The seven main stages of brewing:

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1. Crushing:

To make beer you need a cereal that has been processed by the maltster in order to make it available to the brewer. Generally, barley malt is used, but also  wheat , rye, whiskey malts, rice, and even other grains.

Cereals are the source of sugar in beer. To get an idea, it takes about 5kg of malted cereals to make 20 liters of beers.

After you have selected your base of malts, grind it in your grain mill which acts as a crusher. This allows the contents of the grain to be expelled from its husk and only the core is retained.

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2. The mashing:

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The mash is actually a kind of infusion of cereals. We immerse our malt cut into small pieces in hot water (between 63-70 ° C) in order to transform the starch into small fermentable sugars. The objective of mashing, also called saccharification, is to obtain a very sweet cereal juice called must. You need to infuse the cereals for about 1 hour to complete this step.

3. Filtration and rinsing:

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Filtration consists of separating the solid part (our cereal grains) from the liquid part (our sweet juice). The solid part that we call the spent grain will go to the trash or will be recycled (some make it into pasta or cookies). While the liquid part will be used to design our beer.

To filter the brewer uses several types of equipment, either a filter bottom at the bottom of its tank, or an external filtration tank, or it has used a brewing bag.

During filtration, it is customary to rinse with hot water which will allow the brewer to extract as much sugar as possible from the grain, and therefore to obtain more beers. At the end of this step and for the first time, we therefore obtain a must.

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4. Boiling:

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Boiling consists of heating the must to 100 ° C for approximately 1 hour. The interests of this stage are multiple:  

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• Sterilize the must: protect the must from bacteria,

• Create a hot break: protein coagulation,

• Make the beer bitter: isomerize the alpha acids in the hops (hops put at the start of cooking),

• Extract dimethyl sulfide (DMS): component giving a taste of beer cooked vegetable, strongly present in malt,

• Flavoring the beer: it is during the boiling that the beer is flavored with hops for even more aromas in the beer,

• Color: the sugars caramelize the longer it boils,

• Concentrate the liquid: the water evaporates and leaves a sweeter, more concentrated must,

• Dissolve sugars: a hot must is a fantastic opportunity to dissolve different sugars (honey, candy, syrup ...),

5. Cooling:

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Cooling your beer quickly is important. Indeed, it is necessary to pass the must from 100 ° C to less than 25 ° C in a few minutes. This is mainly due to the fact that certain temperature ranges are particularly popular with bacteria.

Staying between 30 ° C and 50 ° C too long and your beer will be infected for sure.

Provoking a temperature shock to the beer also creates a cold break which will be invaluable in clarifying the beer. Technically, either a cooling coil or a plate heat exchanger is used.

6. Fermentation:

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After carefully sterilizing his fermenters, the brewer transfers the wort to his fermenter. He can then integrate the yeasts into his cooled wort so that they are responsible for creating the beer. To achieve good fermentation, the brewer takes care to control the temperature of the room according to the predispositions of the yeasts.

During fermentation, the brewer can regularly measure its density to check that the yeasts are working as they should.

Indeed, the yeasts are responsible for eating the sugars to transform it into alcohol. It is essential to check that the theoretical final density is reached at the end of fermentation before moving on to conditioning. It usually takes 2 weeks before packaging the beer.

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There are 3 kinds of fermentation:

• So-called low fermentation:

takes place at a temperature of around 12 ° C, over a period of at least 6 days. The yeast falls back to the bottom of the tank, hence the term “low”. This method is used in the manufacture of pilsner and lagers for example.

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• The so-called high fermentation:

takes place at a temperature of about 22 °, over a period of about 4 days. The yeast rises to the top of the tank, hence the term “high”. This method is used for English ales, and most Belgian beers for example.

• Spontaneous fermentation:

in the case of beers where the yeast naturally seeds the brew, without the intervention of the brewer (Lambic).

It is these wild yeasts which are taken spontaneously and naturally in the air of the Zenne valley in Belgium (Brussels) and which are therefore not added to the malt must. Only in this region and nowhere else is such an ecology of microorganisms suitable for Lambic breweries to be found.

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7. Packaging:

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It consists of passing the beer from the fermenter to a container for serving the beer, namely a keg or a bottle. Most of the time, home brewers bottle their beers for simplicity and because it is easier to share bottles with friends. At this time, the beer contains alcohol but is still flat. Indeed, during fermentation, the creation of CO² is so strong that the gas is allowed to escape using a bubbler. Just before bottling, the brewer adds a little sugar. This sugar will replenish the yeasts, slightly increase the alcohol level and make the beer sparkling. For 20 liters of beers, the brewer will add 120g of sugar to his beer just before bottling it. Once the sugar has been added, the brewer proceeds to bottling his beers and ensure that they are perfectly airtight using capsules or mechanical stoppers. The liquid locked inside will then become sparkling thanks to the reactivation of the yeasts, this is called refermentation in bottles. You just have to wait a few weeks (around 3-4 weeks) to have a sparkling and delicious beer.

These different stages are only indicative of the brewing principle, each brewer has these secrets, whether in the choice of these cereals, these hops, the quality of its water, its cooking temperatures, the temperature rise, cooking time, all these elements are an integral part of the taste quality of the beer.

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(article produced according to different internet sources)

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Beer lexicon: Beer Universe Sites

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