KombuchaKon ’20 Lab Hands-On Day

January 15, 2020

We are always searching for ways to create additional value for all of our members. To that end, we are spearheading a new opportunity for providing education and hands-on training at KombuchaKon ’20. Our theme this year is “Leveling Up” and one of the areas our members have mentioned as a knowledge gap is in hands on experience working with lab and testing equipment to ensure the quality control aspects of brewing commercial Kombucha.

We are excited the following speakers and companies will be partnering with us to bring you this exciting opportunity.

The Core 4 – pH, Brix, TA & ABV with Evan Beyers & Kelley Freeman (BABS)

Educate attendees about basic lab practices (safety, pipetting, mixing, and note-taking)
Teach attendees the theory behind pH and how to optimally take pH samples. Have them perform their own pH measurements with demo equipment
Show attendees how to properly clean and maintain pH probe to get the maximum life out of probe
Educate attendees about the theory and background of a titration
Introduce attendees to the sour/sweet ratio (TA/Sugar).
Have them perform demo titrations using RedCheck
Explain to attendees how to use collect sugar and TA data to build sour/sweet ratio

RIDA®CUBE for In-House Enzyme Testing – Sugars, Acids, Ethanol and more (R-Biopharm)

Learn how to run enzymatic test kits on the RIDA®CUBE system including ethanol, organic acids, and sugars.
Learn how to use pipettors & discuss common pipetting errors (and how to avoid them!)
Discuss potential sampling issues.

Ethanol & Glucose Testing (OptiEnz Sensors)

What’s in your kombucha? It’s a critical question – one requiring fast and accurate measurements for the effective monitoring of ethanol and glucose concentrations in commercial kombucha processes. Proper monitoring results in higher product quality, product consistency, process improvement and efficiency, and verification that the alcoholic content doesn’t exceed the 0.5% ABV threshold for non-alcoholic beverages. OptiEnz has developed a fast, accurate, and low-cost analyzer for measuring ethanol and glucose in kombucha. The analyzer is based on optical enzymatic biosensing technology, meaning that enzymes and light are used together to accurately measure the alcohol and sugar in the beverage. In this workshop, attendees will learn about optical enzymatic biosensing principals as well as how to calibrate the instrument, make measurements in kombucha, and interpret the data produced.