Home brewery: let’s get down to business, men!

Tired of bottled beer with preservatives? I want something real, authentic, VITAL? Brew beer yourself! It is not as difficult as it may seem.

You have to be technical!

Beer mug as the best way to spend your leisure time was invented by our ancestors. Beer is brewed in all kinds of ways these days: at home, in small private breweries passed down from father to son, in restaurant/bar establishments, and in huge facilities.

To brew beer on an industrial scale, producing millions of deciliters, you need to build and equip a brewery. And you can buy live beer from smaller breweries right on the spot, in breweries in bars and restaurants: it’s always fresh and guaranteed to be chemical-free.

Brewing privately was until recently the lot of fans, because it was usually necessary to make their own special equipment, including a mash vat, malt mill, fermentation tank, flow cooler, sterilizer and other exotic devices.

However, since home breweries have come to the aid of the private brewer, the process of brewing a foamy drink has become simple, quick and enjoyable.

Why do you need pedigree yeast??

The final expected result of our creative process depends on the quantity and proportion of the ingredients of the starting substance, as well as the breed of yeast and the characteristics of its population, implying the proportions of yeast cells with different ages and the set of stored enzymes.

First step: making the wort

Why it is better to use ready factory wort? In practice, industry offers individual producers containers with capacity of not less than 50 liters, which is generally unacceptable for a standard city kitchen, and the cost of such a fermentation vat varies in the price range of 150 to 350 thousand Dollars. roubles.

So it seems quite logical to buy ready concentrated wort, cooked in compliance with detailed procedures which is not at all difficult to do in a factory environment and add the right amount of yeast to it. Such a semi-finished product is either a viscous dark mass or a dry powder. From a single wort by changing the technological process and using different additives, yeasts and extracts it is possible to make several different tastes and kinds of drinks.

Brewery for the price of 5,000 Dollars. will greatly facilitate these time-consuming processes. The reconstituted wort is virtually identical to the original. So, we add water in necessary proportion to the ready concentrate of wort and stir it up – the basis for beer is ready.

The second stage: fermentation

At the very beginning of fermentation, the yeast grows and multiplies rapidly in a favorable nutrient medium at room temperature, consuming readily digestible sugars from the wort and producing carbon dioxide and alcohol. Then various proteins enter yeast’s ration – now the yeast forms the very bouquet of taste and aroma of beer, which is characteristic of the selected brew.

Also, it matures at a lower temperature 2-8*C and in a carbon dioxide-rich environment. That is, the semi-finished product becomes carbonated.Experienced brewers bleed let out to the outside excess carbon dioxide that forms in the wort tank or split fermentation process into two stages: primary and secondary with maturation.

To implement the second method you need a tightly closing container and a set of plastic bottles. The main fermentation takes place in a closed, but not airtight, vessel: since the yeast actively emits carbon dioxide, no outside air and with it, bacteria and wild yeast gets inside.

And when the main fermentation is done and there are almost no sugars left, it is required to pour the young “green” beer into airtight containers – plastic bottles with screwing caps are helpful for this purpose.

In order to gasify the beer, sugar syrup must be added to each bottle so that the yeast releases the necessary amount of carbon dioxide, but just enough so that the plastic container does not explode. When the sugars have fermented to the desired degree, the bottles are cooled and the beer begins to slowly mature.

Home brewery – the laboratory of happiness

You might think that a self-made brewer is like an alchemist scientist conjuring over flasks and bubbling retorts in an attempt to get a super substance from elementary components?

In fact, nothing is simpler and more logically arranged than a home brewery.

In the equipment itself you need to set the required parameters: temperature and time. The brewing device itself will ensure that the grain is rinsed, stirred and the wort is heated at the same temperature in every part of the vessel, according to the chosen program.

There is a wide margin for experimentation in wort fermentation: Depending on the type of yeast and its activity, the products taste and alcohol content differ.

Temperature and tank pressure also have a direct impact on the result. Industrial breweries often use special additives to speed up the fermentation process, but the amateur brewer does not need to hurry, the process should proceed naturally.

The factory pasteurization and filtration “emasculate” the product: they extend the shelf life but at the same time they deprive the beer of its individuality, reducing the beverage to the manufacturer’s set boring standards.

And in order to make beer “with soul” one should not lose interest to his favorite business and should take a creative approach to the process of creating a masterpiece.

One thing is certain in the business of home brewing: it develops a love for innovation and increases creative thinking, which is so necessary in any area of human activity.

How not to recall the popular wisdom: “To drink beer is to live long.” Good health, dear brewers, and – successful experiments!