Development of a Sturdy, Portable Instrument for the Rapid Determination of Alcohol in Beer. Andrew Browne, Geoffrey Buckee, Roger Hammond, and John Nye, The Brewing Research Foundation, Nutfield, Redhill, Surrey, England RH1 4HY. J. Am. Soc. Brew. Chem. 49:0074, 1991.

The importance of alcohol analysis is clearly recognized in the control and monitoring of the brewing process. Traditional methods of alcohol measurement are slow, and recently developed rapid methods require expensive equipment. An inexpensive instrument has been developed that overcomes these shortfalls; it is portable and simple to operate and requires little sample preparation. Alcohol can be measured in the range of 0.50-10.00% v/v with an accuracy of ±0.10% v/v. A typical analysis takes less than 1 min. Analysis is performed on head-space vapor by means of a gas sensor; the alcohol concentration in the sample is calculated and displayed by a built-in microprocessor. The results from this instrument correlate well with those from gas chromatography and distillation.

Keywords: Alcohol meter, Gas sensor, Analysis, Rapid alcohol determination