Measuring Haze in Beer with Turbidity meter

Turbidity provides the consumer's first visual impression of beer quality. Consumers expect a filtered beer to be a clear, bright, non-hazy product that remains so during its shelf life. Hazy products are often regarded as defective and perhaps even potentially harmful.

Judging a beer, whether as a Final product or in the brewing process, is largely a matter of evaluating visual and flavors. Will it taste right? Is the color developed right? Is it blended right? Is it clear? If it’s not clear, does the haze indicate a production issue?

Beer haze may be defined as an insoluble or semi-soluble particulate matter which is small enough to form a colloidal suspension in beer. These particles scatter transmitted light and are observed as degradation in the transparency of the beer. The brewers have to be very keenly control the beer clarity while brewing in order to assure similar quality and taste every-time. Visual inspection has grown more and more inaccurate and difficult for large scale brewing and ensuring consistency in final product.

Haze is typical in traditional wheat beers, but many macro and micro brewers prefer clear beer. One of the common forms of haze is “chill haze.” This haze is due to proteins and polyphenols bonding together to form large particles which reflect light and are thus visible. Chill haze develops when these particles dissolve when the temperature of the beer rises above 20Deg C.

As long as these particles are soluble at warmer temperatures, chill haze is not a huge problem. However, if chill haze is left untreated for long time, they will form larger particles which are no longer soluble. The result is a beer which is permanently hazy. Also Haze can be a sign of infected beer in situ, compromising the quality, taste of the final product. For brewers brewing on large scale, or smaller brewers that wish to scale up their production rely on visual inspection to evaluate beer haze is not feasible. This is very much applicable when brewing occurs in multiple locations, where the subjectivity of brewers predictably results in inconsistent product.

The HI847492 is auto-diagnostic meter designed to measure the haze in beer. Each instrument features a different measuring unit or light source to comply with different standard requirements. HI847492 is designed according to the ASBC (American Society of Brewing Chemists) standard for haze in beer measurements. This instrument compensates beer color to guarantee accurate readings during the brew process. The optical system consists of an LED and multiple detectors. A two, three or four-point calibration can be easily performed at any time using the supplied or user-prepared standards. HI847492 has all the necessary GLP (Good Laboratory Practice) features to allow maximum traceability of data. Features include a real time clock, log on demand (up to 200 measurements), and Fast Tracker™ —Tag Identification System. This meter also incorporates a continuous measurement mode to measure the settling rate of suspended matter, and a signal average (AVG) mode to accumulate multiple readings, giving a final average value. The average mode is particularly useful to measure samples with suspended particles with different dimensions.

This meter also features a user-friendly interface, with a large backlit LCD. Acoustic signals and display codes to guide the user step-by-step through routine operations.

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