The 5th Ingredient Story

The 5th Ingredient?

Those with a taste and a mind for beer will already know of its four key ingredients: water, malt, hops and yeast. There is, however, an equally as important, fifth ingredient, which is crucial for breweries in taking their practices and results to the next level – data.

The 5th Ingredient helps breweries collect and utilize their data for proactive, predictive, process improvement. Our flagship product is Beer30™, a proprietary Software-as-a-Service, which allows a brewery to track data from grain-to-glass. In September 2020, we also launched Bucha30™, the world’s first Kombucha Brewery Management Software system.

The 5th Ingredient?

The 5th Ingredient was founded in San Diego, California in October 2017 by Pulkit K. Agrawal (PKA). PKA graduated from Harvard College and began working in the beer industry as a Process Engineer at Ballast Point Brewing, where he focused on packaging lines and nitrogen beer.

Afterwards, PKA began consulting for breweries and during this time he saw a clear need in the market for a software system that would track all brewery data from start-to-finish, with a particular focus on the brewer and process data. He launched the Beer30 system in January 2018, and it has scaled since.

In June 2018, Ryan E. Allis joined the team as Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer. Ryan possesses a Master of Science in Bioinformatics from Indiana University, and coupled with his experience at Protector Brewery and The Fat Cat Beer Company, his expertise has been crucial in taking Beer30 to the next level.

Together, PKA and RAllis have led a team to further enhance and grow the Beer30 platform, which continues to assist breweries along the relentless pursuit of improvement.

Our Softwares

BEER30®?

Beer30 - Brewery Data Management Software

Beer30 is brewery management software that tracks brewery data from grain-to-glass. With Beer30, you can compare over 300 data points across all batches, be proactive with your brewery’s efficiencies, improve your beer’s quality and consistency, and be up and running within 10 minutes! Features include: scheduling, task management, raw material inventory with lot traceability, yeast tracking, process data analysis (brewing, fermenting, filtering, conditioning), packaging supplies inventory, packaging line downtime, sensory, sales and distribution, barrel aging, keg tracking, cost analysis, and real time notifications. Beer30 completely integrates with Xero and QuickBooks Online.

BUCHA30®?

Bucha30 - Kombucha Brewery Management Software

In September 2020, The 5th Ingredient team decided to launch Bucha30 – the world’s first kombucha brewery management software system. With this new implementation, kombucha breweries could now track base sugars and teas, SCOBY, and rebrew into mother tanks.