Beer Making Process

Hello Guys, do you know about the widely consumed alcoholic beverage. Yeah right its beer. Not only that, after tea and coffee, it is the third most consumed drink overall. Usually beer is made from Barley, but with changing times it can be made from other cereals also such as wheat, maize, rice and oats. Normally beer making process remains same, but today we will take barley to make you understand the beer making process

Overview of Brewing

The process of making beer is called Brewing. And the person or the company which makes beer is called Brewer, The commercial place where beer is made or this beer making process takes place is called Brewery or beer house. So in this video we will discuss about Brewing process or Beer making process.  Let’s explore  each step in detail.

1. Malting

The first step in beer making is Malting.

The term Malt means, any grain that has been soaked in water and allowed to germinate and then dried. Here in brewing, barley grains are first cleaned, then soaked in water for 2-3 days and then excess water is drained away and allowed to germinate/to  sprouts in germinating boxes. For germination, moisture, warmth and oxygen are necessary to grow these kinds of shoot and rootlets.

These germinated green cereals are called as green malt. So beer is made from malted grains so also called a malted beverage. Now why this germination process is so important. This gemination process actually allow formation of amylase enzyme. Normally alpha and beta amylase. This amylase enzyme actually helps in breaking the more starch into maltose which is form of sugar.

In simple term, more malt barley is converted into sugar.

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Steps in Malting:

• Cleaning: Barley grains are cleaned.
• Soaking: Grains are soaked in water for 2-3 days.
• Germination: Grains are allowed to sprout in germination, moisture, warmth and oxygen are necessary to grow these kinds of shoot and rootlets.
• Kilning: Germinated grains are dried to stop germination. This step also affects the color of the beer; higher temperatures produce darker beer.

2. Milling

Now this germination process is also needed to be stopped as you don’t want a new plant. This germination process is stopped by slow heating and this process of drying and stopping germination is called Kilning.

Temperature may vary according to the type of beer you want to produce for example if temperature is higher then darker will be the beer produced. But remember the temperature must not kill the amylase enzyme. Now after the kilning process you get dried barley grains In the next step, these dried barley grains are crushed between rollers to produced coarse powder.

This coarse powder is called grist. And this process is called Milling.

3. Mashing

This coarse powder is easy to dissolve in water as compared to malt grains. Now this coarse powder or grist is mixed with warm water and this resulting material (i.e grist and water) is mixed well and maintained at 65 degree Celsius for about 1-2 hours and even more if you want.

This process is called Mashing which is done is Mash Tun which is a kind of vessel used for this mashing process. This actually gives time to amylase enzyme or malt enzyme to convert more start into maltose or sugar.

4. Lautering

Now from this Mash Tun, the mash is transferred to a new vessel with a false bottom called lauter tun. Now from this mash, liquid is filtered and separated from the solid substances such as husk and other grains residue. And transferred to another vessel. Now this filtered and separated liquid which is transferred to another vessel, is called Wort. And whatever solid is left, after filtering liquid in Mash tun, is called Brewers Spent Grain. Which is can be used as animal feet. Now this complete process is called lautering. Lets come back, we need this wort for further fermentation.

Also  in order to extract more fermentable wort, we add water during lautering process. This is known as sparging.

5. Sparging

But be careful while adding water, it must be added gradually without disturbing the grain bed which act as natural filter for wort. Ideally, it is said, add sparge water at the same rate as the wort is being drained below. And also don’t add or sparge water for too long, as bitter tannins might stripped away with wort.

6. Boiling

In the next step, this wort is boiled in huge copper or stainless steel kettles for 2-3 hours and continuously stirred. Hops and sugar are added at different stages of wort boiling. The taste of beer depends on the type and amount of hops and sugar added. More the hops bitter the beer. Now what is this Hop.

Hops is a type of flower of hop plant. It adds flavor and aroma to the beer. Now during boiling, water evaporates and this wort becomes concentrated to more original wort. Also this boiling, stops or deactivate malt enzymes. Now is the time for wort clarification. Here this wort is either fed into the whirlpool or in the same container it is stirred.

Now the hops particles and other undissolved protein, form a cone in the middle of the container.

7. Wort Clarification

These hops particles and undissolved protein are called trub which is cleared out from the wort. And then this clearer and kinder of pure wort is cooled down to 10-20 degree Celsius. For this we can use wort cooler/chiller.

8. Fermentation

Now this cooled wort is pumped to fermentation tanks. Now comes the most important step i.e fermentation. First lets understand what is fermentation. In fermentation action of yeast upon sugar solution, breaks down the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide escapes into air and we are left with fermented beverage.

Higher the amount of sugar in the substance used, higher the alcohol percentage in fermented beverage. Now you get an idea why we concentrate on this germination process which produce amylase enzyme. Which convert more start into sugar. Here for obtaining sugar for fermentation, we uses malted barley. Now in fermentation tank, this fermentation process takes place and special brewing yeast is added.

Types of Fermentation:

Now based on the kind of brewing yeast, there are two types of fermentation. Top fermentation and bottom fermentation.

• Top Fermentation: Uses Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast at warmer temperatures. The yeast floats to the top. Or when fermentation is completed, the yeast floats to the top of the liquid and collected for future use. And bottom fermentation is precisely the opposite. Top fermentation yeast relies on the warm weather yeast for example: Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
• Bottom Fermentation: Uses Saccharomyces pastorianus yeast at cooler temperatures. The yeast settles at the bottom. opposite to this bottom fermentation relies on cooler weather yeast for example: Saccharomyces pastorianus. So, when brewers want top fermented beer such as ales, porter, stouts they pitch S. cerevisiae and store their fermentation tanks at the warmer temperature. Likewise brewing creating bottom fermented beers such as lagers will pitch S.

9. Conditioning and Maturation

 Now is the time for conditioning or maturing. The fermented young beer is racked into storage tank and store for several weeks to months at 0-2 degree Celsius. Now during, conditioning or maturation, secondary fermentation also takes place with remaining sugar and yeast.

And some manufacture also adds still fermented wort to kickstart or speed up the secondary fermentation. And this process of adding wort is known as krausening. After fermentation takes place, remaining yeast particles and protein-tannin sink to the bottom. And these are filtered out with the help of fining or filtering agents.

10. Filtration

But now a days we do this filtering with the help of mechanical filtration unit. For example, this is smart beer membrane filter by Pentair. Now in filtration any reaming tannins, dead yeast cells and other residues are removed.

And beer becomes more clear and beer acquire its natural texture and carbonation. After filtration one more step is step is followed i.e flash pasteurization. In  flash pasteurization liquid is passed through high temperature for very short time for seconds and followed by rapid cooling. This can be done by an equipment named Plate Heat exchanger, here  is one from CPC systems

11. Pasteurization

Pasteurization kill any spoilage microorganism and extend the shelf life of beer. It also kills any active enzyme or yeast from further fermenting the beverage. Now in the final step, kegs or bottles are filled with final beer product. Some brand prefer bottling just after the filtration and later those bottles or cans passed through tunnel pasteurization and stored to sell.

12. Carbonation and Bottling

Also some brewer or beer manufacturer don’t use this Pasteurization process for genuine draft beers, which must be kept at refrigerated temperatures to preserve flavor and slow any  remaining yeast activity. Now for some extra information during bottling process, some brewers also go for one more step i.e carbonation.

 Some brewers add co2 to make beer more fizzy. Addition of carbon dioxide is called carbonation which can be achieved by injecting the co2. If no co2 is found in the  beer its called flat beer. Although good companies don’t add co2, they relies on natural carbonation produced during second fermentation. Some brewers practice bottle conditioning, adding small amount of yeast, sugar, and/or wort after packaging to bring on secondary fermentation inside the bottle, thereby adding depth of flavour and natural carbonation while extending the shelf life of the beer and removing any oxygen present in the bottle.

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