A customer-oriented approach to the development of a visual and statistical foam analysis

Most of the standard methods for foam stability evaluation are based on measurements of the weight or volume of the liquid collapsed from the foam. However, these drainage methods are insufficient for the evaluation of practical foam stability. Accordingly, we decided to develop a new system for foam stability evaluation. We have refined an automatic pouring machine that reproducibly pours beer into a glass in a consumer-use situation. A multiple regression analysis is applied to estimate our new foam stability value, named FCT (foam collapse time). Using several statistical analyses, we have confirmed that the visual impression of foam stability is consistent with the FCT value. In contrast, conventional values do not have a close statistical significance to the visual foam stability.