Four Ingredients in Beer
Grain - This is usually barley or wheat that is malted (kilned, roasted, or both). The level of heat, moisture and time in the malting process greatly affects the color and flavor of each grain. Grains provide the sugar in beer.
More info at Breiss Malting
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| Hop flower torn open exposing the lupulin glands |
Hops - Hops are flowers from a vine like plant that impart a bitterness to the wort that balances out the sugary flavor (it does other stuff too but this is the basics).
Yeast - These microorganisms eat sugar and produce alcohol and carbon dioxide (CO2).
Making Beer in Four Steps
Mashing - This is adding water to grain and letting it soak. The water dissolves sugar, proteins, and some other stuff that will be drained off into a kettle. This liquid is called wort.
Boiling - The wort is poured into a kettle and boiled. This concentrates the sugar, kills bacteria (and other bad stuff), coagulates proteins, and allows for flavoring to be added. The flavoring that is added is mostly hops.
Fermenting - Once the wort is boiled we cool it and pitch (add/pour) yeast into the solution. The yeast take about a week on average to do their work for an ale, although it can vary based on the style of beer. The liquid can now be considered beer after yeast have been introduced (prior to this it is only wort).
Packaging and Carbonation - After fermentation is complete we move the beer into a keg or bottles for carbonation.
1. Kegs use a CO2 canister that is connected to the keg through a regulator to create a closed system. As the CO2 pressure is increased it will slowly dissolve into solution. This takes about a week or so, and the beer should be cold for this to work properly.
