BrewMonitor® offers your brewing team access to insight that has never been available before: high-resolution data from inside your fermentation tank, allowing you to track the progress of your fermentation, analyze results, benchmark future batches, and much more. The resulting graphs for each completed fermentation – dissolved oxygen, pH, gravity, pressure, temperature and conductivity – provide extremely clear views into the events that transpired and techniques that were employed.

This series of articles will show examples of data curves from specific parameters, as they were recorded from the fermentation of various styles in different scenarios. They are real fermentations from BrewMonitor users, anonymized of course, and are offered as a look at how these conditions express themselves as measured data trends. In this first article, we step through some examples of typical gravity curves.

Figure 1: IPA Example. The gravity starts just above 14 degrees Plato and drops rapidly as the ale yeast strain ferments between 60-70 degrees Fahrenheit. The gravity levels out at 3 degrees Plato after just two days, and then drops again after 7 days when the beer was dryhopped. This is indicative of hop creep, or refermentation when plant-derived enzymes break down some of the remaining non-fermentable sugars into smaller fermentable molecules. The alcohol content is about 6.1% ABV.
Figure 2: Lager Example. The gravity starts just above 11 degrees Plato and slowly drops as the lager yeast strain ferments between 45-55 degrees Fahrenheit. The gravity levels out at about 2.5 degrees Plato after 9 days, and the beer was allowed to lager for an additional 4 days before being transferred to a conditioning tank. The alcohol content is about 4.8% ABV.
Figure 3: Stout Example. The gravity starts at about 19 degrees plato and drops moderately quickly as the ale yeast strain ferments between 60-70 degrees Fahrenheit. The gravity levels out around 8 degrees Plato after about 7 days. The alcohol content is about 6.1% ABV.
Figure 4: Gravity Comparison. The stout starts at a much higher gravity than either of the other beers, however it finishes much higher as well. For this reason, the IPA and the Stout have roughly the same total alcohol content. The IPA reaches terminal gravity faster than the other two since the yeast is more active than the Lager and is not under as much stress as the Stout.

Thoughts about these data curve examples? Post your comments below.

Read the next article in this series – examples of typical pH curves »

Free eBook: Leveraging Data-Driven Fermentation Performance Management

eBook: Fermentation Management

Can fermentation management be improved, as a process? This eBook explores, in detail, how fermentation performance data analysis helps elevate product and business outcomes in a modern brewery, whether brewpub, microbrewery or regional craft brewer.

You will learn:

  • Day-by-day performance considerations – learned through the extensive examination of real-time fermentation tank data.
  • Key recommendations from the Precision Fermentation science team at each major step of fermentation – “Day zero” (i.e. before you pitch your yeast), the first 24 hours, and day two through the end of fermentation.
  • Best practices – Activity to watch out for, broken down by each key measurement – Dissolved oxygen, gravity, pH, pressure, internal/external temperature, and conductivity.
  • Key findings that can help you solve problems and improve your results.
Download the eBook now!

Posted in Brewery Operations, Brewing Science