How is beer made? The beer making process

For a comprehensive understanding of the beer brewing process, it's best to visit a brewery. The following is just a brief explanation. In many open breweries, you can enjoy the aroma and taste of beer by tasting different varieties of beer, and you can also learn about the details of fermentation and brewing equipment.

Making mashing: The dried malt is milled in the mill and then soaked in warm water for two hours. The remaining slurry after the malt is strained out is called sweet wort.

There are many variations in this process depending on the brewing technician's requirements, and even environmental factors can affect the process.

Time and temperature: The two most important aspects of brewing beer are time and temperature control. This factor is particularly important in the mash making, fermentation and maturation processes.

Low temperatures in the mash making process allow the malt to produce more maltose for fermentation, while higher temperatures have the opposite effect. Therefore, the temperature can directly affect the alcohol content of the beer in this link.

Brewing: There are two types of heating vessels in the brewery. One is the malt barrel, which is used to soak the malt; The other is used to cook the mash and hops for 1 to 2 hours.

This cooking process allows the two ingredients to bind together, killing unwanted microorganisms and coagulating proteins. Most of these containers are heated evenly with heating wires, but some breweries use traditional methods of heating, such as natural gas or gasoline flames.

Hopping: A certain amount of hops is added to the cooking process of beer, which is of course very small compared to malt. Hops are usually added during the first cooking, sometimes twice to increase the concentration of hops.

If the brewing technician wants the beer to have a strong hop flavor, he can add the hops much later. Finally, the hop residue is removed by centrifugation or by using a strainer.

Fermentation: After cooking and adding hops, the mash is poured into the fermentation tank (open or closed). At this time, yeast is added and the fermentation process begins.

This process usually lasts 3 to 4 days and presents a lot of foam on the surface of the liquid, which is sometimes filtered out.

Maturation: After the fermentation process is complete, the beer is placed in a storage vessel (lagering vessel) ready for maturation. In the past, such storage containers were made of wood, but today breweries are made of stainless steel.

Most beers are stored for days, weeks, or months before they can be bottled and marketed.

The production process of beer.

First, wheat selection and germination:

High-quality barley, wheat, etc. are selected in strict accordance with the standards, and then sorted and cleaned according to the fullness and size of the grains. The cleaned barley is soaked for three days and then sent to the germination chamber for germination, which takes about a week to germinate until the amylase produced by the malt meets the requirements. (If you choose to brew your own beer, you can choose regular barley on top of the barley.)

The soaking time is generally about three days. Germination needs to be controlled by yourself, Xiao Zhi suggests putting it in a thermos bucket with a constant temperature, so that the temperature can be guaranteed at least, and the germination time is about seven to ten days. ）

2. Pulping: This step is very simple, the malt is air-dried first, and then the malt is ground with a tool, and then mixed with a certain amount of hot water. Made into "mash". (The method and steps of the self-brewed flowers are the same.) ）

3. Add hops:

The prepared "mash" is filtered out of impurities, then the filtered "mash" is put into the brewing tank, the brewing tank is heated, the wort is boiled, hops are added, and the cooking continues for two to three hours. (When straining home-brewed beer, be sure to use a clean and sterilized filter utensil, and then use a regular pot to boil and add hops, and the steaming time is also two to three hours.) ）

4. Fermentation: After boiling the pulp, filter out the impurities, and then cool the mash to about 5 degrees Celsius. Then pour into the fermenter, add yeast to ferment, and close the fermentation utensils.

Fermentation has already begun at this time, and it is generally about five to ten days of fermentation. (If you brew your own, you can use sealed glass jars for fermentation, but be careful to sterilize.) ）

5. Maturation: This step is like the aging of brandy, put the prepared draft beer into the conditioning tank for two months, the beer will slowly mature by itself, and the color of the beer will slowly become more transparent at this time. (Homebrew beer is done at this point.)

The last step of aging and maturation, if you brew it yourself, Xiao Zhi suggests that the container be sterilized and packed into the draft beer and sealed, and then find a no-man's corner to dig a big pit and bury it, and if it is inconvenient to dig a pit, you can store it in the refrigerator. It is then aged for two to six months. ）

Six: Filtration: Filter the aged beer again with a sterilized filter device, and the beer will already be amber at this time.

By this time, the homemade fresh draft beer has already been brewed. Note: The beer you brew must be drunk within three to five days after opening, if you can't finish it, it will spoil, and then you won't be able to drink it.

Seven: Sterilization: This process must be indispensable in the brewery, because only after "pasteurization" can the yeast in the beer stop fermentation, so that the beer can be stored for a long time.

8. Packaging: Bottle and sell the sterilized beer.

Beer is made from malt fermentation. Before the malt is sent to the brewery, it is sent to the crushing tower, where it is lightly pressed and crushed to make brewing malt, and then the crushed malt grains are mixed with water in a gelatinizing pot. In a gelatinizing kettle, the malt and water are heated and boiled to a wort that is then sent to a filter vessel called a separator for fermentation.

During the fermentation process, the cultivated yeast converts the fermentable sugars in the wort into alcohol and carbon dioxide to produce beer.

Fermentation occurs over the course of eight small deficits and proceeds at an accelerated rate, accumulating a high-density foam called "foam". This bubble reaches its highest stage on day 3 or 4.

From day 5 onwards, the yeast begins to form a thick layer of sediment at the bottom of the vessel after fermenting all the fermentable material in the wort.