18/11/2010

Beer
Beer has been used over the centuries to:
quench a thirst, add flavor to a barbecue, add body when you wash your hair, and to forget about one's worries for awhile.

Beer
In the early seventeenth century people consumed beer with a different purpose than people do today.
Records from the seventeenth century show that on average an individual consumed about three quarts of beer per day. Beer was so important to the residents of New York City that they paved Wall Street in 1630 to ease the delivery of beer in the muddy season

Beer
In the early seventeenth century people consumed beer with a different purpose than people do today.
Beer was a form of nourishment A dietary staple for the Pilgrims from infants to the aged. The Mayflower carried three times more beer than water Beer practically replaced drinking water in the Pilgrims daily lives.

Beer
Civilization and Beer
Hypothesis 1
science of brewing beer gave birth to all sciences and possibly civilization itself. formerly nomadic people settled in Mesopotamia because they found it impossible to travel and maintain a steady supply of alcohol or the grain from which to make it. Agriculture and civilization grew out of the desire to quench a certain kind of thirst.

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Beer
Civilization and Beer
Hypothesis 2
civilization began with the purposeful cultivation of the earliest farmed grains--wheat and barely. it is believed that beer was discovered accidentally following settled civilization and the cultivation of barley.

Beer
The earliest chemical evidence of beer was found at a Sumerian outpost called Godin Tepe in Iran.
- A yellowish residue was found on a piece of pottery and was chemically identified as being an oxalate salt, such as found on the insides of today's brewing tanks. - This piece of pottery is over 5,000 years old. - Similar findings have been made in 3,000 year old Egyptian storage vessels.

Beer in China was called kiu in the 23 century B.C. By 1800 B.C. the Babylonians were brewing beer.

Beer
Who discovered beer?
Mead, a fermented drink of water and honey mixed with malt, yeast, and herbs was perhaps the first stimulating beverage. The Medes, Persians, Phoenicians and Egyptians all had this drink. The first batch of beer is thought to have been accidentally made by some individual who left a bowl of barley out in the rain. The first recipe for "wine of grain" was inscribed on stone tablets in Mesopotamia about seven thousand years B.C. Brewing has been documented off the western Coast of Scotland on the island of Rhum as far back as 4,000 years.

Beer
in Europe
Beer came to Europe by way of the ancient Greeks through forays into then brew-active Egypt. Beer then flowed north with Julius Caesars legions about 55 B.C. into Gaul and Britain. The first use of hops is generally attributed to the monasteries of Northern Gaul, where Gaulish monks applied the Celtic word beor to their concoction. Saint Arnold, 6th century A.D. was apparently the first person to introduce hops. In the middle ages, brewing was done in households by women.

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Beer
First Commercial Brewery
It wasn't until 1040 A.D. that the first commercial brewery, the Weihenstepan Brewery, was established in Freising Germany. In Belgium, politics played an interesting role in the development of breweries.
- Catholics and Liberals were competing both locally and nationally for political seats and the local brewer was often the mayor. - A predictable countermove by a rival was to open his own brewery.

Beer
In America, Peter Minuit opened the first public brewery on Manhattan Island. In 1635 the first commercial brewery was established near Boston and some think it may have been linked to Harvard.
- Harvard has a long history concerning beer brewing and actually owned three breweries in the 1600 and 1700s. - the first president of Harvard was dismissed for a lack of producing adequate amounts of beer.

William Penn erected the first brewery in Pennsylvania in 1638 followed by:
- Samuel Adams (father of the Revolution), - Thomas Chittenden (Vermont's first governor) - and George Washington (who was thought to have written the first recorded recipe for homebrew in North America..

Beer
First Commercial Brewery
- Consequently, by the end of the 19th century most villages had two breweries--one Catholic-owned, one Liberalowned, and each brewer produced at least five different beers. - It is easy to see why Belgium claims to be the beer paradise of the world. They produce 900 different beers of 250 different kinds and each week a new beer is introduced onto the Belgian market.

Prohibition
people like Al Capone, Legs Diamond and other "family members" got into the beer business during the 1920's Prohibition.
During Prohibition, the availability of alcohol was limited due to the 18th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Fortunately the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th in 1933.

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Commercial production of beer

Superbreweries
Anheuser Busch produces at least 70 million barrels of beer per year. Miller produces 41 million barrels.

Home brewing
Once the initial equipment is produced, the price per batch is much lower than commercial beer Many want to explore the possibility of brewing exotic tasting beers The government made it legal for citizens to make their own beer
can make one hundred gallons per adult individual per household. It is illegal to sell homebrew. It is still illegal to make homebrew in eleven states.

Typically artificially carbonate their beer because they have to make it quickly and efficiently Many use preservatives to enhance shelf-life and long-distance transportation

Commercial production of beer

Microbreweries
Microbreweries are defined as producing less than 15,000 barrels of beer a year.

Four ways of making homebrew

1. Commercially available bag and water sold by Popular Mechanics--all the ingredients for the mixture are already in the bag so all the consumer has to do is add water and wait. About $45. 2. Pressure canister--the ingredients come in two separate containers, so the consumer has to mix the two separate ingredients with water and add it to the keg. $100 to start, and $20 for additional starter batches. 3. Similar to #2 except that instead of a refrigerator-keg storage technique, bottling is involved.$20-25 per batch 4. Homebrewing from scratch--used by experienced homebrewers. All ingredients are bought or grown separately and are added together at specific times, just like a cooking recipe. Since the beer is put together by the ingredients and doesn't come pre-packaged in a bag or a can, the choices of what to make are infinite.

More concerned with taste and brew their beers naturally without artificial flavor or carbonation
Much fresher with no preservatives Incorporate bold flavors and boutique and specialty beers

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Beer making
Ingredients
malted barley, hops, yeast and water.

Beer making
Yeast--an important ingredient of the beer.
This is a single celled fungus that plays the central role in converting sugars into carbon dioxide and alcohol during fermentation. Two main varieties of yeast and several hundred strains. Each strain, used with similar ingredients will produce a different flavored beer. Typically the yeasts favor a pH between 5.0 and 5.5.
- Ale yeast--favor temperatures between 60-75 F, usually top fermenting with a greater O2 requirement. This is usually Saccharomyces cerevisiae. - Lager yeasts--favor temperatures 35-50 F, usually bottom fermenting, with a lesser O2 requirement. This is usually Saccharomyces uvarum (formerly known as Saccharomyces carlsbergensis).

Barley--a grain and the base ingredient of beer. The barley is what provides the sugars, soluble starch and starch-to-sugar enzymes which are necessary for fermentation to take place.
Different forms--dark brown or black contributing to a darker, more bitter beer. Lighter, contributing to a lighter, crispier beer.

Beer making
Hops--the ripe, dried blossoms of a perennial vine, Humulus lupulus in the mulberry family.
Hops add a bitter flavor to beer and help to preserve it. Noble hops--the most sought after they were found in Germany and Bohemia and now Australia

Beer making
Water--since beer is at least ninety percent water, special consideration is given to how the water tastes before it goes into the brew kettle
i.e. the Rocky Mountain Spring water used in Coors. Us. any water that is good enough to drink is good enough to brew with. Occasionally minerals like gypsum or salts are added to provide a pH buffer and to enhance flavors. There is a current German law from the 14th Century that forbids one to urinate in the river systems on Tuesday because of water diverted for brewing on Wednesday.

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Beer making
Other ingredients
When hard times hit the Pilgrims, they substituted things like corn, pumpkins, artichokes, persimmons, bran and oats for the usual barley. When hops couldn't be found, they improvised, using spruce, birch, pine, walnut and sassafras to add seasoning to their beer.

Beer making
Equipment
Boiling kettle Long handled spoon A thermometer Cooling coil A hydrometer 7-8 gallon bucket with a sealing lid a 7 gallon carboy siphoning tube a fermentation lock bottling caps, bottles and a capper or Pressure canister

Beer making
1.Sterilize the equipment
Clorox and hot water, pressure cooker. If the equipment isn't sterilized a number of contaminating organisms, both bacteria and fungi, and ruin the beer.

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Beer making
2. Malting
The appropriate variety of barley (some are more suitable to the production of malt whiskey or food rather than beer),
- are allowed to soak in water for about 40 hours, with draining and new water added every 8 hours. - Once the barley grains reach 40-45% moisture the barely is allowed to germinate around 60 F. - Germination of the grain allows for plant enzymes to convert carbohydrates into more simple sugars like glucose. - Once the epicotyl forms, the grains are dried with a gradual rise in temperature (122 F for lagers, 221 F for ale malts).

Beer making
Hops are added at different times during the boiling phase.
Hops have tiny oil glands that contain oils and resin that contribute to the aromatic flavor and bouquet of the beer. Hops contributing to the bitterness of the beer are added early in the boil so the resins have time to dissolve into the wort. Hops that are added for their aromatic flavoring are added within the last few minutes of the boil. Otherwise the quickly dissolved oils get steamed out of the wort.

Beer making
3. Mashing
the barley has to be cracked open so that water can get inside and activate the enzymes. These enzymes called diastases, become most active around 150-160 degrees F. They convert the starches from the barley into simple sugars. This process is known as mashing. After the solids are strained out the dark, sweet liquid is called "wort." 4. The wort must be boiled for 30-90 minutes depending on the recipe.

Beer making
5. The wort is cooled, so the yeasts to be added next don't die. This is done quickly either with a cooling coil hooked up to the cold water tap or by "splarging" where the hot wort is poured into a sterilized container containing cold water. 6. The yeast is "pitched" either as a freeze-dried powder or as an actively growing liquid. Each has its advantages. 7. The yeast is allowed to ferment the wort for up to 10 days, depending on the type of beer. During this phase, the alcohol is made and the carbonation is allowed to escape through the fermentation lock.

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Beer making
- Respiration--the yeast converts simple sugars to carbon dioxide and water. The yeast obtains it's energy for fermentation and sedimentation during this phase. - Fermentation--the conversion of sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide. It is the longest of the three phases. At its peek, which is also the start of sedimentation, the yeast has a density of 50 million cells per milliliter. - Sedimentation--the yeast cells settle to the bottom of the fermentation vessel because most of the sugars have been converted and utilized for respiration, and the begin to prepare for dormancy. Sedimentation last for 2-3 days. At the time the beer appears clear, the yeast's density is less than 1 million cells per milliliter.

Beer making
10. Aging. The bottles are then set aside in a cool, dark place and left untouched until ready to drink.
"Green beer" can be drunk at one week after bottling. Most homebrewers leave their beer sit three or four weeks before the first bottle is opened.

Beer making
8. At the peak of alcohol production (measured with a hydrometer) the beer is ready to bottle. Typically the beer is carefully siphoned off into a second sterile container to eliminate as much of the sedimented yeast as possible. If not the yeas forms a thick scum on the bottom of the bottle. 9. A small, but precisely measured amount of sugar is dissolved, and added to the brew. This is known as secondary fermentation, and allow the yeast one final fermentation cycle to produce the carbonation in the bottles. Frequently, there is a second siphoning step or even a filtration step to remove the remainder of the yeast before bottling. Some yeast is needed to do the secondary fermentation.