A single model to monitor multistep craft beer manufacturing using near infrared spectroscopy and chemometrics

•NIR and MSPC to monitor and control the beer production.•Simple multivariate control charts established for all the steps of the process.•Variability within-batches is smaller than the variability within-steps.•The complete procedure monitor and control with a single PCA model. This manuscript presents a comprehensive approach to monitoring the whole process of craft beer production (mashing, circulation, boiling, fermentation and carbonatation), using a simple, rapid and green methodology like Near Infrared spectroscopy combined with MSPC (Multivariate Statistics Process Control). A Principal Component Analysis model is calculated with near infrared spectra (range between 800–2500 nm) collected in all the steps of the process (i.e., using a batch-to-batch approach), and a multivariate control chart is generated in order to monitor the beer development. Each batch was composed of a variable number of samples (average of 55 samples per batch) depending on the sampling time of every step. Four batches working under normal operating conditions are used to construct the model. Three external batches are used to validate the proposal (two of them with induced disturbances and another one working under normal operating conditions). The results were compared to those obtained by monitoring the solid soluble content (SSC) by using Partial Least Squares regression to ascertain the richness of the information given by NIR. The results illustrate the versatility and simplicity of the proposal and its reliability towards a global monitor and control of the beer-making procedure.