Colour measurement is becoming more and more important in the brewing industry as awareness of quality increases.
The hue or shade of a beer is primarily derived from grains and sometimes from fruit or other ingredients in beer.
Beer styles made with caramelised, toasted or roasted malts or grains will exhibit increasingly darker colours.
The colour of a beer may often, but not always, allow the consumer to anticipate how a beer might taste. It’s important to note that beer colour does not equate to alcohol level.
For historical reasons, a large number of color scales exist for the color assessment of liquid products, such as the Iodine, Hazen and Gardner color scales.
The yellowness index as per ASTM D1925 was originally a color index for surface color measurement, but the new ASTM D5386-93b now also defines the yellowness index for transparent liquids.
The DR6000 UV VIS Spectrophotometer from Hach can identify the following color scales according to the spectral method: CIE L*a*b* system, Gardner color scale, Hazen color scale, Iodine color scale, Yellowness index and EBC. The spectral method for colour measurement involves dissecting the white light from the light source into its spectral parts using a concave grid and determining the transmission level of the sample in a wavelength range of 380 nm to 720 nm.
Hach’s DR6000 UV VIS Spectrophotometer uses discrete wavelengths of light to determine the concentration of certain compounds in a sample. The basic premise is that specific wavelengths of light will be absorbed by substances across a certain distance. For the person in the lab, the fact is that a UV-VIS Spectrophotometer can analyse different, yet critical, aspects of the beer throughout the brewing process, ensuring they are producing consistent quality beer across their many styles.
The DR6000 provides brewers with a quick turnaround of parameters, and also allows the process team to make minor changes to ensure the same quality of the end product is met every time.
For more information visit https://au.hach.com/beverage