Sensory panels will require some work up front in terms of training, but after that they cost very little, and they can provide some extremely important data. Micro sampling on fermenters, brite tanks and packaged product are also fairly cheap to perform, but good aseptic technique and sterile containers are a must. Real Ale checks it with a headspace air tester, which run around $2,000 and are inexpensive to maintain and use. Erwin said the constant and intensive monitoring of headspace air and total package oxygen has been maybe their biggest lifesaver. Package headspace air is really important. If he had to boil that list down to the musts: The only processes that carry a real price tag are the IBU, SRM and ATP equipment. The micro revealed a small level of anaerobic contamination so the entire run pre re-pasteurization was held and dumped.”Įrwin believes a small brewery should be able to handle everything in that list. “We had already run 600 cases or more by the time we noticed it. “We once had the booster heater for the filler go out and therefore the pasteurization of the filler was not at the correct temperature,” Erwin said. When Erwin says they perform a “full micro” on all batches, he is looking for anaerobic and aerobic plate counts, sacchromyces wild yeast plate counts and non-sacchromyces wild yeast plate counts. Sensory panels tasting cold aged product at month intervals.Forced wort testing checks the hot side CIP and heat exchanger integrity.Full micro on all packaging runs and switches from brand to brand.Brewing and cellar staff taste and inspect all package runs.Full micro testing on every batch about 24 hours after the pitch and 1 week after the pitch.Yeast counts and viability on every pitch.Brewers take pH and gravity readings on all batches.
Inspection of crowns, labels, fill levels, glue pattern on boxes, date stamps on bottles, cans and boxes.Package headspace sire readings and crown crimp checks.Here is everything he identified under Real Ale’s QA program:
Thomas Erwin is the brewery’s lab specialist. Located in Texas, Real Ale Brewing is in its 19th year and produces around 65,000 to 70,000 barrels (bbls) per year, with all of its distribution contained inside the state of Texas. Maybe there is a task or two you’ve been overlooking in your own operation. We reached out to a couple established craft breweries to hear about the composition of their quality assurance (QA) programs.
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