The Importance of Beer Clean Glassware

It might seem hard to believe, but beer isn’t like any other beverage when it comes to the importance of glassware. Beer’s carbonation is what is known as hydrophobic—it repels from water. Carbonation will stop at nothing to get away from water, hence the bubbles rising to the top of your beer. Carbonation’s hydrophobic quality makes it extremely important to have perfectly beer clean glassware. A glass that isn’t “beer clean” messes with head retention, banishes aroma, and compromises mouthfeel. The look isn’t right either — almost every beer deserves a healthy foam capper to keep oxygen out and aroma in.”

What is Beer Clean?

A beer clean glass is free of any impurities: leftover sanitizer, beer, dirt, food, detergent, grease, chap stic, lipstick, lip balm, boogers, or anything else that would provide the escaping CO2 a spot to cling to.

These areas of grime act as nucleation sites, allowing bubbles to cling to and collect around the point. Any time you serve a beer in a glass that is not free of impurities you (or your customers) will quickly see the hidden residue that remains on a seemingly clean glass.

The Brewers Association’s Draught Beer Quality Manual (DBQM) describes a beer clean glass is one that, “forms a proper foam head, allows lacing during consumption and never shows patches of bubbles stuck to the side of the glass in the liquid beer.”

Bubbles clinging to the inside of a beer glass is the most obvious sign that a glass is not beer clean. I don’t care what is causing those nucleation sites, but I don’t want to be drinking it, and neither do you.



How to Achieve Beer Clean

A beer served in a beer clean glass will look inviting with a persistent foam head and consistent lacing will appear as you drink it. Sixpoint offered suggestions for getting beer clean glassware both in a commercial setting and at home in their blog post “Beer Clean Glassware“

The DBQM also offers helpful tips including:

• Wash beer glassware separate from other dishes.
• Air dry glassware to avoid adding lint to the glasses.
• Pre-rinse glasses before serving to remove dust or other particulates.
• Avoid frosted glassware: each ice crystal acts as a nucleation point creating excess foaming.

A lot goes into that glass of beer, if you’re the last part in the chain to ensure a great beer experience, be sure it’s not spoiled by serving the beer in a dirty glass.

http://www.craftbeer.com/brewers_banter/the-importance-of-beer-clean-glassware?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+craftbeercom+%28Craftbeer.com+%C2%BB+All+Posts%29

Sanitation

Cleanliness is the foremost concern of the brewer. Providing good growing conditions for the yeast in the beer also provides good growing conditions for other micro-organisms, especially wild yeast and bacteria. Cleanliness must be maintained throughout every stage of the brewing process.



Figure 17: The yeast cells are the round things, the worms are bacteria. 3000X

The definition and objective of sanitization is to reduce bacteria and contaminants to insignificant or manageable levels. The terms clean, sanitize and sterilize are often used interchangeably, but should not be. Items may be clean but not sanitized or vice versa. 

Here are the definitions:

• Clean - To be free from dirt, stain, or foreign matter.
• Sanitize - To kill/reduce spoiling microorganisms to negligible levels.
• Sterilize - To eliminate all forms of life, especially microorganisms, either by chemical or physical means.

Cleaning is the process of removing all the dirt and grime from a surface, thereby removing all the sites that can harbor bacteria. Cleaning is usually done with a detergent and elbow grease. None of the sanitizing agents used by homebrewers are capable of eliminating all bacterial spores and viruses. The majority of chemical agents homebrewers use will clean and sanitize but not sterilize. However, sterilization is not necessary. Instead of worrying about sterilization, homebrewers can be satisfied if they consistently reduce these contaminants to negligible levels.

All sanitizers are meant to be used on clean surfaces. A sanitizer's ability to kill microorganisms is reduced by the presence of dirt, grime or organic material. Organic deposits can harbor bacteria and shield the surface from being reached by the sanitizer. So it is up to you to make sure the surface of the item to be sanitized is as clean as possible.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter2-2.html