Yeast is the essence of brewing and proper yeast management is vital to every brewery. Precise, repeatable and economical yeast concentration measurement techniques are key to insuring your breweries success and production performance.
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NIR absorption is the most widely accepted means of making these biomass measurements. It is reliable, cost effective, low maintenance and easily validated and does not interfere with cell health.
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Brewing Yeast Management Benefits |
- Reduce fermentation cycle time – maximize cellar capacity
- Reduces product loss and provides a uniform product for filtration
- Provide precise dosing capabilities
- Optimize waste yeast sales yields
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| Yeast Dosing |
Yeast dosing can be done precisely, and inexpensively, using a technique called differential NIR absorption. Using two sensors, the first or upstream sensor is used to “baseline” the wort turbidity. This sensor often can double as a whirl pool outlet monitor, or a cold break monitor, depending on its location in the brew-house. The second or downstream sensor is located after the yeast injection point, prior to any air injection. This sensor measures the combined yeast and wort stream. Simply subtract the baseline result from the combined stream result to get pure injected yeast content.
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| Beer Fermentation Process |
In beer fermenting, optek probes have the unique ability of mounting directly in the fermentation vessel. Properly located, the entire fermentation cycle can be monitored in real-time, allowing optimization of the process. Tanks can be dropped automatically rather than waiting hours for lab samples to indicate proper flocculation. Feedback on any recipe influences of yeast cell growth can also be seen. In larger cellars, saving 6-10 hours per fermentation cycle can add up quickly, adding valuable fermentation cellar capacity, without adding a single vessel.
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| Recovering Beer from Spent Yeast |
Many breweries are using large vertical fermenters, or multi-purpose tanks. One of the main advantages of these tanks is avoiding extra product transfers. However, settled yeast must be removed. A turbidity meter is installed in the tank outlet, or in the recovered or spent yeast line. When the yeast is removed from the beer, the turbidimeter will determine the interface between the yeast and beer. In the past this was accomplished by time / volume or visual inspection. Since the set points are adjustable, the optimal cut-off level can be obtained to provide the most efficient operation. This reduces product loss and provides a more uniform product for filtration.
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