BREW-DO Ep 01 - The Whodunnit? Show - Disinfectant Flavours

BREW-DO - The Whodunnit? Show.

Welcome to the first episode of BREW DO, a brand new brewing mystery series from the Modern Brewer Podcast.

Think brewing, meets Cluedo with a sprinkle of Inspector Clouseau 🕵🏻‍♂️

Each episode presents a real world brewing problem. Strange results. Confusing symptoms. A brew team scratching its head wondering what on earth is going on.

Your job is to figure out the culprit.

In this first case something has gone badly wrong. Beer is developing disinfectant like flavours that simply should not be there. Everything looks normal on paper. The process appears correct. The brewery team are confident in their procedures.

Yet something is clearly contaminating the beer.

So what is it?

In this episode Chris Lewington & Murphy’s European Technical Expert, Jonas Trummer walks you through the clues step by step and challenges listeners to solve the mystery before the answer is revealed.

If you enjoy solving brewing problems, testing your technical knowledge and learning from real brewery scenarios, this new series is for you.

We want you to submit your answers, test your knowledge, and win some exclusive BREW-DO merch. Submit your answers here: 

https://forms.gle/JK3VWsonJeHT2S687

In this episode

•⁠  ⁠The strange disinfectant flavour appearing in multiple beers
•⁠  ⁠Why the brewhouse process looked completely normal
•⁠  ⁠The hidden ways contamination can enter a brewery
•⁠  ⁠How sanitation practices can backfire
•⁠  ⁠The moment the real culprit is uncovered

Grab a notebook, listen closely and see if you can solve the case before the answer is revealed.

Because in brewing, the smallest detail can ruin an entire batch.

Welcome to BREW DO.

Thank you to Murphy and Son's for supplying the problems for us to scratch our heads over.

Transcript

0:09

Hello everyone and welcome to the brand New Whodunnit miniseries aptly named BREWDO. And yes, that is a tongue in cheek spin on the world famous board game, known to most as Cludo. Or if you're in America clue, Most listeners to the show might already be regular Modern Brewer podcast listeners, the show for brewers looking at all of the key topics that don't necessarily mean making better beer. If you're not a regular listener or maybe you listen to one or two and need a refresher on who I am, my name is Chris Lewington. Former brewery manager and current brewery efficiency nerd. My company Brew Resourceful also goes around the world helping breweries reduce their costs, emissions, and margins with process-based solutions. These are the ones that really drive cash flow positive results, not major CapEx projects, although, for many breweries, that's exactly what I do. I come in with independent ROI analysis, throwing away those silly supplier led false promises That don't rely on supplier led return On investments, I write a weekly email. Sharing the latest tip, trick or strategy that I've come across to reduce energy, utilities, raw materials, and even time in your brewery. So far, even if you are a relatively small craft brewery, you would've saved over 20,000 pounds a year following some of these tips and tricks in just 18 weeks. I also deep dive. The return on investments for the latest tech, removing those supplier led assumptions and giving you real data that you can use. If you're keen to join the community, it's totally free, by the way, so please do. It's free community to join and the link to do so is in the description. Okay. Let's talk Brewdo. I am pumped. To get this out. Ever since episode 18 of the Modern Brewer Podcast, which was the first ever who'd done it, I have been blown away by the response that problem, and that episode has been used in interviews, training, and it's been referenced in other media as an example of problem solving in the brewing industry. It's actually, we all do it right? We've all been there, had to problem solve on a daily basis, but there's never really been any resources to look at to see what other people's problems have been going through. It's the sort of cooler chat, you know, the chat that you have at beer festivals and beer events. So I decided to take those chats and put them out there for everyone to see and hear. So that's exactly what we want to deliver with this. Who done it? Brewdo miniseries, five real world brewery issues, ones that have stomped brewers and consultants alike. There's gonna be five issues, but there's always one question, can you solve this issue? We will release an episode every two weeks. Each episode will give you a new real world brewing conundrum to solve in that two week gap. I invite you to share your solutions to the problem, and anyone who gets it right will have their name read out on the next episode and be in the running for exclusive one-off winners only merch which will comfortably be the least coolest, coolest thing you own. In the show notes, you will find a link to a form. Fill this form out in between the episodes to be eligible to win this fabulous prize. If now this is a big if, but if there is someone who solves all five problems. They are gonna be winning something super rare. I'm not gonna spoil it, so let's see if anyone can do it. I have no doubt in between these episodes, you are gonna be racking your brains trying to figure out some of these issues. In between everyone I've ever done, I get so many emails, messages like, oh, I'm so excited to find out what this is. So make sure you hit that subscribe button and you'll never miss an answer. You will never miss a problem and you don't want to miss out on what is going to be a fun ride of these five episodes. when me and my mate Jack, who's also the show manager, sat down to chat about this miniseries. It quickly dawned on me the brewery problems I try and solve. Not diverse enough. I wanted to do five episodes on energy Inefficiency of refrigeration. Jack said, absolutely not. That is far too niche even for this niche show. And you all have Jack to thank for not having to sit through that. so instead I called up long-term partners and friends of mine, Murphy and Sons. A household name here in Europe, Murphy's delivered the best products services, and most importantly for this show, technical support. I have seen there isn't a brewer here in the UK who hasn't picked up the phone at one point or another in their career to ask for the free advice and support the optimizations and the knowledge that these people have. So who better to bring us five world-class brewing issues than the agony aren't themselves of the brewing industry? Murphy and Sons. if you end up enjoying this episode, you're based in the UK or not. Please do come see us at Beer X. If you dunno what Beer X is, think CB, C, but British bars full of well conditioned cask beer, dreary drizzly skies, and always good solid chat if you're heading to the iconic Liverpool docks. To go and visit Beer X, then please do drop into my talk on the 19th of March where I'll be discussing the new water reduction guide I wrote for siba and sharing brand new research on a topic that could be a game changer for craft beers, costs, and sustainability. If you're too hungover, all those topics bore you, then please just come find me around. I'll be around there for both days and of course, come visit me at the Murphy stand itself, usually totally unmissible. Everyone's always hanging out there. hopefully I get to see you. Please do share some feedback on this episode. So our first issue is gonna be brought to us by Jonas. He has a PHD in engineering and brewing science. He has been a head brewer, a consultant lecturer, and now helps solve issues for breweries around the world. With Murphy's. So welcome to the miniseries, Jonas. Thanks a lot, Chris, for having me on the show, for having me in this really interesting podcast and this really nice topic. a. Yeah, it's exciting. You know, we've done a bit of prep work for this, and when you said this problem I was like, whoa, this is good. This is a really good way to kick this off. Nice. Happy, happy about it. Yeah, you, you must see so many, problems with all throughout your career, right? Definitely, yes. Not only when I've been working as a head brewer or in the quality management, obviously they're in a daily basis. Problems arise and every brewer knows about this. but also when I was working as a consultant, then you get called up on problems that are already a bit bigger. So there you see some things that you would not, sometimes not even imagine that it's possible. Yeah. And you know, it's a tough problem when they're calling someone in for like, support. That's when, you know, it's like, all right, here we go. Like, buckle up. Exactly, exactly that. so yeah, tell us, I mean, tell us a bit about yourself, Jonas. What you've been up to, where you've been, how you got, how you ended up on this show. Yeah, thanks. I will introduce myself a little bit. I'm actually German and from the southwest Germany, that was always into beer, like every one of us, I guess. growing up in the regional, Village and everyone is getting into be quite in an early stage of life when you're in the football club or in the music club, whatever. then I decided after an internship in Nurnberg and an internship in the Black Forest at breweries that I wanted to study brewing science. So I studied in Weihenstephan at the technical University Munich. I was working as a quality manager in Germany, and then I had the luck to become of a HAD group, which means a PhD project that was in six universities in Europe, and therefore I'm holding now a PhD title, which I'm Mm about. And after being in different breweries now in Poland and in France, I have now the opportunity to work for Murphy and Sons Well, I mean, Jonas, I mean, how's it feel being a, a German brewmaster selling adjuncts? Yeah, that's a tricky one. my main job for Murphy and son is being the technical manager for the Europe and Europe already also includes, Germany obviously. And we know that Germany has purity law, which Hmm. allows. To water hops and ye. So Germany is the smallest market for our processing aids at the Yep. right now. But we have products that are purity law conform, for example, Super F or receipted cars. They are allowed to be used for beer clarification. So Really. up the market for that there, and we have some clients that are super happy with it. We're trying to fight the fight against the Purity law to also get other products in there. Amazing man. I didn't know that. That's great. so what's been keeping you busy at Murphy's recently? The last time, what, what gives me an as busy most of the time is helping our breweries when it comes to, for example, optimization trials. which is. Pretty easy thing to do. We have a nice instruction that you can also download on the internet, on our homepage. but it's something that sometimes brewers struggle with. So we are happy to help them out to come into the brewery just to do these trials with them. For example, for the, carrageenan, the work clarification trials, Hmm. which now is more, more, more important than ever because we have the new crop coming out. So we need to do these adjustments again. So there, it's Yeah. crucial to make this word, clarification optimization trial again. Yeah. So people are calling me like, this is happening to my work. Like what sort of things are you normally hearing for? What are the flags of like an unoptimized kettle finding? Usually it's like brewer that's calling or just writing. Is not. So, which is kind of a weird thing because why shouldn't it work from one day to the other? And this usually is the case when the brewer is changing something in the malt Bill, for example, or right now when there's a change in the malt crop in the malt house. So there's really important to know if there's a change, and this is mostly regarding to protein and nitrogen content, then we need to really adjust our carrageenan in addition. And if we don't do this, then we gonna end up in a later, sediment that is just too loose and we gonna get like more hazy wort instead of a. Mm. Yep. All sound like common. I love that. It's like, yeah, car, your findings aren't working Murphy's, it's like, well, might. I mean, we've, we've probably been using carrageenan and kettle finnings interchangeably here, but I know some brewers is using Irish Moss and other kettle finnings. What do you usually recommend around that? again, it's, it's cool to be able to speak to someone who's a total expert in this. Yeah, definitely. Like Irish Moss is the old term still for this. Yeah. Carrageenan coming from seaweed and, Irish moss coming from the Atlantic Ocean, obviously, uh, has also a Kappa carrageenan in there, it has a different confirmation. carrageenan nowadays used is carrageenan from red seaweed, which is usually taken from the Pacific Ocean. Hmm. carrageenan is way more active than the classic Irish moss carrageenan. So this is the first thing. And the second thing is like, that's up to the brewer because we and on the market we see protofloc as granules, but also in the tablet form. Yeah. So there, it's actually recommendation is always to use the granules because they have the, big positive, side that you can weigh it just perfectly fine to the 0.1 gram. you use the tablets, you can break 'em apart. Yes, but the tablets are not 100% carrageenan.'cause there's a binding compound in that, in them You are never 100% sure what's the percentage Hmm. and they're also nice to use because they're super easy to handle. But if you got a balance, if you got a scale in your brewery that can go one gram steps or even 0.1 gram steps, I recommend granule. Yeah, we, we changed all of ours from tablets to granules at Beavertown for that exact reason. just because you've got so much more control. and just asking people to break a tablet in half just. It doesn't feel particularly scientific when you're doing it, does it? So, yeah, I think that's, that's what, yeah. Always a good thing. That's what we did as well. well look, Jonas, I've gotta, before we get right into this problem, what, can I just ask, what era of your, like you've had so much experience as a brewer, a lecturer, you've got a PhD, you've been a consultant. What era of your life did this problem come from? Just so I. this problem actually came from the ERA before the PhD, so. pre COVID. Okay. Right. Well that brings me to feel extremely excited. So Jonas, let's give the listeners the first problem of the Brewdo who done it mini series. Yeah, yeah. I'm happy to, present, this, mystery. So let's look at it, right away. Let's first have a look at the brewery. So that brewery where this problem appeared was a reasonable, large brewing, company with 150,000 hectoliters a year. Their main focus was on lager production, but they also brewed sometimes top fermented wheat beers. And American style craft beers, and now, and then a yearly special of barrel aged, for example, imperial porter or an imperial stout. When it comes to the, brewhouse, it was like a four vessel, 200 hectolitre brewhouse, and they were brewing into 250, 501,000, CCTs. Generally their beers weren't and dry hopped. And post condition, they were filtered with a blade filter into 250 and 500 hectoliter bbds. All the beers was, predominantly filled into bottles, and these bottles were partly reused, partly new bottles about the brewery. It's a well-known brand in the region, and also exports to other European countries and also to the Chinese market. So when they came to this problem, when it occurred was happening that when they were conducting like their routine sensory analysis from the BBT, the panel that was doing the sensory analysis were. Smelling, like this intense medicinal disinfectant off flavor, which then instantly was halting that batch So they made analysis on it and the batch was destroyed. Over the next two years, this exact, medicinal and disinfectant off flavor came again in five different pet, new other batches, but with no pattern to the beer style and only every couple of months. So they were really confused what was happening there because they didn't have any connection to it. So just to have more information on the brewery, let's have a little deeper look on their process, So the incoming water was treated first with a charcoal filter and then with a reverse osmosis. Afterwards they were adjusting the water composition with different minerals and different mineral solutions. The malt they used was barley and wheat malt purchased from eight different trusted suppliers, and the hops that they used was from three, trusted suppliers. The brewhouse setup was, for, step mashing a pH adjustment by lactic acid. They not using any enzymes at all in the brewhouse. The wort clarification was done by using carrageenan. The yeast that they used was propagated from small colony to 200 milliliter of carrageenan, then afterwards to one liter of wort, then to a five liter carlsberg flask, and finally to a 500 litre propagation tank which then afterwards it was pitched into the CCTs. this was done with nutrients until the sixth generation, and then they were using a new propagation again from a small colony. As I said before, they used the filter and every beer was filtered. for this, they used the pre clarification with silica. then the beer was sent for the blade filter, which both used Kiel Gore and PVPP. And sometimes different batches from the CCTs were blended into one BBT. the beers that were held in the BBT were tested, according to the CO2 and, O2 was measured as well. And the full lab analysis was done physical chemically. And of course, as said before, sensory After that the beers were packaged in either the washed bottles or new bottles, or they were going into kegs. So now the question is what happened in this two year period that the brewery was trying to solve this issue So, overall it was important that they understood and they knew that this medicine and disinfectant like aroma coming from Phenols and this special Phenols. can be stronger Phenols that bind to chlorine or bromide, which usually is coming from water, and then they form chloro phenols or bromo phenols. It can also come from chlorine in cleaning agents, in chemicals that then can bind to phenols or cleaning agents that already contain chloro phenols. So what the brewery did was to check, everything that they were thinking of, like from water composition to yeast, to adjustment of the water to the CIP and their cleaning chemicals. So the outcome of all of the in investigations was. Out of the five destroyed batches, they found out that only one of the batches was brewed with a POF positive yeast. All the microanalysis they did was that there was no contamination at all. elder batches were, had clean fermentation fast about this. POF positive yeast. the POF positive yeast means polyphenol off flavor positive, and this is yeast that is important for certain beer styles, for example, for wheat beers or for Belgium beers or farmhouse house ales, because these are producing phenols that giving a spicy aroma. In these beers, you really want to have these phenols in there. So now they knew of the batches destroyed was brewed with this f phenol of flavor positive yeast. So they said, yeah, we can rule out that it's coming from the yeast because. it would've been in the other ones. And we checked for, contaminations. Then they were checking for the water samples, the water incoming, and also afterwards, after the reverse osmosis and the adjusted water. So they were sending these waters to a trusted laboratory. And they saw actually that incoming water showed a pretty high chlorine content. But after the charcoal filter and the reverse osmosis, no chlorine was detected anymore from the laboratory, and also no chlorine levels were contacted in the adjusted water. So they were ruling out that it's coming from the water. so the next thing they did was checking all the chemicals that were used, the ones that are used for the CIP in the cellars, in the brewhouse, in the filtration, in the BBT's, in the CCTs, and also the ones that were used for regular floor cleaning. So then they saw that only two chemicals used were containing chlorine. And this was one that was used in the wort kettle for more active, cleaning there after the brewhouse, was running one that was used for cleaning the floor. All of the other cleaning chemicals did not contain any chlorine or chlorine related chemicals. Down the road, the bottle washing and the keg cleaning products were also checked, none of which contain chlorine. And also for the bottle filling, everything was clean. They were checking the bottles. After rinsing, there was no chlorine detected. So with all of these parameters checked, they were thinking, where did this medicine or disinfectant like flavor. come from, and it's only appearing in the BBT's. So they were really confused and they didn't know, how to, wrap their heads around it. this is a really hard, and was a really hard, problem to solve. the question is obviously if you can solve the issue. Oh, I love it, Jonas. I love it. So that does leave the major question, can you, the listener, solve this problem? All the information you need is in that problem that Jonas just shared. So no doubt you might wanna go back, listen to it again, listen to it a few times. We're going to put on the top of the form that you would fill out. If you want to guess, we're gonna put a text file so you'll be able to see, the problem written out. So if some people like to see it written out, as well as listen. So yeah, that should be good fun to try and solve over the next two weeks. Remember, if you do get it right, you do solve that problem. You'll get a shout out on the next show and be eligible to be sent some free exclusive winning only merch. if you have any questions between now and then, please do reach out, via emails or socials to me or Jonas. Both our details will be on there so you can have a little chat, share your feedback. and don't forget, please do hit that subscribe button so you do not miss the answer to this problem. I'll see you in two weeks