Detection of Foreign Matter in Beer Using an Inline Foam Analysis System

By Paul Lanthier Akitek, Inc., Oakville, Ontario, Canada. This paper was originally presented at the MBAA 112th Anniversary Convention, Keystone, Colorado, 1999.

Abstract
In capped beer bottles, CO₂ dissociation during pasteurization is increased with the presence in the bottle of foreign matter such as glass inclusion and visible organic material. During the past 30 years, Canadian operating practices have called for the use of foampicker, people trained to inspect 100% of the bottled beer in order to recog-nize the associate foam collar anomalies with the presence of foreign matter. This has been regarded as a very successful, albeit expensive, quality control process. When Akitek set out to develop a foreign matter detection system for capped beer bottles, it needed to determine if the foam collar effects were predictable, over a wide range of beer types, and if they could be recognized at an acceptable level of accuracy and repeata-bility, at line speeds. In order to succeed, Akitek also felt that it was important to incor-porate artificial intelligence in the system's design to deal with the complex environment of process, product and container variations and drifts. Furthermore, software and hardware components had to be selected which allow easy adaptation to a wide variety of beer and bottle types and which are insensitive to extraneous noises. This technical paper describes the technologies used, the system development and the results.
Keywords: foampicking, foreign matter, foam, glass, inspection  

Sintesis
SINTE �SIS En botellas de cerveza cerradas, la disociaci�n de CO₂ durante la pasteurizaci�n se incrementa con la presencia de materia extra�a en la botella tal como las inclusiones de gas y material org�nico visible. Durante los �ltimos 30 a�os las pr�cticas operatorias Canadienses han requerido el uso de inspectores de espuma, gente entrenada para inspeccionar el 100% de la cerveza embotellada para reconocer las anomal�as del cuello de espuma asociadas con la presencia de mate-rial extra�o. Esto se ha considerado como un proceso de control de calidad de gran �xito, pero costoso. Cuando Akitek se propuso desarrollar un sistema de detecci�n de materia extra�a para botellas de cerveza cerradas, tuvo que determi-nar si los efectos del cuello de espuma fueron predecibles, en un amplio rango de tipos de cerveza, y si fueron reconocidos a un nivel de precisi�n y repetici�n aceptables, a velocidades de l�nea. Para poder triunfar, Akitek tambi�n consider� que era importante el incorporar inteligencia artificial en el dise�o del sistema para enfrentarse con el complejo ambiente de variaciones y cambios del proceso, producto y recipientes. Los componentes del equipo f�sico y soporte l�gico tuvieron que ser seleccionados de tal manera que permitan una adaptaci�n f�cil a una amplia variedad de tipos de cerveza y botellas y que no sean sensibles a los ruidos externos. Este documento t�cnico describe las tecnolog�as usadas, el desar-rollo de sistemas y los resultados.