Whole hops intended for use in beer brewing or elsewhere in the food industry
Evaluation of the appearance of hop cones is performed through visual inspection and sensory assessment.
Determination of the amount of cold break material in the pitching wort
Cast-out wort, wort from the midpoint of chilling/pitching wort (without yeast)
The hot break material (trub) and any hop particles which may be present in the wort, must first be removed. After the wort has been cooled to 2 °C, it is filtered through a glass fiber filter. The residue remaining on the filter is dried and then weighed.
Cold break material or cold trub refers to all material that settles out in the process of chilling wort after separation of the hot trub or hot break material. Cold trub can be filtered out of the wort and primarily consists of proteins (48–57 %), tannins (11–26 %) and carbohydrates (20–36 %). The amount of cold break material in wort depends on the quality and composition of the raw materials, brewhouse equipment and wort handling. In academic and professional circles, opinions regarding the significance of cold break material for downstream processes and for the quality of the finished beer are strongly divided [1, 2, 5]. Under certain circumstances, the quantity of cold break material in wort may exceed 250 mg/l, especially where accelerated fermentation is practiced. Ultimately, this can detract from the flavor of the finished beer [3]. Breweries, where removal of the cold break material has been practiced successfully, determine the quantity of cold break in their pitching wort at regular intervals, in order to evaluate the efficacy of their separation equipment.
Determination of the fermentation cellar yield in order to monitor brewhouse operations
Wort from the midpoint of chilling/pitching wort
The fermentation cellar yield is calculated using the value determined for the amount of extract contained in a batch of wort relative to the amount of extract present in the raw materials used to produce the wort.
The sample is extracted with petroleum ether in a Soxhlet apparatus equipped with a reflux condenser; the solvent is evaporated and the crude fat residue weighed.
The gelatinization temperature can be determined using a rotary viscometer (e.g., Amylograph or Viscograph, Brabender GmbH & Co. KG, Germany [4] or a Rapid-Visco-Analyser, RVA, Perten Instruments, a PerkinElmer Company, USA [8]).
A suspension consisting of a finely ground sample and water is produced, whose precise mixing ratio should correspond to the analysis protocol for the adjunct in question. However, since for many cereals and pseudocereals no official analysis protocol exists, the initial weight for the adjuncts listed in table 2 has been determined empirically [3].
Once the suspension is prepared it is attempered according to a pre-programmed temperature/time program, and the viscosity is determined on a continuous basis by means of a rotor and a rotary torque measurement (fig. 1). When gelatinization begins, an increase in the viscosity is registered, and the corresponding sample temperature is defined as the gelatinization temperature. The standard evaluation criterion (PT) is a viscosity increase of at least 24 cP (≙ mPas) within six seconds.
Barley intended for the production of malt is to be evaluated on the basis of the characteristics described below.
visual assessment