Abstract
Beer quality is a difficult concept to describe and assess by physicochemical and sensory analysis due to the complexity of beer appreciation and acceptability by consumers, which can be dynamic and related to changes in climate affecting raw materials, consumer preference, and rising quality requirements. Artificial intelligence (AI) may offer unique capabilities based on the integration of sensor technology, robotics, and data analysis using machine learning (ML) to identify specific quality traits and process modifications to produce quality beers. This research presented the integration and implementation of AI technology based on low-cost sensor networks in the form of an electronic nose (e-nose), robotics, and ML. Results of ML showed high accuracy (97%) in the identification of fermentation type (Model 1) based on e-nose data; prediction of consumer acceptability from near-infrared (Model 2; R = 0.90) and e-nose data (Model 3; R = 0.95), and physicochemical and colorimetry of beers from e-nose data. The use of the RoboBEER coupled with the e-nose and AI could be used by brewers to assess the fermentation process, quality of beers, detection of faults, traceability, and authentication purposes in an affordable, user-friendly, and accurate manner.
Highlights
Beer quality is usually regarded as a subjective concept that can be described as more objectively based on beer quality traits through physicochemical analysis and/or sensory analysis of beers using either trained panels or consumer tests, the latter for perceived quality
This paper proposed an integrated low-cost artificial intelligence (AI) system integrating robotics (RoboBEER), near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR) spectroscopy, a newly developed e-nose, and sensory analysis to assess automatically the type of fermentation of beers (Model 1) based on e-nose data, sensory perception of beers based on NIR data (Model 2) and e-nose data (Model 3)
Most of the bottom fermentation beers were clustered close to vectors related to foam drainage (FDrain) of beers and color red, green and blue (RGB) and L; the latter may be explained due to the lighter color that these beers tend to have [49] compared to those form top and spontaneous
Summary
Beer quality is usually regarded as a subjective concept that can be described as more objectively based on beer quality traits through physicochemical analysis and/or sensory analysis of beers using either trained panels or consumer tests, the latter for perceived quality. In the case of traditional consumer sensory tests, they tend to be subjective, and require a laboratory with individual booths that meet specific requirements; it involves the recruitment of a large number of participants, which often requires an incentive to participate, which leads to higher costs and time for conducting the sessions and analyzing the data [10,11,12].
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