The Brewing Process Simplified

Question 1

Steps of Process

Answer 1

Malting, milling, mashing, boiling, cooling and fermentation.

Question 2

Malting

Answer 2

Occurred before brewing. Breweries purchase malts from a malster who provides different types of malted grains, each with a different color, flavor and aroma attributes.

Question 3

Milling

Answer 3

Malted grain is milled to crack open the outer husk and expose complex sugars inside.

Question 4

Mashing

Answer 4

Milled grains are steeped in hot water in the mash tun, producing a sweet grain-sugar “tea” called wort.

Question 5

Boiling

Answer 5

Wort is drained/strained from the mash tun to the kettle for boiling, sterilization it and driving off inappropriate volatile flavors and aromas. Hops are added at this stage for bittering, flavor and aroma.

Question 6

Cooling

Answer 6

Boiled wort is cooled, then transferred to a fermentation tank. Oxygen is introduced at this step to encourage yeast health and reproduction.

Question 7

Fermentation

Answer 7

Yeast is added or pitched to cooled wort. Fermentation begins as quickly as 4 hours after pitching.

Question 8

Filtered (additional step)

Answer 8

Sometimes a beer is filtered to remove ecxess yeast and proteins. Some beers (wheat beers; bottle conditioned beers; home brews) are left unfiltered.

Question 9

Conditioning tank (additional step)

Answer 9

Beer is often matured in a conditioning tank to allow flavors to blend and stabilize. This stage can allow inappropriate flavor and aroma compounds to dissipate. During this stage, wood aging or dry hopping can also occur. Carbonation usually occurs at this stage: a carbonating stone in the tank allows carbon dioxide to pass through and dissolve in the conditioning beer.

Question 10

Pasteurize/Packing

Answer 10

Commercial macro breweries will pasteurize their beer before bottling/kegging. In small or craft breweries, this stage is simply the packaging phase: bottling, canning, or kegging