Abstract
Foam stability and retention is an important indicator of beer quality and freshness. A full, white head of foam with nicely distributed small bubbles of CO2 is appealing to the consumers and the crown of the production process. However, raw materials, production process, packaging, transportation, and storage have a big impact on foam stability, which marks foam stability monitoring during all these stages, from production to consumer, as very important. Beer foam stability is expressed as a change of foam height over a certain period. This research aimed to monitor the foam stability of lager beers using image analysis methods on two different types of recordings: RGB and depth videos. Sixteen different commercially available lager beers were subjected to analysis. The automated image analysis method based only on the analysis of RGB video images proved to be inapplicable in real conditions due to problems such as reflection of light through glass, autofocus, and beer lacing/clinging, which make it impossible to accurately detect the actual height of the foam. A solution to this problem, representing a unique contribution, was found by introducing the use of a 3D camera in estimating foam stability. According to the results, automated analysis of depth images obtained from a 3D camera proved to be a suitable, objective, repeatable, reliable, and sufficiently sensitive method for measuring foam stability of lager beers. The applied model proved to be suitable for predicting changes in foam retention of lager beers.
Highlights
Ancient beer displayed weak or no foam
The aim of this paper was to analyze the applicability of an automated non-invasive, objective, and cheap image analysis method under real conditions, to follow up and measure the foam stability of lager beers produced and available on the Croatian market
Stable beer foam after production does not have to correlate with beer foam after a certain period of storage and transport
Summary
Ancient beer displayed weak or no foam. Today’s brewing industries are far from the ancient manufacturers, and stable and retentive foam head is one of the main indicators of beer freshness and quality. Even though a big and rich head of foam is a property of certain types of beer (lager, pilsner, and wheat beer among others), every consumer seeks freshness in a preferable label. Cling can be described as the adhesion of beer foam to the side of the glass during beer consumption, commonly known as “lacing”. Belgium is known for beers that leave a lacy glass. According to BJCP Beer Style Guidelines [3], “Belgian Lace is a characteristic and persistent latticework pattern of foam left on the inside of the glass as a beer is consumed. The look is reminiscent of fine lacework from Brussels or Belgium, and is a desirable indicator of beer quality
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