Brewing Process Step-By-Step

Today, Micet Craft will discuss the different steps of the brewing process with you in stages, and explain each step, so that you can understand the entire brewing process more simply. To help you better understand the brewing process, I have made a small flow chart, which contains all the steps required to make beer. It also shows where the four main ingredients (water, malt, hops, and yeast) are added in this process. Hope it can help you better understand the brewing process.

Step 1 - Malt Milling

To make beer, sugar is needed, and we get sugar from sprouted barley. The fermentable sugar in the malt is contained in the outer shell of the inner core, which is starch at this time. Now we need to open the shell to expose the starch for transformation.
When buying a grinder for brewing, it is best to buy a grinder with an adjustable drum. This way you can control the degree of malt grinding. When the malt is ground too finely, it will make the wort become mushy and will cause difficulty in filtering, making it difficult to collect the malt mash (wort) into the next brewing vessel.

Step 2 - Mashing

Saccharification is the mixing of ground malt and hot water to convert the starch in the grain into fermentable sugar. The mashing process is called infusion mash if it is completed at a temperature. This is common in British ale beer brewing where saccharification is performed at 65°C. Then the mash is kept at 65°C for one hour, and the maltose is released from the grain through the action of the enzyme in the malt.
However, with some beers, it’s best to perform a step mash. In a step mash, the temperature of the mash bed is raised, allowing the different parts of the starchy endosperm to be broken down.

Proteases at 35°C–45°C (95°F–113°F): Breaking down the protein matrix holding the starch granules.
Glucanases at 45°C–55°C (113°F–131°F): Breaking down the hemicelluloses gums.
Amylases at 61°C–67°C (141.8°F–152.6°F): Break down the starch granules and bigger sugar molecules into fermentable sugars.

Before lautering you usually “mash out”, meaning raise the temperature of the mash to about 77°C (170°F). This stops a lot of the enzymic activity.

Step 3 - Lautering

Through filtering, you can spray fresh hot water on the mash to wash away the remaining sugar. If it is not rinsed, a lot of sugar will remain in the malt. Moreover, filtration can enable you to obtain a good extraction efficiency. You’d better put the clear wort into the brewing pot.
When filtering, it is necessary to match the incoming water with the outgoing wort. If you add water too slowly, it may cause the mash bed to dry out. If you add water too quickly, your mash may overflow. These conditions will cause problems on your brewing day and affect your efficiency.

Step 4 - Wort Boiling

The key process of brewing beer while boiling, a lot of interesting things happen here, such as:

Boiling will stop the activity of the enzyme – mashing can stop the activity of the enzyme very well, and boiling is to completely inactivate the enzyme. It allows you to have a fixed wort composition in the fermentation tank (FV).
Sterilizing the wort – boiling wort can eliminate unwanted microorganisms, leaving a clean and beautiful wort for the yeast to work.
Adding hops – hops contain alpha acids that make beer bitter. You need to boil the hops in the wort to isomerize the alpha acids in the hops. Through isomerization, the α-acid becomes “iso-α-acid”, which is easier to dissolve, and therefore it is easier to impart a bitter taste to the beer.
Evaporation of volatiles – Barley produces a compound called s-methyl-methionine (SMM) when it germinates. SMM is the precursor of the terrible dimethyl sulfide (DMS), which gives the beer a corn-like aroma and flavor. A good boiling will remove SMM, so DMS rarely appears in your beer.
Boiling will condense protein – when you boil, it will cause the wort protein to combine with tannins and form clumps. During the boiling process, these clumps will gradually become larger. When the clumps become large enough, they sink to the bottom of the container.

Step 5 - Clarification

There are two points in the kettle where proteins coagulate. One is the “hot break” which happens at the start of the boil, you might see it as scum forming on top of the wort.
Then there’s the “cold break” when the wort is rapidly chilled on the way to the fermentation tank and looks a bit like Miso soup. Furthermore, in most modern breweries, brewhouse “whirlpool” after the boil as well. This helps clear the wort too.
When brewers’ whirlpool, the wort is pumped very fast creating well…a “whirlpool”. It allows the hops and trub to form a cone in the center of the kettle/whirlpool. Which is left behind when you pump the wort out of the kettle to the fermentation tank from a point above the trub cone.

Step 6 - Cooling

After the wort is boiled, it will be very hot and needs to be cooled before the yeast can be added and the fermentation process can begin. The clarified wort will pass through the heat exchanger to the fermentation tank. Depending on the beer style, the wort cools quickly to 7-35°C as it passes through the heat exchanger.
The working principle of the heat exchanger is that cold water or glycol passes through the cold water side of the heat exchanger, and the wort enters from the hot water inlet on the other side, and then the cold water/glycol will take away the heat in the wort. Although cold water/glycol cooled the wort, they did not touch it.

Step 7 - Fermentation

After the wort is cooled and introduced into the fermentation tank, you can start adding yeast. Fermentation begins when yeast is added to the wort. The first stage of fermentation is also called primary fermentation. As the yeast becomes active, the yeast will begin to enjoy the sugar in the wort and produce alcohol and carbon dioxide. As sugar is converted to alcohol, the liquid will gradually change from sweet to finished beer.
In addition, depending on the yeast used, some phenolic and ester flavor compounds will enter the beer. Hefeweizen-flavored beer contains isoamyl acetate and 4-vinyl guaiacol in Belgian wheat beer.
When the fermentation is carried out for 5 to 7 days, the fermentation speed will be greatly slowed down. This is because the yeast has already consumed the sugar and slowed down the speed. After completing the task, the yeast will sink to the bottom of the fermentation tank, along with the sea oil hops, protein, and other solid substances that sink. During this period, you can pour some solids that have gathered at the bottom of the fermentation tank. But don’t dump too much, because you may lose some precious yeast.
The fermentation may have been completed by the time the fermentation has proceeded for 7 to 10 days, but some styles of beer may take longer to complete. When the fermentation is complete, the beer can be cooled to facilitate the removal of more yeast and solids. The collected yeast can be used for the next brewing or pouring. Next, the beer needs to be conditioned.

Step 8 - Conditioning

Fermentation is a very complicated process and sometimes leaves some unwanted sediment in the beer. At this time, it is necessary to condition the beer to improve its clarity of the beer. In addition, the beer that has just been fermented may also contain some flavor compounds that are not required for the beer flavor, and the conditioning process will try to keep the unwanted flavor compounds below the flavor threshold.
The conditioning process will store the beer at 32-39.2°F (0-4°C), where the turbid proteins and polyphenols in the beer will condense and drop to the bottom of the bright tank. In addition, the beer will become more delicate and full-bodied during this period.

Step 9 - Packaging

When the beer conditioning is complete, it can be packaged and sold. But before packaging and selling the beer, some checks are needed to ensure that the beer meets specifications. There are many checks that may be required, but the main ones are:

DO (dissolved oxygen) – When the DO content in beer is high, the shelf life will be affected, which will cause the beer to produce a papery taste. For details, please click “Guide to beer off-flavors: papery (oxidized)” for more information.
CO2 – You need to check whether the beer is carbonated according to its style.
Microorganisms – Make sure that there are no offensive bacteria and microorganisms.
Color and bitterness – Check whether the color and bitterness of the beer meet specifications.

In addition, in the actual packaging process, there are also some issues that need to be paid attention to:

Low filling – make sure you are not low filling the beer, it will affect the taste of the beer. In addition, it is illegal to sell low-fill beer.
Reduce oxygen ingress – to ensure that there is no chance of oxygen ingress during packaging.
Properly seal – make sure that the beer is properly sealed and no beer leaks.

The above is the gradual decomposition of the brewing process, but it will be more complicated in actual operation. This is just a simple introductory guide. After you have completed the above operations, the beer is ready to be drunk, and I hope it can help you brew delicious beer.

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