The Brewing Process!
The Brewing Process has several involved steps which require precision in order to ensure consistency in the production of beers. DrinkSip explores this process, and how to ensure quality non-alcoholic beer is produced.
What Steps Are In The Brewing Process?
There are 4 main steps in the brewing process which we will cover in this post, in order they are:
- Making the Mash
- The Boil
- Fermentation
- Bottling or canning
Making The Mash
To make the mash, we take grains, and potentially other sugar sources and mix these with hot water to extract the sugar out of the grain. We want extract starches from this which will be converted into sugars once this is done, this is called lautering. Lautering leaves us with clear liquid wort and residual grain. From there, we move onto boiling the wort.
The Boil
Boiling the wort and adding hops is up next, this is generally a lot of people’s favorite part of the brewing process. Here, we take the wort and add it into the brew kettle to concentrate the wort and lose some water content while also pasteurizing the liquid and killing any potential organisms that we may not want in there.
This process also adds bitterness and flavor. The general rule of thumb is that the longer you boil hops, the more bitter the resulting brew will be, while the shorter you boil the hops the more aromatic it will be while also increasing the flavor. The majority of the hops for DrinkSip beers will go in at the end or after.
After the boil is done, you’ve got to cool the wort down so we can begin the process of fermentation.
Fermentation
Now that the wort has cooled we can begin the process of fermentation. For non-alcoholic beers that are made without dealcoholization, there are special yeasts which will still consume a small amount of the sugar and produce very little alcohol. At DrinkSip, we’re focusing on these types of beverages, and are excited to let you get your hands on our new line-up! Fermentation is the process of adding yeast to the wort (after it has cooled) so that the yeast can consume the sugar to produce alcohol. Most of the sugar is in the brewer's wort. The byproducts of this process are CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) and alcohol. Depending on what type of beer it is, more flavor is added after this step in the process.
It’s important to note that depending on the style of beer that you’re brewing, fermentation times can vary wildly.
After the fermentation and adding the extra flavors to make the final product – we arrive at the process of bottling or canning.
Bottling or Canning the Brews
Once we’re at this point, we’re just putting the resulting brew into the container that the beer drinkers will be receiving it in. While this is often bottles or cans at this point, some beer winds up being put into kegs to be distributed to restaurants and bars looking for larger purchases.
This process can be a little more in depth, and we talk about this in our blog post here.