Bottling Beer
Pre-Bottling Operations
Measuring Oxygen Levels
Typical dissolved oxygen values vary widely between breweries, but values should be less than 0.05 mg/L in the bright beer tanks. When sampling beer with portable instruments, always fully open the sample valve and regulate the beer flow using the flow control on the outlet side of the instrument. In this way the sensor will always be at the beer pressure, and although it does not matter if the beer leaving the instrument is degassing, this will ensure that beer on its way to the sensor is clear and bubble-free.
Beer Temperature
The temperature of the beer should fall in the range of -1 to 0 degrees C (30–32°F); at higher temperatures, foaming can be a problem when filling the bottles. It is important for the bright beer tank to have cooling jackets both above and below the manway.
Sanitation of Bottling Line
The bottling line is the last opportunity to control beer spoilage organisms in the brewery. Usually, the contamination of beer in this stage results from a lack of an adequate cleaning and sanitation program of the bottling line. Sanitation must be performed immediately before each production batch and after extended shutdown periods to kill most of the microorganisms retained on the equipment (Chapter 20, Brewery Cleaning and Sanitation).
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