Brewing is the process of extracting a saccharine solution from malted grain and converting the solution into a fermented and sound alcoholic beverage called ale or beer.
The preliminary process of malting (often a distinct business to that of brewing) consists in promoting the germination of the grain for the sake of the saccharine matter into which the starch of the seed is thus converted. The barley or other grain is steeped for about two days in a cistern and then piled in a heap, or couch, which is turned and re-turned until the radicle or root, and acrospire or rudimentary stem, have uniformly developed to some little extent in all the heap of grain. This treatment lasts from seven to ten days, by which time the grain has acquired a sweet taste; the life of the grain being then destroyed by spreading the whole upon the floor of a kiln to be thoroughly dried.
At this point begins the brewing process proper, which in breweries is generally as follows: The malt is crushed or roughly ground in a malt-mill, whence it is carried to the mashing-machine, and there thoroughly mixed with hot water. The mixture is now received by the mash-tun - a cylindrical vessel with a false perforated bottom held about an inch from the true one. In the mash-tun the useful elements are extracted from the malt in the form of the sweet liquor known as wort, and the tun, therefore, is fitted with an elaborate system of revolving rakes for thoroughly mixing the malt with hot water.
The mixing completed, the mash-tun is covered up and allowed to stand for about three hours, when the taps in the true bottom are opened and the wort or malt-extract run off. The wort being drained into a copper the hops are now added, and the whole boiled for about two hours, the boiling, like the addition of hops, tending to prevent acetous and putrefactive fermentation. When sufficiently boiled the contents of the copper are run into the hop-back - a long, rectangular vessel with a false bottom about 20 cm from the true bottom. The hot wort leaving the spent hops in the hop-back runs through the perforations in the false bottom and thence into the cooler - a large flat vessel where the worts are cooled to about 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
From the cooler the liquor is admitted to the refrigerator - a shallow rectangular vessel, which reduces the temperature to almost that of the cold water, or about 58 degrees. The worts are next led by pipes into the large wooden fermenting buns, where yeast or barm is added as soon as the wort begins to run in from the refrigerator. During the operation of fermentation, by which a portion of the saccharine matter is converted into alcohol, the temperature rises considerably, and requires to be kept in check by means of a coil of copperpiping with cold water running through it lowered into the beer. When the fermentation has gone far enough, and the liquor has been allowed to settle, the beer becomes comparatively clear and bright, and may be run off and filled into the trade casks or into vats.
The various beers manufactured from grain have sometimes been classified under the three heads of beer (including lager), ale, and porter; but at the present day this classification will not hold, as beer, though it occasionally may have a specific meaning, is often used as the general name for all malt liquors. Both terms belong to the early or Anglo-Saxon period of the English language, but in more modern times the term beer seems to have been applied more especially to malt liquor flavoured with hops, wormwood, or other bitters.
Ale was originally made from barleymalt and yeast alone, and the use of hops was first introduced in Germany, which has longe been a great brewing country. One of the kinds of German beer widely known and consumed since about 1900 is lager beer - that is, store beer, the name being given to it because it is usually kept for four to six months (at a low temperature) before being used. In brewing it the fermentation is made to go on rather slowly and at a low temperature. Much lager beer is now made in America. Among the most celebrated beers are the English pale ales brewed at Burton-on-Trent. The excellence of the Burtonale depends partly on the water used, which is all drawn from wells, and contains carbonates and sulphates of lime and magnesia in large quantities, and partly on the method of brewing.
The English bitter beer traditionally made for home consumption was less bitter than that which was sent abroad, at least as brewed by the best brewers; but a good part of the beer sold under this name is of poor quality and would have little flavour were it not for the hops. Porter, now more often known as stout, which was formerly very largely made in London, as also in Dublin, is of a very dark colour, this colour being obtained by the use of a certain proportion of malt subjected to a heat sufficient to scorch or blacken it.
The manufacture of ale or beer is of very high antiquity. Herodotus ascribes the invention of brewing to Isis, and it was certainly practised in Egypt. Xenophon mentions it as being used in Armenia, and the Gauls were early acquainted with it. Pliny mentions an intoxicating liquor made of corn and water as common to all the nations of the west of Europe, and in England ale-booths were regulated by law as early as the 8th century. A rude process of brewing is carried on by many uncivilized races; thus chica or maize beer is made by the South American Indians, millet beer by various African tribes, etc. Research Brewing
Abbreviations
Food & Drink
Research Brewing