Brewing Separator Control

Feed Control

Adding a second NIR absorption based turbidity meter AF16-N or AS16-N to the feed line, and measuring incoming loads directly, allows immediate response to varying brewing process conditions, allowing flow rate staging as well as diverting high solids slugs to prevent plugging up a separator bowl. One mishap like this costs more than the analyzers used to prevent it. Of course proper beer/yeast interface detection upstream will also prevent unacceptably high solids loads from shutting down a separator. In this case, an AS16-N probe would detect the transition to beer and provide precise yeast cropping control.

optek AF16-N Single Channel Absorption Sensor

Bypass Blend Control

In some cases, a bypass line is used to dose a certain amount of unfiltered beer or yeast back into the clarified beer stream. The addition of a second, matching turbidimeter, downstream of the bypass injection point, can be useful for yeast concentration control using a differential measurement technique. With this instrumentation constant beer quality can be ensured. Control the turbidity inline, in real-time, without the need for sample taking or manual dosing, saving time and money.

Concentrate Control

The concentrate stream of a separator can be equipped with a NIR absorption based photometer AS16-N or AF16-N using a very short optical path length to accurately correlate absorption measurements directly to weight / percent. This enables yield measurement and control of sales yeast quality.

optek C4000 Photometric Converter