C.H. Evans Brewing Company at the
ALBANY PUMP STATION

The Brewing Process

Brewing has been practiced by humans for millennia. The basic process is largely unchanged, but we have a much better understanding of what is happening than our ancestors did. The brewing process can be divided into seven parts: milling, mashing, lautering, boiling, fermenting, maturation, and packaging.

 

Milling is the process of crushing the malted grains. The grains must be crushed to expose the starchy endosperm to the mash water, but care must be taken to not crush the grain too finely. The husks that surround the barley seed are important to the brewer and must be left relatively intact: they will form the filter bed through which the wort is clarified during the lautering process. If the grain is crushed too finely the husks will be pulverized and the brewer will not be able to produce clear wort.  The Pump Station's mill is pictured below.

Mashing is the next step in the brewing process. The milled grain is mixed with hot water in the mash tun. Depending on the temperature of the mash, different chemical reactions occur. Between 145-165 ° F the malt starches are converted to sugar. This reaction is of critical importance to the brewer because brewer’s yeast can ferment only sugar, not starch. The sweet liquid produced during the mash is called wort.

Mashing at temperatures near 145 ° F yields a wort with more fermentable sugar while mashes performed at temperatures over 158 ° F will produce relatively unfermentable worts. The brewer uses this property to control the sweetness of the final beer; an unfermentable wort will produce a relatively sweet brew while a very fermentable wort will produce a drier, more alcoholic beer. Our Quackenbush BlondeTM is mashed at 145 ° F in order to produce a dry beer.

Lautering is the important process of clarifying the sweet wort that was produced during the mash. This is done by circulating the sweet wort through the grain bed until it is clear. This recirculation is often referred to by its German name: vorlauf (pronounced "for-loff"). Once the wort is clear it is run off into the kettle where it will be boiled. The grain in the mash tun is then rinsed with 170 ° F water to extract the remaining sugar. This is called sparging. The sparge runnings are also collected in the kettle to be boiled with the first runnings.

Pictured below is clear wort filling the kettle.  The steel protrusion at the 8 o'clock position is the thermometer well while the basket at the 4 o'clock position covers the kettle outlet.  The arch-shaped steel tube is a step to give the brewer easier access to the kettle's interior.  The darker color at the center is caused by a concavity in the kettle floor.

After the all of the wort has been drained from the mash tun, the rather hot spent grain is removed through the side manway.  This is a common sight Friday and Saturday evenings at the Pump Station.  The grain is sent to local cow and sheep farmers for use as feed.  Some of the beef used at the Pump Station comes from a farm that uses our grain!

Boiling is a pretty simple process: the sweet wort is heated until it is boiling. The wort must be boiled for the following reasons:

Wort is typically boiled for 60-90 minutes, although some beer styles demand longer boil times.  It is during the boil that hops are added to the sweet wort. After the hops are added the liquid is called bittered wort.  A beer's hop character is controlled in a number of ways:  the amount of hops used, the variety of hops used, and the amount of time they are boiled in the wort.

The more hops a brewer uses, the more hop character the beer will have.  Different hop varieties vary in their ability to provide bitterness and aromatic flavors and aromas.  Some hops will yield a sharp bitterness while others will be smoother.  Some hops can give beer a definite grapefruit aroma while others will yield pine-like character.

The longer hops are boiled, the more bitterness and less aromatic character they will contribute to the beer.  This is because the chemicals that taste bitter need to be boiled for a while to be formed while the oils responsible for hop's aromatic qualities evaporate away if they are boiled for more than a few minutes.  The brewer uses these properties to carefully control the beer's hop profile.

We use pelletized hops at the Pump Station because they stay fresh longer than hop flowers and are easier to remove from the wort at the end of the boil.  they also take up less storage space.  Pictured below are hop pellets just before addition to the boiling wort.

After the wort is boiled it is whirlpooled to settle the hop and protein debris into a trub pile.  This procedure utilizes the same physics seen when tea leaves settle to the center of a cup after the drink is stirred.  It took brewers until the early 1970's to figure out this trick, and even then it was discovered by accident.  We're not the brightest lot...

 The wort is then separated from the trub pile (which is discarded) and rapidly cooled in the heat exchanger as it is sent to the fermentation tank. It is here that the yeast are added to the wort.

The picture below shows the trub pile that is left in the kettle at the end of the boil.  The wooden pole holds a bag of hop pellets in place over the kettle's outlet.  This adds extra hop aroma to the beer, and is a procedure used when making our Pump Station Pale and Kick-Ass Brown.

Fermentation is the process by which the yeast consume the wort sugars and produce alcohol and carbon dioxide. These fermentation by-products are desirable in beer; alcohol (in moderation) has pleasant effects on the human brain while carbon dioxide gives beer its refreshing tingle. Ales are typically fermented at temperatures around 65 ° F while lagers are fermented at about 45 ° F. It takes 3-5 days for ale fermentation to occur, about 14 days for lagers. It is only after fermentation that the young brew can rightly be called "beer."

Maturation is the process by which beer is aged until the brewer deems it suitable for sale. Most beers are chilled to near freezing for at least a week as part of their maturation. This helps to remove excess yeast and protein from the beer. It is during this phase of the beer’s life that harsh, immature flavors fade away, allowing the full, rounded character of the beer to shine through.

The length of time a beer is matured depends on the style of beer that is being made. Bavarian-style wheat beers are best drunk fresh, and are good within 3 weeks of brew day. Other beers, like our blonde, require more patient aging (6 weeks) to allow the beer to reach its peak. Higher alcohol beers such as barley wines often require several months of aging to round out their young, rough edges.

The finished, mature beer may be filtered to make it more visually appealing to the consumer. Filtration does not really have any positive affect on a beer’s flavor, which is why we try to avoid filtration whenever possible. When we do filter a beer, it is with a relatively porous filter that traps mostly yeast, leaving the beer’s flavor and body largely intact.

Packaging is required before the beer can be sold. In a brewpub, the beers are most often transferred from the fermentor to a serving tank, which is really nothing more than a 310 gallon keg. Some beers may be packaged in kegs or casks. Production breweries which sell most of their beer off premises will usually bottle their product.

Cask-conditioning is a special packaging procedure that results in beer with natural carbonation from the fermentation. Although cask-conditioned beers have only become popular recently in the United Stated, it is actually the most ancient form of beer packaging.

The fermented beer is mixed with fresh yeast and unfermented wort and then put in a cask (called a firkin) and sealed. The yeast ferment the sugars that were added, producing carbon dioxide in the process. Since the cask is sealed, the carbon dioxide dissolves into the beer, making it fizzy. Hops can also be added to the cask in a process called dry hopping.

Cask-conditioned beers are not served warm; they are served at a cool cellar temperature of 50-55 ° F. They are poured through a beer engine (a.k.a., hand pump) which may or may not have a sparkler attached to it.

Cask-conditioned beers are often more flavorful then there serving tank counterparts, in part because they contain live yeast and often receive an extra dose of dry hops. The warmer serving temperature also allows the beer’s character to be expressed more eloquently than the colder serving tank beer.

 

Some Common Misconceptions and Questions

  1. Guinness stout is a strong beer. This is a very common misconception. At about 4% Alcohol by Volume (ABV), draft and canned Guinness stout are actually lower in alcohol than American lagers like Budweiser and Coors. It is fuller-flavored, which many people erroneously equate with alcoholic potency.
  2. Dark beers are stronger than light-colored beers and dark beers are made from the "bottom of the barrel." Both of the statements are patently false. A beer’s color is derived from the malt that is used to make it, and has no relationship to alcohol content. There is no beer that is made from "the bottom of the barrel." How that ridiculous notion ever became popular is one of life’s many mysteries.
  3. Craft beer induces worse hangovers than "mega-brew." This is another bogus statement. Hangovers are most often caused by drinking too much alcohol. Our bodies produce formaldehyde and other toxic chemicals from the alcohol we ingest. These toxic substances are largely responsible for hangovers. Dehydration is another cause of hangovers. Alcohol is a diuretic (it induces the excretion of water from our bodies). Hops are also diuretic. On top of that double whammy, our bodies use one molecule of water for every molecule of alcohol that is metabolized. That is why we become so dehydrated after a night of drinking.

The best way to avoid a hangover is to not drink excessively. Short of that, the next best things to do are to always drink after eating a good meal, and to drink plenty of water during and after your alcohol consumption.

 
Glossary Ingredients Procedures
   

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