Treatments Skill¶
Version 1 · Disclaimer
Download the skill · v1 · CC0 · works standalone or behind the router; installing is covered on the Skills page.
The treatments specialist: everything done to an ingredient other than a cooked jar, a raw-fruit
addition or a botanical tincture, which belong to the Maillard skill. It plans the treatment, checks
every hold against the safety rules, and works out what the treatment puts into the beer: sugar,
alcohol, acid, extra CO₂, fat, live microbes. It is called through the router (treatments:<n>) or
on its own.
The nine processes¶
| Code | Process | Good for | Main cost or risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| P1 | Freeze-thaw | Opening fruit cells before it goes into the beer; faster aroma release | Doesn't sterilise: skin microbes go in |
| P2a/b/c | Cold, vacuum and warm maceration | Aroma-preserving extraction; vacuum speeds it; sous-vide softens tannin | Vacuum + chilled + low-acid: 10-day limit. Warm: the warm-hold rule |
| P3 | Oleo-saccharum and sugar maceration | Citrus peel, petals, soft fruit: aroma captured in sugar | All of it is fermentable; at bottling it is priming sugar |
| P4 | Low-temperature drying | Storable, concentrated, dried-fruit character | Loses volatiles and carotenoid; slow drying grows mould |
| P5 | Dry toasting ≤140 °C | Nuts, seeds, spices, coconut: roast and nut notes | Acrylamide from 120 °C in asparagine-rich material; staling |
| P6 | Lacto pre-ferment | A clean lactic sour component; less sugar for the beer | Must reach pH ≤4.6 fast; releases cyanide from stones; live bacteria |
| P7 | Fat-washing | A rich, nutty or savoury note in spirit, without solid fat | Lipid kills foam; allergens (butter, nuts) |
| P8 | Hydrosol | Volatile top notes with no alcohol, sugar or tannin | Water and plants only; spoils in weeks |
| P9 | Oak and other woods | Vanilla, coconut, toast, structure | Only cooperage woods; chips overshoot |
No smoking in v1.
Modes¶
| Directive | Mode | Say something like |
|---|---|---|
treatments:1 |
Options | "What else could I do with quince?" |
treatments:2 |
Design | "Plan an orange oleo-saccharum for bottling." |
treatments:3 |
Critique | "I'll vacuum-bag dates in beer for three weeks." |
treatments:4 |
Ingredient analysis | "Which treatments suit medlars?" |
treatments:5 |
Log block | "Write that up for the log." |
treatments:6 |
Debrief | "Tasted it at 6 months: …" |
A design returns ten items: request summary, the treatment plan table, equipment and timeline, what it changes, the route into the beer, the beer-side contribution from the calculator, every hold and the rule covering it, hazard verdicts and allergens, the prediction, and confidence tags with three tweak points.
The rules that bite¶
| If you want to… | The rule | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Add an oleo-saccharum or any syrup at bottling | It is priming sugar: about 4 g/L per volume of CO₂; cut the priming dose by it | Bottle pressure |
| Vacuum-bag a low-acid ingredient (dates, figs, nuts, dried flowers) in the fridge | ≤10 days, unless pH < 5.0, a heavy syrup, or 90 °C for 10 min | Non-proteolytic C. botulinum grows cold and anaerobic (UK FSA) |
| Infuse warm (sous-vide) | ≤3 h above 30 °C (≤2 h if low-acid) and then cook, or run it as a cook: ≥70 °C core for 2 min | Brewery warm-hold rule |
| Lacto-ferment fruit | ≤30 °C; pH ≤4.6 by 48 h and ≤4.0 before use, measured; stones out | Safety gate; bacteria release cyanide from kernels |
| Fat-wash | Only into ≥40 % ABV spirit; filter clear; dose small | Botulism in plain oil; lipid kills foam |
| Make a hydrosol | Water and plants only, pot-and-inverted-lid; ≤5 °C, 4 weeks | Distilling alcohol needs an HMRC licence; hydrosols spoil |
| Use wood | Oak and cooperage woods only; about 1–3 g/L of cubes, 4–12 weeks | Toxic woods exist; chips overshoot |
| Use raw pineapple, kiwi or papaya | Cook it first (≥70 °C) if foam matters | Live protease digests foam protein |
Kernels and stones are never treated here: they go through the Maillard skill's hydrolyse-and-vent route.
Files¶
| File | What it is |
|---|---|
SKILL.md |
Modes, workflow, the ten-item output contract, constraints |
references/processes.md |
The nine processes in full: parameters, what survives, beer-side effect, safety |
references/safety.md |
Brewery rules and the skill's own rules S1–S10 |
references/hazard-interactions.md |
What each process does to each hazard class, acidity class, precursor and enzyme |
references/treatments.md |
The catalogue: 42 ingredients by registry ID, best treatments, what to avoid, hazard verdicts |
references/log-block.md |
The batch-log block and how it maps to the router's totals |
scripts/treat_calc.py |
Rule checks and beer-side sums per step |
data/setup.md |
Equipment held: freezer, dehydrator, oven, vacuum sealer, sous-vide, pH meter |
The calculator¶
python scripts/treat_calc.py design.json (or --example --run). One step per process, with its
parameters. It warns on every rule breach and returns fermentable g/L, ΔABV from sugar and from
spirit, acid meq/L, extra CO₂ volumes from sugar added at bottling (against the bottle's limit), and
foam, allergen and live-microbe flags. It reads sugar and pH from the Maillard catalogue and hazards
from the registry when they are installed alongside, including the stones inside whole fruit.
Versions¶
| Version | Date | Download | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026-09-23 | ingredient-treatments-1.zip | First release: nine processes (no smoking), six modes, safety rules S1–S10, hazard-interaction matrix, 42-row catalogue by registry ID, treat_calc.py |