Ask The Brewmasters

We recently purchased an ATP meter (Hygiena System Sure Plus) and are beginning to establish RLU thresholds throughout the brewery. Hygiena provides some guidance for initial testing but obviously only gives general guidelines to apply to any industry. We are looking for suggestions from the brewing industry specifically for developing thresholds for Pass, Proceed with Caution, and Fail. 

We are beginning in the fermentation cellar, first focusing on FVs and BBTs post sanitizer. Once we've established targets and best practices there we will continue to expand outwards. While we want to sample EVERYTHING we also want this tool and SOP to be sustainable and fully adopted while not overwhelming the team. Concurrently we are performing an overarching critical control point assessment and use this assessment to determine future sampling points in all areas. (This not a HACCP plan rather us documenting every point of measurement and quantification that we can tie to specific SOPs). 

Would anyone share their experiences, best practices, and thresholds? Are there any good resources we should read?

Thanks!

------------------------------
Campbell Morrissy
Mother Road Brewing Co
Flagstaff AZ
(201) 704-6304
------------------------------

Hello Campbell,

In my previous brewery we used the same meter and implemented the following scale for our FV CIPs and I have used the same scale in my current shop:

0-15 = Good to sanitize
15-30 = Rinse again, get a second person to inspect, retest if inspection looks good
30+ = run cycle again

99% of the time, we fall under 15 RLUs after a good caustic cycle and hot rinse. The other 1% is usually caused by a sprayball starting to plug and didn't hit a section of wall very well.

------------------------------
Jason Schlebach
Head Brewer
Pelican Brewing Company
Tillamook OR
(503) 374-1238
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-08-2019 15:41
From: Campbell Morrissy
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

We recently purchased an ATP meter (Hygiena System Sure Plus) and are beginning to establish RLU thresholds throughout the brewery. Hygiena provides some guidance for initial testing but obviously only gives general guidelines to apply to any industry. We are looking for suggestions from the brewing industry specifically for developing thresholds for Pass, Proceed with Caution, and Fail.

We are beginning in the fermentation cellar, first focusing on FVs and BBTs post sanitizer. Once we've established targets and best practices there we will continue to expand outwards. While we want to sample EVERYTHING we also want this tool and SOP to be sustainable and fully adopted while not overwhelming the team. Concurrently we are performing an overarching critical control point assessment and use this assessment to determine future sampling points in all areas. (This not a HACCP plan rather us documenting every point of measurement and quantification that we can tie to specific SOPs). 

Would anyone share their experiences, best practices, and thresholds? Are there any good resources we should read?

Thanks!

------------------------------
Campbell Morrissy
Mother Road Brewing Co
Flagstaff AZ
(201) 704-6304
------------------------------

Hi Cmapbell,

I also use the Hygenia System. 

I have set the limits for the FVs and BBTs at 10rlus. For our yeast Collection tank I set the limit to 5.

We test the rinse water after our acid cycle and if the tank has a side port we do a surface swab just as far in as we can reach with the swab.

Most of our results come back between 0-2. Rarely have I seen anything over 5 . If a result is over 5 it is usually well out of spec and something was off with the CIP cycle.

------------------------------
Stewart Brown
Quality Manager
Cayman Islands Brewery
Georgetown
(345) 939-7048
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-08-2019 15:41
From: Campbell Morrissy
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

We recently purchased an ATP meter (Hygiena System Sure Plus) and are beginning to establish RLU thresholds throughout the brewery. Hygiena provides some guidance for initial testing but obviously only gives general guidelines to apply to any industry. We are looking for suggestions from the brewing industry specifically for developing thresholds for Pass, Proceed with Caution, and Fail.

We are beginning in the fermentation cellar, first focusing on FVs and BBTs post sanitizer. Once we've established targets and best practices there we will continue to expand outwards. While we want to sample EVERYTHING we also want this tool and SOP to be sustainable and fully adopted while not overwhelming the team. Concurrently we are performing an overarching critical control point assessment and use this assessment to determine future sampling points in all areas. (This not a HACCP plan rather us documenting every point of measurement and quantification that we can tie to specific SOPs). 

Would anyone share their experiences, best practices, and thresholds? Are there any good resources we should read?

Thanks!

------------------------------
Campbell Morrissy
Mother Road Brewing Co
Flagstaff AZ
(201) 704-6304
------------------------------

Here's our SOP:

1. After caustic and rinse our range is 1 - 10 RLU's
2. Anything over 10 we re-inspect and run another caustic cycle

We often get 0 - 1 for readings with an occasional 3 - 4.

Beers,

Aaron

------------------------------
Aaron Brodniak
Minister of Beer Quality
Diamond Knot Brewing Co
Mukilteo WA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-08-2019 15:41
From: Campbell Morrissy
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

We recently purchased an ATP meter (Hygiena System Sure Plus) and are beginning to establish RLU thresholds throughout the brewery. Hygiena provides some guidance for initial testing but obviously only gives general guidelines to apply to any industry. We are looking for suggestions from the brewing industry specifically for developing thresholds for Pass, Proceed with Caution, and Fail.

We are beginning in the fermentation cellar, first focusing on FVs and BBTs post sanitizer. Once we've established targets and best practices there we will continue to expand outwards. While we want to sample EVERYTHING we also want this tool and SOP to be sustainable and fully adopted while not overwhelming the team. Concurrently we are performing an overarching critical control point assessment and use this assessment to determine future sampling points in all areas. (This not a HACCP plan rather us documenting every point of measurement and quantification that we can tie to specific SOPs). 

Would anyone share their experiences, best practices, and thresholds? Are there any good resources we should read?

Thanks!

------------------------------
Campbell Morrissy
Mother Road Brewing Co
Flagstaff AZ
(201) 704-6304
------------------------------

Aloha,

Test rinse water post caustic/acid CIP cycle *if you are using skid for CIP, make sure to test on return side so the water has had a chance to contact the whole vessel*
We use 0-9 as a pass, 10+ is visual inspection and re-rinse.  If 2nd test is still high, re-run CIP.  

With good practices you shouldn't be seeing much beyond 2-3 very often.

Cheers n beers,

------------------------------
Jon DuPont
Brewing Supervisor
Maui Brewing Company
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-08-2019 15:41
From: Campbell Morrissy
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

We recently purchased an ATP meter (Hygiena System Sure Plus) and are beginning to establish RLU thresholds throughout the brewery. Hygiena provides some guidance for initial testing but obviously only gives general guidelines to apply to any industry. We are looking for suggestions from the brewing industry specifically for developing thresholds for Pass, Proceed with Caution, and Fail.

We are beginning in the fermentation cellar, first focusing on FVs and BBTs post sanitizer. Once we've established targets and best practices there we will continue to expand outwards. While we want to sample EVERYTHING we also want this tool and SOP to be sustainable and fully adopted while not overwhelming the team. Concurrently we are performing an overarching critical control point assessment and use this assessment to determine future sampling points in all areas. (This not a HACCP plan rather us documenting every point of measurement and quantification that we can tie to specific SOPs). 

Would anyone share their experiences, best practices, and thresholds? Are there any good resources we should read?

Thanks!

------------------------------
Campbell Morrissy
Mother Road Brewing Co
Flagstaff AZ
(201) 704-6304
------------------------------

Campbell,

Similar to what the other folks have said, we use 0-10 as a "pass" and 10-20 as "caution" for fermentation tanks and storage tanks, blending tanks, etc. Brites, canning line, and anything that is post-pasteurize must score below a 5 or CIP again. We test the rinse water after caustic cycle and hot rinse, before sanitizer. We found that the regular SuperSnap swabs work just as well testing rinse water as the much more expensive water-catching swabs, so we just use those.

I highly recommend utilizing the locations and method tools on the meter and using Hygiena's software to track your tanks' and coworkers' scores to isolate issues. If there's one tank that gets cautions more than others, it might be time to do a teardown or something of the like to check it out.

------------------------------
Craig Collins
Cidermaker
Downeast Cider
Boston MA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-08-2019 15:41
From: Campbell Morrissy
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

We recently purchased an ATP meter (Hygiena System Sure Plus) and are beginning to establish RLU thresholds throughout the brewery. Hygiena provides some guidance for initial testing but obviously only gives general guidelines to apply to any industry. We are looking for suggestions from the brewing industry specifically for developing thresholds for Pass, Proceed with Caution, and Fail.

We are beginning in the fermentation cellar, first focusing on FVs and BBTs post sanitizer. Once we've established targets and best practices there we will continue to expand outwards. While we want to sample EVERYTHING we also want this tool and SOP to be sustainable and fully adopted while not overwhelming the team. Concurrently we are performing an overarching critical control point assessment and use this assessment to determine future sampling points in all areas. (This not a HACCP plan rather us documenting every point of measurement and quantification that we can tie to specific SOPs). 

Would anyone share their experiences, best practices, and thresholds? Are there any good resources we should read?

Thanks!

------------------------------
Campbell Morrissy
Mother Road Brewing Co
Flagstaff AZ
(201) 704-6304
------------------------------

Thank you all for your responses. It sounds like regular results <10 are a reasonable expectation. 

@Craig Collins How did you confirm the use of Super Snap for rinse water​? I figure we could just test a dirty sample but all that would let us know is it picked up SOMETHING but not everything.

------------------------------
Campbell Morrissy
Mother Road Brewing Co
Flagstaff AZ
(201) 704-6304
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-09-2019 20:15
From: Craig Collins
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

Campbell,

Similar to what the other folks have said, we use 0-10 as a "pass" and 10-20 as "caution" for fermentation tanks and storage tanks, blending tanks, etc. Brites, canning line, and anything that is post-pasteurize must score below a 5 or CIP again. We test the rinse water after caustic cycle and hot rinse, before sanitizer. We found that the regular SuperSnap swabs work just as well testing rinse water as the much more expensive water-catching swabs, so we just use those.

I highly recommend utilizing the locations and method tools on the meter and using Hygiena's software to track your tanks' and coworkers' scores to isolate issues. If there's one tank that gets cautions more than others, it might be time to do a teardown or something of the like to check it out.

------------------------------
Craig Collins
Cidermaker
Downeast Cider
Boston MA

Original Message:
Sent: 01-08-2019 15:41
From: Campbell Morrissy
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

We recently purchased an ATP meter (Hygiena System Sure Plus) and are beginning to establish RLU thresholds throughout the brewery. Hygiena provides some guidance for initial testing but obviously only gives general guidelines to apply to any industry. We are looking for suggestions from the brewing industry specifically for developing thresholds for Pass, Proceed with Caution, and Fail.

We are beginning in the fermentation cellar, first focusing on FVs and BBTs post sanitizer. Once we've established targets and best practices there we will continue to expand outwards. While we want to sample EVERYTHING we also want this tool and SOP to be sustainable and fully adopted while not overwhelming the team. Concurrently we are performing an overarching critical control point assessment and use this assessment to determine future sampling points in all areas. (This not a HACCP plan rather us documenting every point of measurement and quantification that we can tie to specific SOPs). 

Would anyone share their experiences, best practices, and thresholds? Are there any good resources we should read?

Thanks!

------------------------------
Campbell Morrissy
Mother Road Brewing Co
Flagstaff AZ
(201) 704-6304
------------------------------

We use the same system and get 0 or we consider it a fail and we reclean.

If we do get above 0 it's usually caused by the manway shadow so we manually clean below that again and re run the cip.

I guess you could accept below 10 as a pass but to be honest we get 0 first time pretty much everytime so if it's above that, somethings wrong and we won't risk it.

------------------------------
Greg Hughes
Brewer
Dark Revolution
Salisbury
44 1722 410710
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2019 08:17
From: Campbell Morrissy
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

Thank you all for your responses. It sounds like regular results <10 are a reasonable expectation.

@Craig Collins How did you confirm the use of Super Snap for rinse water​? I figure we could just test a dirty sample but all that would let us know is it picked up SOMETHING but not everything.

------------------------------
Campbell Morrissy
Mother Road Brewing Co
Flagstaff AZ
(201) 704-6304

Original Message:
Sent: 01-09-2019 20:15
From: Craig Collins
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

Campbell,

Similar to what the other folks have said, we use 0-10 as a "pass" and 10-20 as "caution" for fermentation tanks and storage tanks, blending tanks, etc. Brites, canning line, and anything that is post-pasteurize must score below a 5 or CIP again. We test the rinse water after caustic cycle and hot rinse, before sanitizer. We found that the regular SuperSnap swabs work just as well testing rinse water as the much more expensive water-catching swabs, so we just use those.

I highly recommend utilizing the locations and method tools on the meter and using Hygiena's software to track your tanks' and coworkers' scores to isolate issues. If there's one tank that gets cautions more than others, it might be time to do a teardown or something of the like to check it out.

------------------------------
Craig Collins
Cidermaker
Downeast Cider
Boston MA

Original Message:
Sent: 01-08-2019 15:41
From: Campbell Morrissy
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

We recently purchased an ATP meter (Hygiena System Sure Plus) and are beginning to establish RLU thresholds throughout the brewery. Hygiena provides some guidance for initial testing but obviously only gives general guidelines to apply to any industry. We are looking for suggestions from the brewing industry specifically for developing thresholds for Pass, Proceed with Caution, and Fail.

We are beginning in the fermentation cellar, first focusing on FVs and BBTs post sanitizer. Once we've established targets and best practices there we will continue to expand outwards. While we want to sample EVERYTHING we also want this tool and SOP to be sustainable and fully adopted while not overwhelming the team. Concurrently we are performing an overarching critical control point assessment and use this assessment to determine future sampling points in all areas. (This not a HACCP plan rather us documenting every point of measurement and quantification that we can tie to specific SOPs). 

Would anyone share their experiences, best practices, and thresholds? Are there any good resources we should read?

Thanks!

------------------------------
Campbell Morrissy
Mother Road Brewing Co
Flagstaff AZ
(201) 704-6304
------------------------------

@Campbell Morrissy we tested the same rinse waters side by side, holding both the supersnap and aquasnap side by side in the last runnings of the rinse. I don't recall the exact results but our lab manager at the time determined that there was no increase in scores when using the actual water collection swabs. I do recall that we got the aquasnaps as a sample - so you might be able to get a pack as a freebie and try it yourself to see if your results are different. Now that I'm thinking about it, different water chemistry, etc, might play a factor in it.

As an aside, the ATP meter is one of my favorite tools around the cider house. The operating principle is so simple and ingenious.

------------------------------
Craig Collins
Cidermaker
Downeast Cider
Boston MA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2019 08:17
From: Campbell Morrissy
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

Thank you all for your responses. It sounds like regular results <10 are a reasonable expectation.

@Craig Collins How did you confirm the use of Super Snap for rinse water​? I figure we could just test a dirty sample but all that would let us know is it picked up SOMETHING but not everything.

------------------------------
Campbell Morrissy
Mother Road Brewing Co
Flagstaff AZ
(201) 704-6304

Original Message:
Sent: 01-09-2019 20:15
From: Craig Collins
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

Campbell,

Similar to what the other folks have said, we use 0-10 as a "pass" and 10-20 as "caution" for fermentation tanks and storage tanks, blending tanks, etc. Brites, canning line, and anything that is post-pasteurize must score below a 5 or CIP again. We test the rinse water after caustic cycle and hot rinse, before sanitizer. We found that the regular SuperSnap swabs work just as well testing rinse water as the much more expensive water-catching swabs, so we just use those.

I highly recommend utilizing the locations and method tools on the meter and using Hygiena's software to track your tanks' and coworkers' scores to isolate issues. If there's one tank that gets cautions more than others, it might be time to do a teardown or something of the like to check it out.

------------------------------
Craig Collins
Cidermaker
Downeast Cider
Boston MA

Original Message:
Sent: 01-08-2019 15:41
From: Campbell Morrissy
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

We recently purchased an ATP meter (Hygiena System Sure Plus) and are beginning to establish RLU thresholds throughout the brewery. Hygiena provides some guidance for initial testing but obviously only gives general guidelines to apply to any industry. We are looking for suggestions from the brewing industry specifically for developing thresholds for Pass, Proceed with Caution, and Fail.

We are beginning in the fermentation cellar, first focusing on FVs and BBTs post sanitizer. Once we've established targets and best practices there we will continue to expand outwards. While we want to sample EVERYTHING we also want this tool and SOP to be sustainable and fully adopted while not overwhelming the team. Concurrently we are performing an overarching critical control point assessment and use this assessment to determine future sampling points in all areas. (This not a HACCP plan rather us documenting every point of measurement and quantification that we can tie to specific SOPs). 

Would anyone share their experiences, best practices, and thresholds? Are there any good resources we should read?

Thanks!

------------------------------
Campbell Morrissy
Mother Road Brewing Co
Flagstaff AZ
(201) 704-6304
------------------------------

I think its a good idea to test the plant water and see where it scores on the RLU scale and work that into your baseline figures.  This can actually change seasonally if the water source goes from surface to ground (as it does in Portland OR).

------------------------------
Karl Ockert
Consulting Brewmaster
Karl Ockert Brewing Services LLC
Lake Oswego OR
(503) 887-1938
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2019 08:17
From: Campbell Morrissy
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

Thank you all for your responses. It sounds like regular results <10 are a reasonable expectation.

@Craig Collins How did you confirm the use of Super Snap for rinse water​? I figure we could just test a dirty sample but all that would let us know is it picked up SOMETHING but not everything.

------------------------------
Campbell Morrissy
Mother Road Brewing Co
Flagstaff AZ
(201) 704-6304

Original Message:
Sent: 01-09-2019 20:15
From: Craig Collins
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

Campbell,

Similar to what the other folks have said, we use 0-10 as a "pass" and 10-20 as "caution" for fermentation tanks and storage tanks, blending tanks, etc. Brites, canning line, and anything that is post-pasteurize must score below a 5 or CIP again. We test the rinse water after caustic cycle and hot rinse, before sanitizer. We found that the regular SuperSnap swabs work just as well testing rinse water as the much more expensive water-catching swabs, so we just use those.

I highly recommend utilizing the locations and method tools on the meter and using Hygiena's software to track your tanks' and coworkers' scores to isolate issues. If there's one tank that gets cautions more than others, it might be time to do a teardown or something of the like to check it out.

------------------------------
Craig Collins
Cidermaker
Downeast Cider
Boston MA

Original Message:
Sent: 01-08-2019 15:41
From: Campbell Morrissy
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

We recently purchased an ATP meter (Hygiena System Sure Plus) and are beginning to establish RLU thresholds throughout the brewery. Hygiena provides some guidance for initial testing but obviously only gives general guidelines to apply to any industry. We are looking for suggestions from the brewing industry specifically for developing thresholds for Pass, Proceed with Caution, and Fail.

We are beginning in the fermentation cellar, first focusing on FVs and BBTs post sanitizer. Once we've established targets and best practices there we will continue to expand outwards. While we want to sample EVERYTHING we also want this tool and SOP to be sustainable and fully adopted while not overwhelming the team. Concurrently we are performing an overarching critical control point assessment and use this assessment to determine future sampling points in all areas. (This not a HACCP plan rather us documenting every point of measurement and quantification that we can tie to specific SOPs). 

Would anyone share their experiences, best practices, and thresholds? Are there any good resources we should read?

Thanks!

------------------------------
Campbell Morrissy
Mother Road Brewing Co
Flagstaff AZ
(201) 704-6304
------------------------------

Hi Campbell -

When starting your monitoring program I would use 5-10 swabs per tank configuration after each cleaning and establish the most difficult to clean sample locations. About three to five cleanings and you will know. Make the worst case locations your post cleaning sample locations. We settled on three but for our tanks the ports are always the hot spots. We have the Ensure model by Hygiena (might be the previous model). A value of 5 or more results in a reclean of the failed area unless it's the krausen line in an FV in which case the entire tank will be recleaned. Zero values are routinely acheived.

------------------------------
Paul Oettinger
Head of Manufacturing & QA
Pals Brewing Company
North Platte NE
(308) 221-6715
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-08-2019 15:41
From: Campbell Morrissy
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

We recently purchased an ATP meter (Hygiena System Sure Plus) and are beginning to establish RLU thresholds throughout the brewery. Hygiena provides some guidance for initial testing but obviously only gives general guidelines to apply to any industry. We are looking for suggestions from the brewing industry specifically for developing thresholds for Pass, Proceed with Caution, and Fail.

We are beginning in the fermentation cellar, first focusing on FVs and BBTs post sanitizer. Once we've established targets and best practices there we will continue to expand outwards. While we want to sample EVERYTHING we also want this tool and SOP to be sustainable and fully adopted while not overwhelming the team. Concurrently we are performing an overarching critical control point assessment and use this assessment to determine future sampling points in all areas. (This not a HACCP plan rather us documenting every point of measurement and quantification that we can tie to specific SOPs). 

Would anyone share their experiences, best practices, and thresholds? Are there any good resources we should read?

Thanks!

------------------------------
Campbell Morrissy
Mother Road Brewing Co
Flagstaff AZ
(201) 704-6304
------------------------------

We always check the ATP for our city water first thing of the day, and about halfway through the day as well in case any changes occurred.  It varies from season to season due to snow melt in the winter, and rains in the summer.  After establishing what our city water ATP is, we always give it a threshold of 10 RLU for FVs and Brites.  We usually see that we stay under 10, but it does happen at times where we cant get the numbers to get below a certain point, like i said due to how our city water is coming in.

------------------------------
Bryan Albright
Cellarman
Ska Brewing
Durango CO
(970) 247-5792
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2019 23:12
From: Paul Oettinger
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

Hi Campbell -

When starting your monitoring program I would use 5-10 swabs per tank configuration after each cleaning and establish the most difficult to clean sample locations. About three to five cleanings and you will know. Make the worst case locations your post cleaning sample locations. We settled on three but for our tanks the ports are always the hot spots. We have the Ensure model by Hygiena (might be the previous model). A value of 5 or more results in a reclean of the failed area unless it's the krausen line in an FV in which case the entire tank will be recleaned. Zero values are routinely acheived.

------------------------------
Paul Oettinger
Head of Manufacturing & QA
Pals Brewing Company
North Platte NE
(308) 221-6715

Original Message:
Sent: 01-08-2019 15:41
From: Campbell Morrissy
Subject: ATP Meter - RLU Thresholds

We recently purchased an ATP meter (Hygiena System Sure Plus) and are beginning to establish RLU thresholds throughout the brewery. Hygiena provides some guidance for initial testing but obviously only gives general guidelines to apply to any industry. We are looking for suggestions from the brewing industry specifically for developing thresholds for Pass, Proceed with Caution, and Fail.

We are beginning in the fermentation cellar, first focusing on FVs and BBTs post sanitizer. Once we've established targets and best practices there we will continue to expand outwards. While we want to sample EVERYTHING we also want this tool and SOP to be sustainable and fully adopted while not overwhelming the team. Concurrently we are performing an overarching critical control point assessment and use this assessment to determine future sampling points in all areas. (This not a HACCP plan rather us documenting every point of measurement and quantification that we can tie to specific SOPs). 

Would anyone share their experiences, best practices, and thresholds? Are there any good resources we should read?

Thanks!

------------------------------
Campbell Morrissy
Mother Road Brewing Co
Flagstaff AZ
(201) 704-6304
------------------------------