Heat a sample of beer that

has reached terminal gravity, cool it back down, and assess for diacetyl aroma.

The beer has the final say on when we proceed…

…not the sales or accounting departments!

Laboratory Work

Dissolved Gas Monitoring ● Zahm & Nagel make different CO2

detection devices ● A few different companies

sell dissolved oxygen meters suitable for breweries

Laboratory Work

Selective & Differential Media ● Many different media that

you can prepare yourself, or buy pre-poured.

Laboratory Work

Selective and Differential Media

● Hsu’s Lactobacillus and Pediococcus (HLP) medium

Outsourcing and “In”sourcing

● White Labs’ Big QC Day

• Brewing and Distilling Analytical Services, LLC

• Alpha Analytics®

Costs, Time Requirements, and Difficulty

● Most of what we discussed today is quick and easy to perform or implement and requires little special equipment beyond what you already have.

● The exceptions are worth the extra time, money and effort

Costs, Time Requirements, and Difficulty

● Get your record keeping in order! FREE! Minimal ● Sensory! $250 30 min/session

○ Beer, spikes kit, pitcher(s)

● Wort Stability! $50 30 sec/brew ○ Whirl Pak sterile sample bags

● Cell counting! $300 10 min/count ○ Microscope, hemacytometer, pipettes, meth blue, test tubes

● Beer spoilers! $400 45-60 min/week ○ HLP media, sterile test tubes and pipettes, (enough for 700 tests!)

hot plate, graduated cylinders, flasks, beakers

Then build from here!

TASK COST TIME

What to do with a $1000 budget?

In conclusion…

If you have the finances to open a brewery and the

knowledge and skills to brew beer, you can develop a QC program. Start building your program now!

Thank you!

● Questions? Comments?

● Feel free to contact either of us in the future Nathan: nathan@risingtidebrewing.com Haley: haley@risingtidebrewing.com