Turning grain, hops and yeast into beer.
Our home brewery uses many processes and pieces of equipment. We buy organic grain in bulk (55# bags), usually barley and wheat. The first step on brew day is to crush the grain in our hand cranked mill.
The Brewery
After milling the grain, we need to convert it into wort, the sweet water that beer is made from. The grain is soaked in hot water at a specific temperature (usually between 150 - 158
degrees) to activate enzymes that extract sugars from the grain. This is called mashing the grain and we do it
in a piece of equipment called a mash tun, constructed from a beverage cooler.
When the mash is done, we drain the liquid into a 12 gallon pot and bring it to a boil. As the wort boils, we add hops and other ingredients (such as coriander and orange peel for a Belgian Witbier).
Hops are a critical ingredient in beer. They impart bitterness (to balance the sweetness of the malted grain) and also flavor and aroma. The level of bitterness depends upon the hop variety and length of time it is boiled. Hop flavors and aromas vary from variety to variety, making the selection of the type of hops an important step in beer making.
After a 60 minute or longer boil, the wort is quickly cooled to around 70 degrees and transfered to a carboy. Yeast is added - these little sugar eaters convert the sugar to CO2 and alcohol. There are many strains of yeast available to brewers, each imparting differing flavors and characteristics to the beer.
After fermentation is complete (a minimum of two weeks and oftern many more), the beer is ready to be bottled. We condition and carbonate our beers in the bottle, meaning that we add a sugar solution to the beer for the remaining yeast to consume in the bottle. We cap the bottles and store them for a minimum of three weeks before they are ready to be drunk. They continue to develop and mature in the bottle - bottle conditioned beer is better!
