Monitoring the homemade fermentation of readymade malt extract using the SCiO NIR sensor: A convergence of technology and tradition

Miniaturized near-infrared (NIR) instruments are launched on the market to satisfy the need of both researchers and consumers for quick ways of analysing stuff, especially in the food field. Their portability and ease of operation are at the centre of the "do-it-yourself" idea behind providing virtually anyone with the ability of making analytical measurements on their own. In this study, we highlighted the convergence of technology and tradition in two seemingly disparate domains: spectroscopy and homebrewing. Homebrewing is in fact a leisure activity which conceptually shares the do-it-yourself approach: the consumer becomes the producer of his/her own beer. Hence, in our study, we investigated the analytical possibilities provided by a handheld NIR spectrometer to monitor the homemade fermentation process of a commercial malt extract, over the course of one week. The spectroscopic data, acquired using the SCiO sensor (Consumer Physics), were analysed via Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to investigate temporal trends and relationships with brewing parameters. Our findings reveal that discernible trends, reflective of brewing stage progression and temperature variations, can be captured and unveiled with simple data analysis approaches. At the same time, the detection of scattering effects that can be attributed to bubble formation on the spectrometer's acquisition window confirm the need for robust and reasoned experimental procedures, but also for proper data preprocessing methods. This rather simple and basic analytical approach could provide the homebrewer the possibility to qualitatively monitor the advancement of the brewing process.