The Brewing Process

 

/images/spacer.gif" border="0" width="1" height="35"> The production of beer is the age-old art of turning malted barley into an alcoholic beverage through fermentation. Making beer begins with the malting of raw barley seeds. Malting is a chemical process that converts the starches in the barley seed into sugars. The malted barley is milled or crushed to a course consistency similar to that of corn meal. The milled barley is added to hot water to achieve a temperature of 150 degrees Fahrenheit. At this temperature the sugars in the grains liquefy and can be extracted from the seed. The sugar rich barley juice is run off of the grains into a kettle. Once the sugar water is in the kettle the liquid is boiled for 90 minutes. During the boil hops are added to give a distinct bitterness and flavor to the liquid. After the liquid has boiled it is then cooled to 70 degrees. This is the point where the magic comes into play.Yeast is the magic makers in beer. Up until this point, all we have done is made sugar water. Yeast are single-celled organisms. What they do for a living is eat sugar and metabolize the sugar. Basically, yeast eat sugar, piss alcohol and fart carbon dioxide. The yeast will ferment, or eat the sugars, for about one week. Once the sugars have been consumed the liquid is cooled to 32 degrees and left to condition for a period of one week. After conditioning the beer is transferred to the serving cellar where it is carbonated and ready for serving. It takes about 8 hours to cook the beer and about two weeks before it is ready for consumption.