Quality is both a system and a state of mind. Quality Labs for Small Brewers will walk you step-by-step through the process of establishing and writing a quality program for your brewery. Building an effective quality program will empower staff to directly influence the consistent production of safe, quality beer from grain to glass. Learn how policies, procedures, and specifications can help ensure quality throughout the process. Discover how to build a foundation and culture of quality within your brewery—no matter what the size—by establishing protocols, corrective actions, and improvements.

Brewers will see results through the application and implementation of prerequisite programs like Good Manufacturing Practices and food safety requirements. With these programs in place, dive beyond the numbers and build an understanding of a small brewer’s most important measurements and how to analyze them. These routines will help pinpoint any risks or areas of improvement and ensure that only quality beer reaches the customer, time after time.

Quality Labs for Small Brewers: Building a Foundation for Great Beer

Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction

About the Book

What I Assume About the Reader

The Structure of the Book

PART I—BUILDING A SOLID FOUNDATION

1. Food Safety Modernization Act

Introduction to the FSMA

Food Safety Terms

What the FSMA Means for Craft Brewers

Subpart A – General Provisions
Subpart B – Current Good Manufacturing Practice
Subpart D – Modified Requirements
Subpart E – Withdrawal of Qualified Facility Exemption
Subpart F – Requirements Applying to Records that Must Be Established and Maintained

What if my Facility is a Brewpub?
How Do I Comply?

2. Good Manufacturing Practice

What Is Good Manufacturing Practice?
GMP Requirements

Personnel
Plant and Grounds
Sanitary Operations
Sanitary Facilities and Controls
Equipment and Utensils
Processes and Controls
Warehousing and Distribution
Holding and Distribution of Human Food By-Products
Defect Action Limits

Culture of Food Safety and Quality First
Writing a GMP Manual
Self-Auditing

3. Food Safety Program

Setting Up a Food Safety Program

Identifying Potential Food Safety Hazards
Critical Control Points and General Control Methods
Critical Control Limits

Assembling a GMP/Food Safety Team

Put It in Writing

Monitoring Principles
Recall Planning

Types of Recall
Initiating a Recall
Mock Recalls

Resources

4. Standard Operating Procedures

Writing a Standard Operating Procedure

Level of Detail
Supporting Components
Using a Template

Implementation, Training, and Upkeep

5. Cleaning and Sanitation

Cleaning

Soils
Cleaners

Sanitation
Application Variables

Water
Temperature
Chemical Concentration
Mechanical Action
Time

PART II—BUILDING YOUR QUALITY PROGRAM

6. Starting Your Quality Program

Coming Up with Your Quality Plan

Quality Guidelines

Identifying Quality Control Points
Sampling Plan
Pulling It All Together

7. Writing a Quality Manual

Quality Policy
Quality Governance and Management: Roles in Implementation
Standard Procedures

Master Sanitation Schedule

Product Specifications
Consumer and In-House Complaints
Corrective Action Plan
Good Laboratory Practices
Calibration Plan

PART III—MEASUREMENTS

8. Useful Calculations and Equations

Calculations Involving Volume

Basic Volume Calculations
Volume and Temperature
Volume, Density, and Weight

Dimensional Analysis and Unit Conversions
Working with Solutions

Making Standard Solutions
Serial Dilutions
Mixing Equation
Scaling

9. Density

Defining Density
Specific Gravity and Plato
How to Measure Density

Hydrometer (Saccharometer)
Refractometer
Digital Refractometer
Digital Density Meter (Densitometer)
Alcolyzer

Where to Measure Density

Wort
Cellar
Package

Sampling Plan
Troubleshooting

General (Hydrometer)
Other Density Measurement Instruments

10. Temperature

Measuring Temperature

Temperature Scales
How to Measure
Where to Measure

Sampling Plan
Troubleshooting

11. pH

A Simple Explanation of pH
pH: A Closer Look

Hydrogen Ion Sources
Buffers

Measuring pH

How to Measure
Where to Measure

Sampling Plan
Troubleshooting

Calibrate pH Meter
Recipe Adjustment

12. Yeast

Yeast Management Toolbox

Microscope
Hemocytometer
Accessories
Viability stain
Automated Cell Counter

Microscope Basics
Getting to Know Your Hemocytometer
Serial Dilution
Viability

Methylene Blue
Limitations and Counting Rules
ASBC Yeast-3
Craft Brewers Quick Method

Pitch Rate
Where to Measure
Sampling Plan
Troubleshooting

13. Sensory Analysis

What is Sensory Analysis?
Sensory Program

What to Measure
Practice
Developing Brand Recognition, True-to-Brand
Formal Production Release Protocol
Data Collection Forms
Data Collection and Monitoring

Flavor Standards

Diacetyl
Diacetyl (VDK) Force Test

Goal Setting

14. Microbiology

Why a Microbiology Program?
Vectors for Microbial Contamination

Ingredients
Environment
Sterilization

Aseptic Technique

Aseptic Sampling
Aseptic Technique for Pouring Plates and Inoculation

Plating Cultures

Types of Media
Choosing the Right Media
Building Confidence in Your Results
Plating Methods

I Have Growth on My Plates!

Yeast Identification
Bacteria Identification
Document Your Results
Next Steps

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)

Bringing PCR into Your Brewery

Sampling Plan

15. Packaging

Selecting and Receiving Packing Materials
Fill Height
Closures

Can Seam Measurements
How to Measure Can Seams
Can Seam Sampling Plan
Bottle Seals
Secondary Tests

Date Coding
Container Lot Tracking
Labeling

16. Carbon Dioxide

Carbonation Level

Henry’s Law
Units

Where to Measure

Calculation of CO₂ as Related to Extract
Brite Beer Tanks
Kegs
Bottles and Cans
CO₂ Purity

How to Measure

Volume Meter
Digital Meter: Fixed Volume
Digital Meter: Volume Expansion
Spectrophotometry

Sampling Plan

Finished Beer before Carbonation
Finished Beer after Carbonation
After Packing Day

Troubleshooting

17. Dissolved Oxygen

How to Measure

Electrochemical DO Sensor
Optical DO Sensor

Where to Measure

Wort
Cellar
Package

Sampling Plan
Troubleshooting

18. Alcohol

How to Measure

Calculating ABV by Tracking Fermentation
Calculating ABV by Distillation
Near-Infrared (NIR) Spectrophotometry

Where to Measure
Sampling Plan
Troubleshooting

19. Titrations

Setting Up for a Titration
Titration of a Strong Acid with a Strong Base
How to Measure

Burette and Beaker
Auto-Titrator
Drop Count Titration Kits

Where to Measure

Phenolphthalein and Total Alkalinity Titrations
Titration of Cleaning Chemicals
Titratable Acidity in Beer or Wort

Sampling Plan
Troubleshooting

20. Spectrophotometry

Principles of Measurement
How to Measure
Where to Measure
Sampling Plan
Troubleshooting

PART IV—GETTING TO WORK

21. Setting Up Your Brewery Lab

One Goal, Different Approaches

The Retrofit Approach
The Collector Approach
The Build Out Approach

Budgeting
Lab Safety

Hazards Present in Brewery Labs

22. Introduction to Analysis

Variables
Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycle

23. Data Collection and Data Quality

Accuracy and Precision
Sources of Error
Mean, Normal Distribution, and Standard Deviation
Normal Distribution of Data

24. Data Organization and Analysis

Developing Brew Logs
Analyze Your Data

Getting Data into a Spreadsheet
Charting Best Practices
Charts Example: Process Over Time

Control Chart Basics: I-mR

I-Chart
mR Chart
Building an I-mR Chart Step-by-Step

Using Control Charts, Applying Rules

25. Continuous Improvement and Preventive Maintenance

Tools and Methodologies
Where Do I Start?
Preventive Maintenance
Continuous Improvement in Your Future
A Few Final Words
Final Words of Advice

Appendix A: Basic Good Manufacturing Practice Example
Appendix B: Example Recall Planning and Procedure

General Notes

Recall Plan in Eight Steps

Appendix C: How to Write an SOP

SOP Rising Tide 001: Procedure
Who writes and updates SOP?
Prepare to write the SOP
Write the first draft of SOP
Audit SOP draft
Write final draft of SOP
Train appropriate staff on SOP
Document control

Appendix D: QA/QC LAB: Equilibrated Package DO Samples
Appendix E: LAB: Forward Pipetting Technique
Appendix F: Common Units and Conversions
Appendix G: Brewery Lab Start-Up Budget Estimate
Appendix H: Control Charts Constants and Formulas
Appendix I: Brew Log Example
Bibliography
Index