The Brewing Process

Author: Andrea Isabel Casillas Hernández

Introduction
Surely you have enjoyed a cold beer in the company of good friends, and if not, at least you are certain
what beer is. But have you ever started to think about the steps to make a beer? The entire process to
make a beer is known in many countries as The Brewing Process.
“Brewing” is the practice of regulating the interactions between water, starch, yeast, and hops so that
the final result is what is called beer. Beer is the most generally consumed alcoholic beverage in the
world, also is the third most popular drink overall after water and tea.
Development
In the beer-making process, various ingredients are mixed, processed, and sometimes the structure of
the raw materials is altered. The brewing process is made up of ten production steps from the fresh
barley to the finished beer. Let is it see what these steps are and why making beer is considered an art.
1. Malting. This is the first step of the brewing process. Firstly, the fresh barley gets soaked in
water to germinate. This partial germination makes for easier conversion of the grain’s
starches into malt sugars.
2. Milling. The finished malt is milled, similar to the making of flour, so that it dissolves better in
water.
3. Mashing. Once milling is complete, mashing beings. The milled malt is mixed with water in the
mash tun – mashing-in. The mash will take between 30-120 min, the time depends of the
temperature and type of enzyme working.
4. Lautering. In this step, the mash is filtered in the lauter tun as the husks sink and the wort is
separated from the solid substances (spent grains).
5. Boiling. The process of boiling the wort is responsible for two main things:
 Pasteurize the wort
 Add hops or other flavors such as ginger or molasses.
6. Wort Clarification. Here the wort is fed into the whirlpool and starts to rotate. Hop particles
that have not dissolved, and proteins forms a cone in the middle of the container, and the
clear wort can be tapped off at the side.
7. Fermentation. This step takes place in a fermentation tank where special brewing yeast is
added. In the next 4-6 days, yeast turns the malt sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. This is
where the reaction to beer occurs:
C6H12O6 2C2H5OH + 2CO2
8. Storage. Young beer is stored anything from three weeks to three months in a storage tank at
between 1 and 2° Celsius, then the beer becomes clear and acquires its characteristic colour.
9. Filtration. The beer is filtered to separate all the particles that have been sedimented in the
fermentation.
10. Filling. The beer is filled using counter pressure to prevent any carbon dioxide from escaping.
Barrels are filled directly in our brewery.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that beer is a very consumed drink all over the world. Making
beer is not as simple as it seems, it is necessary to control many variables such as temperature and
concentration, so that finally you can have a beer that tastes and smells good. All steps are important
in the brewing process, if any goes wrong, it could seriously affect the final result of the beer.
References

 Beer brewing: the brewing process | Braeu am Berg. (2016). Retrieved 14 November 2020, from
https://www.braeuamberg.at/en/brewing-process/
 Trosset, F. (2018). The Brewing Process — Aslan Brewing Co. Retrieved 14 November 2020, from
https://aslanbrewing.com/thebrewingprocess
 Morales, M. (2018). Chemical reactions in beer. Revista De Química, (2518-2803). Retrieved from
http://revistas.pucp.edu.pe/quimica