Brewing Beer Intro Beer is an alcoholic beverage that is widely consumed across the world. Some consider beer the oldest fermented beverage known to man. Many ingredients go into beer. The three important ones required in making beer are sugar that comes from the starches of grains, water, and yeast. The ingredients then are prepared and fermented. This process is called brewing. After brewing the beer is then set aside and left to condition. The beer then is packaged. One of the well known ways beer is packaged is in a bottle.
Ingredients Water Water is very important to beer. The hardness of the water can affect a beer greatly. Many beers have their distinctive flavor that results from the mineral composition of the water. Gypsum for example gives pale ales around England their distinctive flavor. Many breweries will add these minerals to their water to get the right acidity and mineral content. This is turn will give the beer the distinctive flavors that certain styles of beer are known for.
Grains The choice of which grains to use when brewing is very important. Grains provide the starch source that is broken down during the brewing process. Grains also are the key ingredients that provide the strength and flavor of the beer. Almost all beers use barley malt. Other malted and unmalted grains can include wheat for wheat beers, oats, rye, and sometimes rice.
Yeast There are numerous types of yeast that brewers choose from. Yeast is a micro-organism similar to fungus. They take in the sugars and convert them into ethanol and carbon-dioxide. The yeast is also what gives a beer its carbonation. Certain types of yeast will create more alcohol than other types of yeast. Yeast can also influence the flavor of the beer. The most common type of strain of yeast used to make beer is Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or better known as ale yeast. They are able to ferment alcohol at around 50 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Saccaharomyces pastorianus is a strain of yeast used to make most lagers. They are able to ferment at colder temperatures around 35 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
Hops Hops is a type of flower used to as a preservative agent and flavoring for a beer. They allow beers to keep for extended periods of time. An Indian Pale Ale is a type of beer was named for beers that could travel from England all the way to India. The way that the English were able to have the beer keep that long was to use a lot of hops. The hops is also used to balance out the sweetness of a beer
with its own bitterness. Many hops will also provide citrus and floral flavors to the beer.
Other ingredients There is a wide amount of other ingredients that is put into a beer. Some beers will use a wide variety of beans to flavor a beer. Coffee, chocolate, and vanilla beans will be use most often for darker beers such as porters and stouts. Fruit extracts will be added to beers to give the beer a fruity flavor. Some brewers can also add other types of alcohol to beers predominately scotch or bourbon. And finally, some brewers will add oysters to beer to give the beer a brine salty flavor to the beer.
Mashing To create the sugars used for fermentation the grains have to be heated in water. This processes is called mashing. Mashing allows the enzymes in the grains and malt to break down the starches into sugar. This sweet malty concoction is called the mash. This process usually takes one to two hours to complete. Also depending on the temperature of the water, certain enzymes will break down the starches into various sugars. If the temperature is low then the wort will contain lots of sugars that is more fermentable by the yeast. If the temperature is high then the wort will contain less sugars but will be more full bodied. The grains are extracted from the mash, what is left then is called the wort.
Fermentation The wort gained from the mashing processes is boiled. Boiling the wort causes several things to happen. The wort is sterilized so that the flavor will not be affected by other bacteria eating the sugars. If the wort is not sterilized then the beer could sour and become undrinkable. Boiling also cause the enzymes to stop breaking down the starches of the beer. Finally, any compounds in the wort that is not favorable to the beer is boiled off. The Wort then is cooled down to temperatures favorable for fermentation. At the same time the wort is being cooled down the wort is being aerated with oxygen for the yeast to breathe. Once the wort is at the right temperature and aerated, the yeast is added to the wort. At this point, the yeast do their thing and start to create alcohol at a rapid rate. The wort is placed in a cool room and let to sit for a few weeks while the yeast eat up all the sugars. The yeast in this stage will start to clump together and precipitate to the bottom of the container.
Conditioning At this point in the brewing process, we have beer. However, this beer is called green beer because it hasn't been aged. What the brewer can do at this point is set the beer aside and let it condition for a period of time. Most beers will take two to six weeks conditioning the beer. Some brewers will bottle the beer and allow it to condition in the bottles. Other brewers, especially those that are making lagers, will set the beer aside for months in a cold room and let it age. This process is called lagering. Brewers do this because it will result in a less hazy beer and prevents unwanted flavors.
Storage There are multiple ways of storing beer. In olden times before refrigeration and pasteurization, the beer would be stored in wooden casks after fermentation. The beer would be drunk quickly before it sours and goes bad. With the advent of refrigeration and infrastructure that can ship alcohol quickly beer is able to be placed in kegs that and bottles that ships the beer out before it can spoil. If the beer is bottled, then what happens is that a primer of sugar or wort is placed in the beer which the remaining yeast eats and carbonates the beer. Beer in a keg is just placed in a keg and sealed. Cask beer is not sealed from oxygen, which sours beers, and is just shipped as is.
A step by step of the brewing process. Lautering is when the grains are removed from the mash. Whirlpooling is the aeration step. Filtering is when the brewer filters any haze and particulates in the beer. (Source: The Institute of Brewing & Distilling http://www.ibdasiapac.com.au/brewing/)