BREW-DO Ep 05 - The Whodunnit? Show - The Worst 4 Words In Brewing

The Worst 4 Words In Brewing

The final problem episode is here 🕵🏻‍♂️

One last issue. One last set of clues. One last culprit.

Your job is to figure out Whodunnit?

This week, we are ending the series with the worst 4 words in brewing.

The plates are showing a serious aerobic bacteria problem. The yeast samples look infected. The team are checking tanks, changing seals, reviewing CIP logs and tasting beer like their lives depend on it.

But nothing quite adds up.

In this episode, Chris Lewington is joined again by Murphy’s technical experts Jonas Trummer and Fran Carr to walk through last week’s case, the answer and who got it RIGHT!!!

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

Grab a notebook, listen closely and see if you can solve the final case before the answer is revealed in 2 weeks.

Because in brewing, sometimes the scariest results are not where the real problem is hiding.

Welcome back to BREW DO.

Transcript

0:10

Hello everyone and welcome to the last full edition of Brew-Do, the Modern Brewer podcast miniseries that shares real world brewing mysteries. The cause brewers is of head scratching and asks you the listener to solve them. It's been a bit of a rollercoaster journey for those who have joined. We've had some problems that quite a few people have managed to solve, and we've had some that even nobody managed to solve in the two week period. Some of these challenges are extremely difficult to catch. One thing I have actually observed is I think the correct answers either come from like a very astute methodology applied to get the right answer, or it's like some slum dog millionaire style memory from something that happened to them in their brewing past, and they're like, oh my God, I think it's this. So one thing I wanna ask is,. If at any point in the future after listening to this, you see any of these problems or a similar one in real life and solve them based off this podcast, kind of like your own slum dog millionaire moment, using this podcast as a memory, I would love to hear it. That would be so great., You can message me or find me at any of the, the major brewing events that we all attend. Yeah, it'd be so cool to hear that. And on the note of solving these problems, we do have someone who got last episode's problem, right? They solved it. James, my man, now, not your real last name, but I did only. Get a first name from you on the form., You absolutely nailed it. Fantastic work. Your detailed answer was, was great the rest of your form quite elusive. Which I found quite fun, because it would ended up being. Me who played the, who done it and who wrote it, could not figure it out. Um, but if you could throw me a lifeline and reach out with your full name, address and a t-shirt size, I'll make sure you get that prize you so deserve. So with that in mind, who's ready to hear the very last problem in the Brew-Do mini series? I know I certainly am. Can't wait for you all to hear this one, so let's do it. So welcome the final problem episode, Jonas and Fran. Jonas, you're a regular in this show now, even more, just as regular as I have. It's good to have you on Nice to see you again. Lots of messages about this problem I. over the last couple of weeks. This is a good one. stumped me a little bit, but I think I got there, but I'm excited to hear Hi. your first entrance. Last but not least, the headline Act. Of course. Hi. How are you doing? I'm very scared. No. Come on Fran. shy for all this. No, we've talked for hours before. Maybe it was a few beers beforehand, but we've talked for hours before. I know it's, you'll be good. How, what have you, how are I am good. I'm very good. We're very, very busy all the time. There's lots of optimizations being done on sites. I'm constantly doing them. been to a few dinners and stuff, so Yeah. very, very busy. Yes. Yeah, very fancy. Yes. Excellent. Jonas, yourself, what have you been up to? My man. Yeah. Again, like the other few times I've been around, I've just been last week in Barcelona for the International Beer Inside Strategy Conference, which was really good. So also there I can recommend to go there. Amazing. Can I. ask a question, Jonas? How many different European cities do you hit in a year? Because between all of these episodes, I think I can list about eight. Yeah, I'd say I'm on the road like every second week, but I also have some holidays sometimes, so, yeah, maybe 15 destinations. That's possible. that's cool. I mean, the trav traveling always sounds really good to people who don't travel for work. And then when they travel for work, they're like, yeah, it's, has its ups and downs, right. You can't believe me, you don't wanna see any sausage and beans in the morning at the breakfast buffet. And when I learned that the scrambled eggs were made from powder, I just was like, I'm Oh no. You know, I'm out. That's not me. I can't deal with that. Fran, you know, not everyone's gonna know. I mean, everyone in the UK knows who you are, Fran. Yeah. in the UK knows who you are. But for those listeners around the world, maybe just give a little bit about, you know, Yeah. and how you ended up in the hot seat So I'm from Maud, I'm from Murphy and Son like Jonas. I've worked in the industry for 22 years. I started at Murphy's 22 years ago, and I started as a, a qc, member of staff. you know, just doing Q. Typical QC tests on All the products that we sell, or the processing aids, because I'm nosy, I wanted to know more about those products. So I read quite a lot of their technical data sheets, and then I started interfering with the tech team, in answering questions when there were trouble shooting and to, so in the end, Christine Fleming, at the time, who was the md, was like. I think you should be a tech rep. so I, I've, I've evolved to a tech rep, so I've come from QC to tech rep, That's and I cover the Midlands. You cover the Did I cover the Midlands? Yes, Yeah, big, big belt of breweries there as well. So, Burton, is that in yes. Burton is there. Yes, yes, yes. iconic, at Burton Bridge Brewery yesterday, so that was cool. how Yes. Yeah. Lovely team of guys. historic place? I've got a, truth that I need to admit. I've never been to Burton, which is kind of It's a isn't it? I mean, A brewer's capital. I'm afraid you've got to go. Seriously. Yes, and believe it or not, there were water of the Burton profile anymore, so that's Yeah. So when you bur No, no. I think due to like, water management getting better and better from companies, it's not, you know, the water is not the same profile as it used to be. So Burtonisation quite a I ironic term really? Yeah. because it was honking Yeah. before. It was a, it was a strong, that's a strong flavor that Yeah. The Burton Snatch, Yeah, for those who dunno what that is, Google it. yeah. The first time someone said that was like, what? that's, that's joke. Um. Look, myself included, wanna know how right I was wrong? I was. Let's find out. That's the beauty of it. Getting to listen to the solutions, the problems to figure out how close, if you were close to getting it. So, come on, let's share the solution to the problem. All right, we're gonna dive right into it. So, yeah, it was a tricky one also for us when we came there, once more reminder from the last time when we talked about it, because they already did additional tests and they were going digging deep into there. And what they find out was that the yeast storage tank number two had a lower pH and the less viable and more, death cells. So they were pretty sure something is wrong with the yeast storage tank number two, but they couldn't figure out what it was. So when we arrived there also, we did all the tests. We checked the yeast storage and yeast storage tanks and the yeast before harvesting. After harvesting. But then we were sitting together with the brewers and we were saying like. What did happen here in the last couple of years? Was there anything new? Did you get new tanks? Did you get new systems? Anything And what they renewed was actually that they had an update on their CIP system, The CIP authorization that they had was just updated. Anyways, we said okay, when it was updated, maybe there were some, changes. And that's when we went through all of the different CIP recipes and we actually found the issue. And the issue was as followed. That there was a rinsing step that was 60 seconds less than the rinsing step, than intake number one. So, to be precise. During the CIP with caustic, then rinsing with water, then acid and rinsing with water. That was the CIP recipe, the last step of rinsing the acid out with water. Was 60 seconds less than in tank number one. in East Storage Tank number two, it was 60 seconds less. So therefore, and the big problem was there, they didn't have a sensor that was measuring pH. They also didn't have a sensor that was measuring if the tank was empty or not. No, the wealth was just closing. After this, time that was in the system, which brings us to the problem that then went into the bigger problem. 60 seconds less of rinsing meant that there was still a bit of acid left in the east storage tank, number two. And with this bit of acid, it was enough that after one, two days in the storage tank, the yeast was getting more acidic, so the pH dropped slightly. Also that the viability just went down, not by a lot, but enough to just have a massive impact on the fermentation profile. Like phase was longer, more diacetyl production and longer time to get rid of the diacetyl again. So that was the problem. solve the solution and we really can see it really sometimes comes down to only a couple of seconds. You wouldn't believe it. Yeah, really does. Yeah, Great, great problem. I think the key for me, when I heard it and I was like, what's unusual to me is the pH, so the viability was going down and the pH was also going down because. understanding if the viability is going down pH rises because the use is dying. And I was like, that's odd to me. I have not seen that before and it's not infected. I was like, looks like chemical of some degree. And then it's figuring out where, right. Yes. Yeah, it was a good problem. how long were they seeing that problem for? Yeah, like, we found out that they updated the system like. Not even a year ago. So this was like for maybe eight months, nine months. So as they were, as I said before in the previous episode, they were re-pitching three times and then doing the, dry yeast again. And it was only from East Storage Tank two and only when they harvested like the best, Lager yeast. So it was not that often, but it was definitely, I'd say in the range between 6 to 10 times, which is more than enough for a 100 hec. Mm. Yeah, absolutely. And that's the burden of a, automatic CIP set that it can just be a simple parameter. someone put a decimal point wrong, someone put one digit wrong when they were setting it up or, common one is someone figured out a better way of doing it so that, oh, that's not enough. So they changed the rinse step on just one recipe and it hasn't migrated into the other one. And you're running an old CIP recipe on one and a new one on the other. when these describe and it's so easy. It's just a click of a few buttons and all of a sudden you are doing something you would never do manually. You would never allow a pool of acid or not rinse for the same or not check. You see what I mean? I think it's like automation is great it also doesn't know what it's doing. So if you tell it to do something, it will just do it. Exactly. You lose that brewer's intuition. Yeah, exactly. And in this case, well automatization great. Easier, but then in this case they maybe they were cutting on on investment because they didn't have the pH sensor and they didn't have the sensor that was saying like it was running empty. So sometimes investing in more sensors Makes sense. Yeah. Jonas, I appreciate you've been on this, this show for two problems now. I hope that we can get you back for another one in the future, but for now, thank you so much for everything and I'm sure that people have questions. Same As before, they can reach out to you, right. As always in the comments will be my LinkedIn and also the email address to the Murphy and Sam. address and always happy to help everyone out and thanks a lot to you that you had me in your show again. Of course, man, it was an absolute pleasure and I hope to see you around one of the 18, European cities. You seem to find yourself in a year, See you soon mate. Take care. Bye. Bye. Yeah, Fran, that's a good problem, Yeah, that's very good. Yes. Not as good as mine. I love that. Yeah. The competition. Who's the leaderboard or the most interesting problem? Yeah, really good. know what, the most surprising elements to me, of everything that Jonas said in all of those episodes, still, I'm still rattled by it. That super f. allowed in the German purity Yes. Yes. I, yeah, it's very strange. Did, did he explain why or, it's silica. Silica is allowed. Excellent. Yes, since 1992, they made an amendment and they've added like PVPP and silica based products. So that allows superf. brilliant. Speeds up the, I was like, process. shock. Brewers are using it Excellent. Bavaria knew that either, so I've learned something new and that's brilliant for the German brewer, to be honest. speed up the processes. No end. you must deal so much with, fining agents here in the uk, right? You must deal with all Yes we do. our main one is obviously we manufacture Isinglass. for those that don't know what Isinglass is, it's from Swim Bladders. it's got a, an overall positive charge, so it tracks to the negative charge of yeast. there's a really nerdy formula out there. Have you ever heard of this one? Chris, the Stokes Law. Oh, So basically, I've also sat through loads of Murphy's presentations in my yeah. course. yeah, it's a really complicated little equation there and it's quite exciting to read and understand. So basically it's about, you know, creating big flocks until they're so heavy that they drop. And so that's what Isinglass will do. He will connect to the yeast cells, become really heavy and flock, and then drop down and settle down and make a compact bottom in the vessels, and then the beer can be run off from it. So it makes a nice, clear beer. And it's used really well in conjunction with something like, findings, adjunct and, and auxiliary findings, which has an overall negative charge that will attract all the proteins and drag them down as well. So it's a good product with it being, fish mos. vegans aren't very happy about that. So we do have an alternative, which is the Superf, which also can be used, in Germany, purity laws, which is fascinating. Who knew? Yeah, it's brilliant. I got a question around that. I think one of the things you always used to hear, Isinglass resettles and resettles, right? It's one of, its big, selling points, especially for Cask beer yes. that's where traditionally it was added and now, but, and people talk about Superf, can that still drop the same time? I always heard that it was like one or two or three times it would drop and then that was we've been continually bear improving our formulation, and it's one thing that we focus on when we're doing, you know, improving our, our products, et cetera, is, you know, with the superf, we've, we've, we've now got it to about 20, agitations. So that's not far off from Isinglass, so it's all good. Yes. Isinglass will always be the best findings on the, but unfortunately it's not, vegan, is it? It's No. no, but I do know that people who use Isinglass do swear by it, but then of course means their products Yeah. be No, is, why they both exist but yes. right. I would favor Isinglass over super if any time. But yeah. As is. That preference. You can't do that, can you? Yeah. I can't wait anymore. You said this was the best problem of the whole series, the best one, I think so. I'm excited to hear it. So please don't keep us any longer. Tell us what this problem Off we go. So this is a 65 heta litre brewery. They have over 20 managed pups brewing mainly twice, two times a week, but sometimes three. They have around six fermenting vessels. Their water's considered hard, over 200 parts per million. So they treat their water with liquor treatments. So routine plating is conducted by three brewers who rotate on a weekly shift. The brewer's plate worked yeast on the same day as pitching bright beer tank and then packaging. So the technique for sampling is that they flame the sample point, run a sample through to cool down, then capture in a sterile pot, and then chill. These samples are then left to plate later at a quiet time, usually in large batch, about once or twice a week. Technique for plating, they would use 5ml pore plates on the three common agars for every sample. So you've got your WLD, which is to isolate wild yeast, your MRS to isolate aerobic bacteria and rack array, which isolates anaerobic bacteria. So the majority of the time, the plates are clean, and usually every now and then there may be an anomaly, but it's easily fixed. However, one day when inspecting the plate stacks for the previous week, every batch that week, all the yeast samples they had taken from their yeast storage tank had TNTC two numerous to count gram-negative rods on the aerobic plates. So the brewer instantly went to sample the beers pitched for these aerobic infected yeast from their relevant tanks. From the tanks. The brewer couldn't detect any differences. They decided to play all those beers in tank tanks and quarantine the tanks as a precaution. The following weeks, the results came back. Everyone was clean. Every single one was clean across all three plates. But to their horror, the yeast tank from the new week, once again, was all TNTC for aerobic bacteria. So now the whole brewing team are now aware of the situation, and they've all started tasting samples from the tanks regularly and getting really unusual hints of off flavours like HH two s and diacetyl rotten vegetables even, and phenolic half flavours. So the panics really is now setting in. So they started their investigation into batches. All fermentations associated with aerobic yeast tanks all seem to be within their usual ranges of time. Temp pH and gravity. They would check all the plates for each batch wort is clean, bright beer tank, clean packaging, clean, but still, there was T and TC grand negative rods on the aerobic yeast plates. So now they look at every CIP log for the storage tanks, and they, they really do struggle to find anything wrong with them. The times, time, temperature, concentration, they're all good. So they inspected the yeast tanks after full CIP. There's no damage to the walls. The spray ball functioned as expected and they saw no damage to seals and out of precaution, they even changed every seal in the tanks and performed a nu nuclear CIPA. Nuclear CIP To us is when you are using caustic and acid and pa paracetic acid at hotter, longer, high concentrations than ever. But they were still getting the same pattern wort, bright beer tanks, packaging plates, they were all clean, yet still TNTC for aerobic bacteria on all yeast samples. What wasn't showing the same pattern was the flavour flag flags from the brewers. They kept taking samples and discussing them, and each time they discussed, they all agreed on different flavours. So they started recording them down and against batches and could not work out a pattern that matched so stumped bamboozled even They didn't even know where else to turn. So with that, can you solve this issue? What was causing. This aerobic bacteria flags on the, plates and what was driving these crazy sensory flags. That's just the last question we have for you on this mini series. Brew-Do. So don't forget to hit subscribe if you haven't already, so you don't miss the answer to our final problem. And we round up the whole series and I'll catch you. On the next episode of the mini series in two weeks time.