Reliable Quality Control Solutions for Soft Drinks
Trust Your Results - Spoilage Detection by Sartorius
Vigilant HACCP monitoring and routine quality control in your soft drinks manufacturing environment keep spoilage at bay and consumers safe. Quality Control solutions by Sartorius help you to focus on consumer safety and to maintain product integrity.
Process Flow Chart for Your Soft Drinks Process*
Discover the different steps in the soft drinks workflow and click on the icon „+“ to get to know the variety of applications and solutions Sartorius offers for testing during your manufacturing process.

*This workflow may not exactly represent your soft drink workflow however generalizes the QC checkpoints
Applications in Your Quality Control (QC) and Our Product Solutions
You are committed to creating high-quality soft drinks with consistent look, smell, feel and flavor from one bottle to the next. We are committed to providing you the products you need to ensure your softdrink´s taste, aroma and quality. For the quality control in your softdrink processing, we have solutions for the following applications:
Water Testing
Alongside concentrates, flavors, syrups and phosphoric acid-, water is a key ingredient in producing your soft drinks. Therefore, the water you use must adhere to purity standards expected of drinking water as your customers expect their soft drinks to taste the same and be safe to drink the world over.
In the US, for example, water in soft drinks has to conform to FDA regulations and to Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) food contact compliance regulations. Although cities routinely perform microbiological and chemical water monitoring, contamination can occur in your plant during the production process, so regular, routine testing of your water supplies, piping, and tubing/gaskets is essential.
What to test?
Regular total colony counts and tests to identify coliform bacteria and specifically E. coli are recommended for microbiological quality control of water as a raw ingredient in soft drinks.
Learn More about Microbial Enumeration
e.motion Dispenser Membrane filters
Membrane filtration is the established method of choice for water testing as you can test a higher volume of the sample by concentration of potential contaminants on the membrane filter. This method provides reliable and reproducible results. The recommended filter type for microbiological testing of liquid samples is cellulose nitrate (mixed cellulose ester) filter with grid lines. Your benefits include:
- Various filter colors allow the optimal contrast to colonies for easy quantification and identification
- High recovery rates of microorganisms
- Fast flow rates of liquid samples with High flow membranes
- Easy colony counting due to clear colony morphology and distinct grid lines.
- No inhibition of microbial growth by grid lines
- Available in 2 different packages sizes
- Configured for use with automatic Mircrosart® e.motion dispenser
Microsart® e.motion Dispenser
Microsart e.motion Dispenser: Automatic membrane filter dispensing either by touch of a button, hands-free motion detection or by using a foot switch minimize risks of secondary contamination. Your benefits include:
- Space-saving small footprint
- Automated opening of the filter package makes workflow easier
- Available with battery option that avoids cable clutter
- Big pack with 250 filters avoids re-loading during a shift
Microsart® Manifold
Facilitate your routine microbiological testing procedures with the new Microsart® Manifold: select the proper manifold for your individual microbiological testing procedure, choose between reusable and single use funnels or filtration units, and decide between different sizes of manifolds and enjoy the manifold that adapts to your needs.
New Video: Microsart® Manifolds: Adaptable to Your Needs - Watch Now
Microsart® e.jet pump
Liquid transfer pump connects to Microsart® Manifold as the vacuum source for the filtration of your liquid samples. Your benefits include:
- Small footprint
- Can be adapted directly to the manifold, no need for suction flask or Woulffs bottle
- External pump head, making it easy to change pump direction or exchange entirely
Biosart® 250 Funnel
Reusable funnel with a volume of 250mL, adapted to a cellulose nitrate membrane filter on the Microsart® Manifold. Your benefits include:
- Can be autoclaved up to 20-30 times
- No need for flaming of the funnels after each filtration step
Microsart® 250 Funnel
Single use funnel with a volume of 250 mL, adapted to a cellulose nitrate membrane filter on the Microsart® Manifold. Your benefit includes:
- Single use funnel for minimized risk of secondary contamination
- No autoclaving of the funnels needed
- No need for flaming of the funnels after each filtration step
Biosart® 100 Monitors
Ready-to-use sterile filtration unit in 100ml volume. Combine a funnel, a lid, a filter base, a gridded membrane filter and a cellulose pad in one unit. Your benefit includes:
- Saves time and handling steps as autoclaving of funnels and base is not needed
- Minimize the risk of secondary contamination
- Available in different pore sizes and membrane colors
- Different ampoule media types available for water testing
Biosart® 100 Nutrient Media
Sterile ready to use liquid Media in a 2.5ml ampoule. For use with Biosart Monitors or Cellulose Pads in Petri dishes. Your benefit includes:
- Saves time because no preparation of media needed
- Saves space in laboratory refridgerator
- Different media types for water and beer testing available
- Long shelf life of 9-12 months
Microsart@filter
Ready-to-use sterile filtration unit in 100 or 250ml volume. Combine a funnel, a filter base and a gridded
membrane filter in one unit. Your benefit includes:
- Saves time and handling steps as autoclaving of funnels and base is not needed
- Minimize the risk of secondary contamination
- Reliable results as no liquid remains after filtration
Nutrient Pad Sets (NPS)
An attractive alternative to agar plates, NPS are dehydrated media pads in petri dishes, , packed in double layer Aluminum protective bag, come along with suitable membrane filters for economical, time-saving microbiological quality control of water and brewery samples. Your benefits include:
- Eliminate time-consuming, labor-intensive culture media preparation
- No need for cooling of the NPS during storage or transportation due to dehydrated media
- Long shelf-life of 2 years
- Suitable membrane filter included (pore size and color)
New Video: Nutrient Pad Sets: For Quality Control of Beer Samples
Prospenser Plus
Bottle-top Dispenser, dispenses an exact volume of sterile water for wetting the Nutrient Pad Sets for activation of the nutrient media.
With higher levels of microbial nutrients, lower acidity and milder carbonation level, as well as less chemical preservatives today’s soft drinks are at risk of contamination and spoilage from a wider range of microorganisms than ever before. This means that despite having a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system in place, contamination can occur if your process hygiene is compromised during production by microbes that would traditionally not have proliferated in soft drinks. Microbial contaminants now include yeasts, molds, Acetobacter, Alicyclobacillus, Bacillus, Clostridium, Gluconobacter, Lactobacillus, Leuconostoc, Saccharobacter, Zymobacter and Zymomonas. Microbial contamination of your soft drinks can affect quality and safety, shake consumer confidence in your brand and can have serious financial consequences for your company.
What to test?
By adhering to a strict quality control plan throughout the entire production chain, starting with raw materials such as concentrates, flavors and water, through dosing, mixing and finally filling in bottles or cans, you can easily detect undesirable microbes before they contaminate your soft drink products.
For fast, effective, efficient detection of potential spoilage microorganisms in your raw materials and soft drinks, Sartorius has products and solutions you can trust.
e.motion Dispenser Membrane filters
Membrane filtration is the established method of choice for water testing as you can test a higher volume of the sample by concentration of potential contaminants on the membrane filter. This method provides reliable and reproducible results. The recommended filter type for microbiological testing of liquid samples is cellulose nitrate (mixed cellulose ester) filter with grid lines. Your benefits include:
- Various filter colors allow the optimal contrast to colonies for easy quantification and identification
- High recovery rates of microorganisms
- Fast flow rates of liquid samples with High flow membranes
- Easy colony counting due to clear colony morphology and distinct grid lines.
- No inhibition of microbial growth by grid lines
- Available in 2 different packages sizes
- Configured for use with automatic Mircrosart® e.motion dispenser
Microsart® e.motion Dispenser
Microsart e.motion Dispenser: Automatic membrane filter dispensing either by touch of a button, hands-free motion detection or by using a foot switch minimize risks of secondary contamination. Your benefits include:
- Space-saving small footprint
- Automated opening of the filter package makes workflow easier
- Available with battery option that avoids cable clutter
- Big pack with 250 filters avoids re-loading during a shift
Microsart® Manifold
Facilitate your routine microbiological testing procedures with the new Microsart® Manifold: select the proper manifold for your individual microbiological testing procedure, choose between reusable and single use funnels or filtration units, and decide between different sizes of manifolds and enjoy the manifold that adapts to your needs.
New Video: Microsart® Manifolds: Adaptable to Your Needs - Watch Now
Microsart® e.jet pump
Liquid transfer pump connects to Microsart® Manifold as the vacuum source for the filtration of your liquid samples. Your benefits include:
- Small footprint
- Can be adapted directly to the manifold, no need for suction flask or Woulffs bottle
- External pump head, making it easy to change pump direction or exchange entirely
Biosart® 250 Funnel
Reusable funnel with a volume of 250mL, adapted to a cellulose nitrate membrane filter on the Microsart® Manifold. Your benefits include:
- Can be autoclaved up to 20-30 times
- No need for flaming of the funnels after each filtration step
Microsart® 250 Funnel
Single use funnel with a volume of 250 mL, adapted to a cellulose nitrate membrane filter on the Microsart® Manifold. Your benefit includes:
- Single use funnel for minimized risk of secondary contamination
- No autoclaving of the funnels needed
- No need for flaming of the funnels after each filtration step
Biosart® 100 Monitors
Ready-to-use sterile filtration unit in 100ml volume. Combine a funnel, a lid, a filter base, a gridded membrane filter and a cellulose pad in one unit. Your benefit includes:
- Saves time and handling steps as autoclaving of funnels and base is not needed
- Minimize the risk of secondary contamination
- Available in different pore sizes and membrane colors
- Different ampoule media types available for water testing
Biosart® 100 Nutrient Media
Sterile ready to use liquid Media in a 2.5ml ampoule. For use with Biosart Monitors or Cellulose Pads in Petri dishes. Your benefit includes:
- Saves time because no preparation of media needed
- Saves space in laboratory refridgerator
- Different media types for water and beer testing available
- Long shelf life of 9-12 months
Microsart@filter
Ready-to-use sterile filtration unit in 100 or 250ml volume. Combine a funnel, a filter base and a gridded
membrane filter in one unit. Your benefit includes:
- Saves time and handling steps as autoclaving of funnels and base is not needed
- Minimize the risk of secondary contamination
- Reliable results as no liquid remains after filtration
Nutrient Pad Sets (NPS)
An attractive alternative to agar plates, NPS are dehydrated media pads in petri dishes, , packed in double layer Aluminum protective bag, come along with suitable membrane filters for economical, time-saving microbiological quality control of water and brewery samples. Your benefits include:
- Eliminate time-consuming, labor-intensive culture media preparation
- No need for cooling of the NPS during storage or transportation due to dehydrated media
- Long shelf-life of 2 years
- Suitable membrane filter included (pore size and color)
New Video: Nutrient Pad Sets: For Quality Control of Beer Samples
Prospenser Plus
Bottle-top Dispenser, dispenses an exact volume of sterile water for wetting the Nutrient Pad Sets for activation of the nutrient media.
Analytical QC
Customers recognize and love the taste of their favorite soft drink. To meet their expectations, you need to perform rigorous quality control, on your drink’s raw ingredients and water, through mixing to check the formulation is right, as well as assessing it again before release to detect qualities such as taste, composition and color.
What to test?
Food dyes, additives, sugar and its substitutes, organic acids and inorganic ions, phosphate and citrate
At Sartorius, our products and solutions will quickly and easily give you the confidence that your soft drinks match your customers’ high standards time after time.
Arium® Mini UV Water Filtration System
High-quality water is important to all analytical processes, but it is especially important when performing chromatographic analysis, such as HPLC, GC-MS, or ICP.
Arium® Mini lab water system: a compact ultrapure water system specially designed for labs with requirements up to 15 liters per day. Key advantages:
- Constantly low conductivity: ASTM Type 1 water to increase sensitivity of analytical results and minimize chemical ion interference
- Consistently low TOC levels: Remove TOC levels down to a minimum and avoid background noises in chromatograms
- Reliable process stability: Offering a variety of services, e.g. installation, equipment qualification (IQ|OQ), preventative maintenance etc. ensuring consistently reliable water quality along the entire life cycle of the system.
- Ease-of-use: Intuitive menu navigation with easy-to-use touch display
- Space-saving unit with a width of only 28 cm (11 inches)
Filter papers
Many analytical QC tests in brewery labs require a filtration step prior to the testing procedure to pre-process the sample. Circular, pleated filter papers of different grades are placed into a funnel leading to a receptacle and are used to remove turbidity from wort, to remove yeast cells after fermentation and to reduce CO² or degas the sample prior to tests such as density measurement or specific gravity.
The filter papers fitting best into your beer process are these types:
- Filter paper grade 292a : FT-4-215-320
- Filter paper grade 1289: FT-4-207-320
- Filter paper grade 6: FT-4-312-320
- Filter paper grade 4b: FT-4-309-320
Cubis®️ II Premium Laboratory Balance
A completely configurable, high-performance portfolio of lab balance hardware and software that will align with your unique demands and compliance requirements to maximize operational efficiency and experimental outcomes. Your benefits include:
- Large 7“ color display, including touch, scroll, swipe functionality with factory installed essential weighing applications and diverse QApp Packages for optional software extension
- Built-in applications guide you through your workflows
- Fast and easy levelling guaranteed with automatic, motorized levelling function
- Status Center for user notifications and alerts. User management including centralized password management support, high security password configuration, login rules.
Quintix® Lab Balance
A reliable lab balance for faster and better weighing results. Your benefits include:
- The Start Assistant function and SmartTouch user interface enable you to operate the balance right-out-of-the-box and feel at ease using all the functions available
- Intuitive applications guide you through simple steps in each of your workflows.
- Quickly and easily transfer, evaluate, further process, or save and document weighing results in perfect compliance with legal requirements – just by using Plug & Play technology, without the need for any extra software or complicated settings
Prospenser and Prospenser Plus
- Provides accurate and precise dispensing throughout their long lifetime thanks to the high-quality materials
- Low weight provides comfortable usability
- Excellent chemical resistance
Tacta® Pipette
- Superb comfort and incontestable reliability helps you to achieve minimal variation throughout the working day.
- Best ergonomics with soft tip attachment and light ejection protects the user.
- Only three parts to clean enforces contamination free pipetting – combine with Safe-Cone filters or Safetyspace Filter tips to boost contamination control and prolong the pipettes lifetime.
Optifit Tips
- Perfect fitting and sealing with Sartorius pipettes secures the highest possible accuracy and precision.
- Wide volume range and packaging options to suit your application and use.
- Optifit tips meet the highest purity and quality standards.
Minisart® Syringe Filters
- Minisart® RC is optimized for aqueous liquids and solvents and is compatible with DMSO, other amides, ketones, esters and ethers.
- Minisart® NY Plus uses a pure quartz glass fiber prefilter optimized for sample preparation for all medium to highly particle-laden samples prior to analytical tests.
- Minisart® High Flow offers fast flow rates for low to medium particle-laden samples without any prefilter material, without increasing hold-up volume.
Claristep®
- The Claristep® Filtration System is the best choice for easy handling and low hold-up volume for small sample volumes.
- See our application note for Claristep® and food/beverage.
Air Monitoring
When producing your soft drinks, HAACP is critical as is knowing which microorganisms are present in your production environment. Your soft drinks are most at risk of contamination when bottles are open and being filled with soft drinks as sugar in the drinks acts as a growth medium for many microorganisms present in ambient air. Microbial contamination of your soft drinks can change their flavor and in the worst case, make them unsafe to drink.
What to test?
Test ambient air in the production area for airborne microorganisms, for example at your mixing and filling lines and at other critical points in your production areas.
Using products and solutions from Sartorius, you can quickly and easily test for airborne microorganisms to help prevent microbial contamination of your soft drinks.
MD8 Airport
A portable device to monitor microbiological air quality in your beer production area and at the filling line. Your benefits include:
- Battery operated and portable
- Ergonomically designed and easy to clean
- User-friendly prompting with the option of four languages: English, French, German and Spanish
- Flexible options for customized use, including adjustable air throughput and air flow rate
- Storage of last-used parameters, even after automatic shut-off
- Can be calibrated on-site
Cubis®️ II Premium Laboratory Balance
A completely configurable, high-performance portfolio of lab balance hardware and software that will align with your unique demands and compliance requirements to maximize operational efficiency and experimental outcomes. Your benefits include:
- Large 7“ color display, including touch, scroll, swipe functionality with factory installed essential weighing applications and diverse QApp Packages for optional software extension
- Built-in applications guide you through your workflows
- Fast and easy levelling guaranteed with automatic, motorized levelling function
- Status Center for user notifications and alerts. User management including centralized password management support, high security password configuration, login rules.
Quintix® Lab Balance
A reliable lab balance for faster and better weighing results. Your benefits include:
- The Start Assistant function and SmartTouch user interface enable you to operate the balance right-out-of-the-box and feel at ease using all the functions available
- Intuitive applications guide you through simple steps in each of your workflows.
- Quickly and easily transfer, evaluate, further process, or save and document weighing results in perfect compliance with legal requirements – just by using Plug & Play technology, without the need for any extra software or complicated settings
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