Cheers, Everyone!

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Yellowish-brown, light, bubbly, bitter, sparkling, sour, and refreshing!

What is it? BEER! Once again, please? BEER!

Beer is a brewer product and one of the oldest and most complex drink in preparation.

Beer has 4 main ingredients, they are : Water, Malt, Yeast, and Hops.

Let us discuss them one by one!

A. Water

Various concentration of Ca2+ in water may influence the varieties of beer produced. Water with high concentration of Ca2+, called hard water, is good to produce beer such as Munich. Ans Water with low concentration of Ca2+, called soft water, is good to produce beer such as Pilsner.

B. Malt

Grains used to make beer are commonly Barley. Like other cereals, barley has endosperm at its very end side that contains large amount of starch as the nutrition for seeds to sprout. However, sprouting is not what we need to produces beer. We have to postpone the sprouting step by bonding the starch inside the endosperm each other chemically. Also, we need to keep the environment free of moisture, so that the sprouting enzymes won't work. This process is called malting, in which the germination process partially occurs. The product of this step is called malt.

C. Hops

Hops are the flower of the hop plant. Hops have unique compositions, more than 200 flavor substances, which have an impact on beer's characteristics (bitter taste, aroma, flavor). Also, hops facilitate the formation of foamy head on beer. Hops are added to filtered malt. And its product is called wort.

D. Yeast

Yeast is added to filtered wort, which is cooled to a specific temperature before. Species of yeast added to wort will result in different kind of beer. After the yeast is added, the fermentation process may begin.

Fermentation Process

Beer's fermentation needs yeast's help. Yeast converts the sugar in wort to alcoholic substances (ethyl alcohol). The sugar in wort comes from the malting process, where the water slowly hydrolyze the starch in endosperm. 

The liquid wort is transported to a fermentation tank from the bottom, while the yeast is added quickly after the wort comes in. During fermentation process, some wild bacteria and yeasts may grow in the liquid wort. Otherwise, the beer's yeast also grow fast, which then produce ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide. These ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide inhibit the growth of certain wild bacteria and yeast. The carbon dioxide that flushed out through a special duct. Fermentation process will stop when the sugar from malt is near to run out.

Filtration

The product from fermentation process is a cloudy liquid. This cloudy appearance isn't desirable for consumers. So, the beer liquid needs to be filtered. The coloid particles can be removed using kieselguhr filter and fine particle filter. After these operations, the beer is clear and ready for filling.

Filling

Beer has to be pasteurized first before getting into a bottle or can.

Perhaps, my information isn't clear enough. So, I decide to provide you pictures to hopefully you'll understand more :

Complete Manufacturing Process of Beer (britannica.com)

Principle of Kieselguhr Filter (coorsecollege.org)

That's all I can share to you about beer's making process.

I hope it's useful for you. And so, Thankyou!

Reference :

Christensen, Emma. 2009. "Beer Guide : What Are Hops?". http://thekitchn.com. Accessed on Jan, 8th 2017 at 11.15 p.m.

Yurchuk, L. and I. Dmitriev. 2013. Beer Production Technology. Ukraine : National University of Food Technologies.