Tracking Microbiological results (5 days result delay)

Hello,

I am completely new to Breww and I am wondering how I can most effectively track our microbiological results. We take samples from the FV and also check the cans. At the moment I integrate this in the recipe as a stage “Microbiological Testing (Fermentation)/(Can)” but is there a way how this can get triggered by Breww just as a fermentation reading does?

Cheers
Matthias

Hi Matthias - thanks for posting, and welcome to the Breww community!

Adding a Q/A recipe stage to your recipes is certainly a good way of adding further quality checks that you carry out on a per-batch basis.

When you say you’d like those “Microbiological Testing (Fermentation)/(Can)” recipe actions to be “triggered”, is it a notification that outstanding tests need carrying out that you’re looking for? Similar to the daily required batch readings below?

Hi Max,

thank you for your reply. Yes, exactly. I would want a notification as a daily reading just as for the gravity/ph readings but also for these microbiological checks or any other check for that matter which I can define and then it gets triggered and listed on the main page as a required reading for that day.

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Hey Matthias - great, thanks for clarifying that for me! That makes a lot of sense.

I think the full, complete functionality here would be to add more control over which readings are required, how often, and at which stage of the batch they are required. For example, Breww currently allows you to choose which built-in readings you’d like to see and also whether that reading is required (SettingsProduction settingsFermentation readings form section). Then you can choose how often you’d like those required readings to be taken (the Daily batch readings required section).

However, I know some would love to see the ability to add conditions such as “Require reading if batch is conditioning”, e.g. Ability to turn off daily batch readings for none FV's.

A combination of that functionality, and the ability to specify custom batch reading types, sounds like it would allow you to achieve what you’re looking for here - and it would also set Breww up nicely to cover any future reading requirements that come up!

However, I just want to mention that although custom batch readings (and custom fields in general) are obviously extremely useful and flexible, they do have a downside. Because they are custom-defined by the user, Breww doesn’t have an in-built understanding of what it is and how it relates to the brewing process. Whereas if we build the reading type directly into Breww, we can more easily add dedicated functionality that uses that field in the future.

So if you wouldn’t mind letting me know which microbiological tests you use, we can look at potentially adding them as an in-built field into Breww, and then you won’t have to define them as custom fields at all!

Let me know if that sounds like it will cover what you’re looking for, and if so, I’ll split this out for you into a feature request :+1:

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Hi Max,

sure. We are doing the following:

During fermentation (customs set the day, e.g. day 2, 3 etc)
NBB-B (anaerobic beer spoiler) - result parameters expressed in: colour change, pH, microscopy
Mannitol Agar (aerobic beer spoiler) - result expressed in: cfu (colony forming unites)
Cupric Sulphate agar (saccharomyces wild yeast) - cfu
Lysine Agar (non-saccharomyces wild yeast) - cfu
Modified Durham Maltodextrin Tubes (overfermenting wild yeasts) - how much the durham tube is filled up (10/10 completely full, 9/10, 8/10, 7/10… 5/10 half full…0/10 no gas formation)

Can (triggered when packaging cans):
NBB-C (anaerobic beer spoiler) - microscopy
Mannitol Agar (aerobic beer spoiler)
Cupric Sulphate agar (saccharomyces wild yeast)
Lysine Agar (non-saccharomyces wild yeast)
Modified Durham Maltodextrin Tubes (overfermenting wild yeasts)

Entering the results after five days incubation time should get triggered as well

I hope that helps

Kind regards
Matthias

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This is really helpful - thanks for these examples! Custom batch readings, where you can specify when and how frequently these readings need to be taken, look like the ideal solution here.

I’ve split this into a feature request here, so please do give it a vote! It’s something I can certainly see as being helpful for a lot of breweries.