The recipe for beer has been known for a long time, but the variety of this drink in taste, strength, color is achieved due to a large assortment of components and small differences in the preparation process.
The base of beer is malt, hops, water and yeast.
Malt is a sprouted grain. As a rule, when making beer, barley malt is used, which can be light, burnt, depending on the temperature at which the sprouted grain was dried. Different colors of malt are used for different types of beer, or mixtures are prepared.
Hops give the beer its stability, keeping it preservative-free. The taste of the future beer is influenced by the degree of bitterness of the hops.
The main stages of brewing beer
1. Wort preparation.
This is crushing malt, mixing it with water when the temperature rises. As a result, sugars and useful enzymes from malt pass into water and form wort with it. The rest of the malt is separated from the wort in a filter press.
2. Boiling the wort.
The finished wort is mixed with hops and boiled for about six hours, during which time the wort becomes the color of dark honey. The finished mixture is sent to fermentation tanks.
3. Fermentation.
Yeast makes beer an alcoholic beverage. Fermentation tanks are huge thermoses that keep a constant temperature. In them, the wort is mixed with yeast and the fermentation process starts.
Depending on the type of beer, fermentation can take from 14 to 28 days. All the while, the yeast feeds on the sugars from the wort and produces alcohol and carbon dioxide. The longer the fermentation process takes, the stronger the beer becomes.
Different strains of yeast are used in the manufacture of beer, so the result of fermentation is different. If the yeast floats up after the end of fermentation, ale is obtained, the product of bottom fermentation of the yeast is a lager. Each brewer grows its own yeast cultures and specializes in certain beers.
4. Filtration and spillage.
After the end of fermentation, the beer is filtered so that it becomes transparent. Later it is poured into forfas - special containers in which the beer “calms down” before bottling. Without such settling, the beer will foam heavily and it will be impossible to pour it into a container. After 8 hours, the beer is poured into cans, bottles and kegs.
