Cutsom lab work for brewers

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DAlexander

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If a smaller lab was willing to open its doors to homebrewers, what type of tests would you like to see available?

SRM
IBU
Diacytal
water profiles
ABV
???

I was talking with a lab tech about this and we were wondering what some of the popular tests would be for beers if hobby brewers really want to see the accuracy of their recipes and procedures.
 
Not just diacetyl- you'll want the whole spectrum of off flavors (chlorphenol, ester, phenol, fusel, DMS, sulfur etc etc etc). Someone mentioned infection identification but that would be difficult to do. Quick PCR tests for common contaminants like lacto, pedio, brett, etc etc would be more doable, but lots of wild yeasts would be tough. Customers would probably have to purchase individual tests, or you could run a battery but it would be more expensive.

Hop growers might want hop analysis. %AA and %BA for a start, but maybe also oil content, humulone/cohumulone/adhumulone and myrcene content as well.
 
I agree with what daksin said.

SRM and ABV are pretty easy to figure out on your own.

I think yeast purity, water profiles, and home growers hop AA would be big along with the off flavor producing elements.
Water profiles are easy for most to get locally, so the price would have to be very competitive.

I've seen kits that have a small tasting sample of diacety, chlorphenol, ester, phenol, fusel and dms in order to know exactly what that flavor is and tastes like.
 
How about microbiological testing? There are selective growth media for the identification of Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, and other beer spoilage organisms as well as wild yeast present in yeast cultures or finished beer.
 
I can understand the use of lab analysis for quality control in a commercial brewery, but I just don't see any reason for a homebrewer to need these. At the homebrew scale, and even as the principal method on the commercial scale, the best test is observing and tasting the beer throughout the process. Those are the skills you need to develop and sending samples to a lab isn't going to help you.

Inexpensive hop analysis is a good idea that I think is already being offered.
 
If it's interesting and cheap, why not? If you're constantly plagued by an off flavor and can't pin it down, it'd be helpful to know. Also, it's interesting to know how your IBU calculations line up with the actual IBUs in the beer.
 
Water profiles.
IBU of finished beer.
Homegrown hop analysis.

I would definitely be interested in water sample testing. My county doesn't test salt levels, I have to assume that the next county over is identical. If the price is right, I'd send my supposed 120 IBU DIPA over to see how far below 100 it really is.
 
Find a place that does liquid chromatography - mass spec...this would give you all the chemical info like IBUs, ABV, diacetyl, phenols, etc. if some reads it for you. I don't know how expensive this would be, or who does it, but I'd shoot for a nearby research college. One shouldn't be too far living in CA.
 
As a few others have eluded to, the real issue is cost. While it would be cool to see an analysis of our beers, it is not necessary for the home brewer. Unlike the big breweries, we are not trying to pump out tank after tank of identical beers. However, if the cost were low enough, then there would be interest. I don't know what that cost cutoff would need to be, but when you can make a 5 gallon batch for less than $30, you have to take that into account when deciding how much a home brewer wants to spend to see if his/her ABV or IBU calculations are accurate.

Hop AA% would be really interesting, but again, most of us are growing less than a dozen plants. If you have 3 different varieties, you need 3 separate tests. AND, theoretically you need to do this every year.

Update the forum if the lab is interested. This is a great place to get feedback. They could offer a basic test for a couple of bucks and then have extra tests if there is something specific that a brewer wants to test. Same with hop analysis.
 
in case folks haven't seen this thread:

$5 for IBU testing!
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f41/5-ibu-testing-405038/

ISUBrew79 said:
How about microbiological testing? There are selective growth media for the identification of Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, and other beer spoilage organisms as well as wild yeast present in yeast cultures or finished beer.
Click to expand...
this is what i would be most interested in.

orangehero said:
I can understand the use of lab analysis for quality control in a commercial brewery, but I just don't see any reason for a homebrewer to need these. At the homebrew scale, and even as the principal method on the commercial scale, the best test is observing and tasting the beer throughout the process. Those are the skills you need to develop and sending samples to a lab isn't going to help you.
Click to expand...
untrue. i had a rash of batches this past fall that all had the same off-flavor. i did everything possible to control for spoilage factors (replaced all plastics, switched sanitizer, etc) since i suspected an infection/wild yeast, but there was no change. it would have been very useful to confirm that it was indeed a microbiological contaminant before fully nuking my brewing space. would have been silly to bleach the entire space only to find out that there is nothing alive in my beer that shouldn't be there.

yso191 said:
Check out Alpha Analytics. They are a division of Hop Union. They absolutely work with homebrewers.

http://www.hopunion.com/28_BeerTesting.cfm?p5=open

Steve
Click to expand...
sweet, but $140 is kinda steep for me. i'm sure that's a good price considering the service being offered and the tools required, but the price would keep me away.
 
I'm a huge nerd, and the more data I could collect (be it chemical, microbiological, or otherwise) the happier I would be. Just think of all the spreadsheets you could create...

Someone mentioned something earlier about PCR's. If we are talking about Polymerase Chain Reaction, to test what is growing, and therefor propagating, in my beer, I would love to know. Could be eye opening as well to compare results of your initial yeast strain, and then post fermentation yeast strain, to see if the stress has caused any mutation..

caveat- I am a huge nerd.
 
I work in an inorganic lab and I would be willing to run water testing on your tap such as Calcium, Magnesium, Iron, Chloride for anyone for free and do alkalinity as well. I can't remember if I have the ability to do sulfate or not but where I live it's not high. Wards Labs is fairly cheap though and would be very quick.


Especially if you live around Indy and wouldn't have to ship.
 
I received an email the other day about Saranac (in the Adirondacks) presenting work at a gas chromatograph conference in Albany soon. They're using GC's to determine DMS and a swath of other ppm-level measurements throughout the brewing process. It'd be cool if someone had the $40,000 equipment. Kyle
 
Foovanadil said:
Also, WhiteLabs offers a full compliment of tests and will do so for homebrewers. I don't know what the costs are but I have talked with the people there and they said they will do things on a homebrew scale.

http://www.whitelabs.com/lab-services-and-supplies
Click to expand...

they're not cheap. i inquired about a microbiological (infection) test about 6 months ago, and they quoted me $144 for the full set of tests, $79 for Saccharomyces and non-Saccharomyces wild yeast test. i still have their catalog with 2012 prices in my inbox. their selection of services is impressive - they have dozens upon dozens of test to analyze beer, water, malt, hops. etc.

Edit: just pulled these from the catalog:
- Water Comprehensive: Includes color, clarity, pH before and after boiling, solids, free ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, carbonates, chloride, sulfate, phosphate, silica, iron, calcium, magnesium, sodium, hardness, alkalinity. $99
- Hop Alpha and Beta acids (spectrophotometric) $56
 
grayhalladay said:
I'm a huge nerd, and the more data I could collect (be it chemical, microbiological, or otherwise) the happier I would be. Just think of all the spreadsheets you could create...

Someone mentioned something earlier about PCR's. If we are talking about Polymerase Chain Reaction, to test what is growing, and therefor propagating, in my beer, I would love to know. Could be eye opening as well to compare results of your initial yeast strain, and then post fermentation yeast strain, to see if the stress has caused any mutation..

caveat- I am a huge nerd.
Click to expand...

Doing things like that are incredibly difficult to do. Little background, I have a B.S in Biochemistry / Molecular Biology and currently work in a biotechnology company where I do mostly Molecular and Microbiology.

The changes in mutations would be so insignifcant in pre a post fermentation that genome wide analysis would be totally useless and more or less moot. You'd probably end up describing variants that were not actually variants. Along with that, genome wide analysis is a very time consuming and data heavy process. Sequencing has become realtively cheap in the past 10 years, but gathering that data and then assembling a genome, annotating a genome, are very very very difficult. Without having a template to work on it becomes nearly impossible and you can never be sure what you have until you are able to test it on a bench scale.

To test organisms that are growing in your fermentor you'd be much better off streaking plates and checking under a scope than PCRing random DNA sheers from a jar.

If you have any other questions feel free to post and I'll do my best to describe the situations.
 
BiologistBrewer said:
Doing things like that are incredibly difficult to do. Little background, I have a B.S in Biochemistry / Molecular Biology and currently work in a biotechnology company where I do mostly Molecular and Microbiology.

The changes in mutations would be so insignifcant in pre a post fermentation that genome wide analysis would be totally useless and more or less moot. You'd probably end up describing variants that were not actually variants. Along with that, genome wide analysis is a very time consuming and data heavy process. Sequencing has become realtively cheap in the past 10 years, but gathering that data and then assembling a genome, annotating a genome, are very very very difficult. Without having a template to work on it becomes nearly impossible and you can never be sure what you have until you are able to test it on a bench scale.

To test organisms that are growing in your fermentor you'd be much better off streaking plates and checking under a scope than PCRing random DNA sheers from a jar.

If you have any other questions feel free to post and I'll do my best to describe the situations.
Click to expand...


Agreed, look at the phenotype instead of the genotype. Most stress situations will also not cause mutations but regulate gene expression up or down. I'd be more interested to know how the individual strains in a yeast blend propagate during the starter culture or fermentation. Concrete example: I'm planning on making a WLP080 Cream Ale blend bank but I'm sure I'll select for one or the other strain.
 
I work with HPLC and GCMS and yo test specimens with them is horridly expensive.. more over it will be hard and expensive to calibrate a method for the specific tests. more over you cant always see all in one collum and you mat need two or three of them which make the whole process more expensive.
on the other hand PCR and micro biological tests are more easy and cheap to to..
 
ISUBrew79 said:
How about microbiological testing? There are selective growth media for the identification of Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, and other beer spoilage organisms as well as wild yeast present in yeast cultures or finished beer.
Click to expand...
This you're of microbial contaminant analysis, including wolf yeast, is what is be most interested in. the big labs charge too much for these tests.
 
I'm hoping someone in this thread can PM me and help me out. I am currently a QC lab technician for a chemistry lab, and have the option of accepting a position as a QC lab tech in a brewery. I have my BS in Biology, and am a current homebrewer. Can someone tell me what the average salaries are for lab staff (specifically with no brewery experience)? ...Message me if you can be of some assistance. Thank you so much.
 
Ladymilch said:
I'm hoping someone in this thread can PM me and help me out. I am currently a QC lab technician for a chemistry lab, and have the option of accepting a position as a QC lab tech in a brewery. I have my BS in Biology, and am a current homebrewer. Can someone tell me what the average salaries are for lab staff (specifically with no brewery experience)? ...Message me if you can be of some assistance. Thank you so much.
Click to expand...

You may want to ask this over at probrewer as well...
 
Ladymilch said:
I'm hoping someone in this thread can PM me and help me out. I am currently a QC lab technician for a chemistry lab, and have the option of accepting a position as a QC lab tech in a brewery. I have my BS in Biology, and am a current homebrewer. Can someone tell me what the average salaries are for lab staff (specifically with no brewery experience)? ...Message me if you can be of some assistance. Thank you so much.
Click to expand...

I've been a lab tech and a lab manager, and now I'm a staff scientist in industry (science, not brewing). You will get paid much less to do the same job (lab tech) in a brewery, because people WANT to work in breweries. Pay is inversely proportional to the number of qualified people who WANT to work in a specific field or position.

I would expect to be hourly, probably well under $15/hr, more like $10/hr in a large brewery. Salaried, I made about $18/hr (gross, before tax and healthcare witholding) as a lab manager in academia.

I suppose it's about doing what you love and getting free beer, but everyone's situation is different. I couldn't support my family on $15/hr living in So Cal, but as a bachelor 5 years ago, I would have jumped at the opportunity.
 

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