Brewing Outline

So you want to make some beer? Well it’s quite a long process but the end product is usually worth it. Depending on the size of the brewery, some things will be a little different. Most breweries and brewers start with malted barley that has been prepared elsewhere or with malt extract, like we did. If they need to be malted, you must soak the barley and allow it to sprout to activate the enzymes, and then heat it to stop the enzymes. If you use malted barley, then it will need to be milled before you can use it. Otherwise you can use malt extract.

The start of most brewing is called mashing. Depending on your specific beer, you might have slightly different processes. Generally you’re going to steep your grains in hot water in a mash tun. By heating up the grains, enzymes are activated to convert starches into sugars that can be fermented later. This new mixture is called wort. Depending on the brewery, you might just remove the grains if they were in bags or you might transfer your wort into a lauter tun that has a false bottom to filter out the husks of the barley. Many breweries then take these spent grains and either turn them into bread, or use them as feed for cattle. The wort is then moved into another kettle where it is heated to a boil and hops and sometimes other ingredients such as spices or herbs are added. Hops added early on in the boil are added for bitterness; hops and other ingredients added later are for aroma and flavor.

After the hops and other ingredients have been in long enough, they need to be taken out and the wort needs to be cooled quickly. When we made beer, they were in bags steeping so it was easy to just take out the ingredients; some breweries instead use a whirlpool method that allows all the sediment to gather into the middle to make it easier to separate from the wort. Once you have separated it, you need to cool the wort quickly, either by adding or submerging the wort in ice, or by using tubing filled with ice water—it doesn’t matter how you do it, you just need to cool it. The wort then gets aerated and when it is cool enough, yeast gets added to it. The type of yeast depends on the type of beer you are making—GENERALLY top-fermenting yeast for ales and bottom-fermenting yeast for lagers. The yeasts are called top-fermenting or bottom-fermenting based on where the yeast settles at the end of fermentation. Also, top-fermenting yeasts work at slightly higher temperatures than bottom-fermenting yeasts. Yeast is needed to convert the sugars from the wort into ethanol alcohol and carbon dioxide. Depending on the type of beer you’re making, the time it takes to ferment and condition will vary. Most bigger breweries will then fill bottles and/or kegs with their beer; smaller breweries will just pipe it right to the tap at their bar. Home brewers will just tap it from their fermentor/ conditioner and enjoy!