Cervecería La Tropical has transformed the accuracy of its tetra hop extract dosing and its canning-line performance with a Qdos chemical metering pump and FaBLINE PTFE hoses from Aflex Hose.

La Tropical, a Miami brewery with deep Cuban roots, uses a Qdos 60 peristaltic pump to precisely dose small amounts of tetra hop extract (tetrahydroiso-alpha acids) and to meter chemicals in its CIP system. Previously, the brewery dosed hop extract manually, but wanted to achieve more consistency and efficiency. 

The Qdos pump has enabled efficient use of tetra hop, for a more consistent product and reduction in over-dosing. By automating this process, La Tropical has also benefited from more efficient use of its employees’ time, as the process no longer requires daily manual intervention or hours of human effort.

The Qdos chemical metering pump from Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Solutions (WMFTS) offers an accuracy of ±1 % and repeatability of ±0.5 %. This precision prevents overdosing, which can negatively impact beer foam stability, bitterness and overall product quality.

“For this particular application it was very critical to have a high level of accuracy, especially because the amount of hop extract that we are using is very small,” says Fernando Finol, brewing supervisor at La Tropical. “We want to dose tetra hop extract at a rate that will vary between 0.2 mL/min to 1.2 at the most. Accuracy is very important because 0.1 can throw my whole specifications off.”

Additionally, Qdos offers low shear pumping, which protects the integrity of viscous hop extracts and prevents emulsion damage. Its fully contained fluid path eliminates sticky spills and simplifies cleanup, while santoprene tubing provides strong chemical resistance for acidic tetra hop. There are no valves to block, so crystallization can’t occur with tetra hop.

Furthermore, Qdos offers CIP compatibility, enabling cleaning with the same chemicals used elsewhere in the brewery. Operaters are not exposed to aggressive CIP chemicals, since they are contained in the Qdos pump head.

La Tropical has also benefited from the Qdos Hose Connector Kit, which is a PTFE hose accessory designed for secure connection of a Qdos pump into an existing process line. The hoses are compatible for use with aggressive and corrosive chemicals, which can also handle elevated temperatures.

La Tropical also increased efficiency on its canning line by installing another brewery solution from WMFTS: FaBLINE PTFE-hoses from Aflex Hose. 

After experiencing oxygenation in its canning line caused by PVC hoses, La Tropical switched to half-inch FaBLINE with blue EPDM cover and tri-clover connections in 2023. Elevated levels of oxygen affect the taste of the final product and reduce the beer’s shelf life.

La Tropical uses 2-inch FaBLINE  hoses with anti-static PTFE liner and blue external EPDM cover with DIN 11851 connections to transfer bright beer via a flash pasteurizer to resolve carbonization loss from EPDM hose from another manufacturer.

Fernando Finol, Brewing Supervisor at La Tropical in Miami, continued: 

“The issue we were having in our canning line was a high level of dissolved oxygen pickup, which was very detrimental to our beer,” Finol says. “We realized it was coming from the hoses that we were using and we didn’t solve the issue until four or five months after commissioning the line. For every 10 ppb of dissolved oxygen, you have one less month of shelf life. That is very considerable and the flavor profile of the beer changes dramatically.”

Finol notes La Tropical has 12 FaBLINE hoses in its canning line, reducing oxygen pickup to almost nothing.

“Before using the FaBLINE for this application, we were getting a lot of loss of carbonation with EPDM hoses due to foam,” Finol says. “Over time the EPDM hoses were getting wrinkles inside or rough surfaces — this creates nucleation sites which can be one of the reasons for carbonation loss.”

Due to its patented smoothbore profile FaBLINE allowed La Tropical to reduce carbonation and beer losses due to foaming. 

FaBLINE also delivers increased service life for reduced replacement, downtime and labor costs, as well as reduced CIP downtime with cost savings on chemicals and utilities. Increased CIP chemical compatibility reduces cycle times and the risk of recall and product spoiling

La Tropical is now considering additional Qdos pumps and Aflex FaBLINE PTFE hoses for its Miami brewery: three Qdos H-FLO 300 pumps for CIP dosing, a Qdos 30 for hops extract, another Qdos on the keg line and the FaBLINE for wort transfer.