Test & measurement
Joachim Rogg is a sixth- generation brewery owner. Apart from brewing his own beer, as a contract brewer he is an important partner for smaller operations. The Fermentation Monitor QWX43 multisensor from Endress+Hauser helps Rogg achieve the best possible quality and offer his customers a valuable service.
By Julia Rosenheim, product owner GIL Innovation Lab, Florian Falger, business model/market manager GIL Innovation Lab, both Endress+Hauser Level+Pressure.
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any small breweries aspire to offer special beer products, creating new tastes by utilising exceptional types of hops or special fermentation processes.
Many of these ambitious craft beer brewers shy away from the high costs of investing in production systems and infrastructures. Instead, they take their recipes, raw materials, bottles, labels and bottle caps to other brewers where they can implement their beer concepts. They essentially lay their “egg” in a host’s nest where it incubates, thus giving rise to the term “cuckoo brewing”. In contrast to the animal world, this whole process is a win-win situation. The brewer that takes over the production, known as the contact brewer, profits as well because higher utilisation of their brewing and filling systems is a lucrative business. They also help their customers to select the right raw materials, offer advice during the entire manufacturing process and even enhance existing recipes.
TRADITION AND INNOVATION One of these contract brewers is Joachim Rogg, a sixth-generation brewer whose operation is the last of what was once more than 100 breweries in the county of Breisgau- Hochschwarzwald. The Rogg family has been brewing quality beer since 1846 in Lenzkirch, a climatic health resort in the heart of Germany’s Black Forest region. Far from happening by chance, the company’s success is based on the consistently high quality of the beer. Rogg’s regular customers come from the southern Baden area, nearby Switzerland and the Alsace region of France. Among these are several “cuckoo brewers”. Rogg opened the door and tanks of his private brewery to these customers for the first time in 2013, thus becoming one of the first in the region to offer excess capacity to the young brewers. Apart from the larger tanks, Rogg’s brewery also has two smaller ones with a maximum capacity of 20 hectoliters, precisely the size many of the cuckoo brewers are seeking.
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While tradition and skilled trades play a major role for Joachim Rogg, he has always relied on progress and advanced technologies to continually optimise the quality of his products and processes. This is why he has utilised the Fermentation Monitor QWX43 multisensor from Endress+Hauser for two years. Rogg receives continuous insights into the fermentation process thanks to this innovation.
A HIGH LEVEL OF ASSURANCE The instrument, which is mounted with minimum effort on the fermentation tank and immersed directly in the beer, measures density, acoustiv velocity and process temperature around the clock with a high degree of precision. An algorithm takes the raw measurement values and calculates in real-time the parameters relevant for the brewer, such as original wort, extract, alcohol content and fermentation degree. “We could never achieve such precision with the twice- daily spindle samples, which merely provide a snapshot of a highly changeable process, not even in combination with laboratory analysis,” says Rogg. Another issue is that the spindle samples or laboratory measurements are based on a single parameter, such as density, which is not sufficient to measure the extract content and the actual ethanol content. The instrument does not just supply highly precise measurement values. It sends the data to Endress+Hauser’s Netilion IIoT ecosystem via WiFi so that it can be retrieved with a mobile device or PC with internet access, at any time and from anywhere. A direct connection to the process control system is also possible. The brewer can also receive push notifications from the QWX43 regarding critical deviations in the fermentation process. “An automatic alarm on the brewer’s mobile phone, for example if the cooling system fails, offers a high level of assurance,” says Rogg. Furthermore, the Fermentation Monitor QWX43 significantly reduces effort since it replaces manual sampling, which can take up
February 2024 Instrumentation Monthly
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