The first one of several stages of making beer is malting which is a stage that requires using barley that is the key ingredient in the making of beer. Also, brewing beer in hot water is not going to give good results because the beer must be allowed to germinate which will allow enzymes to attack the grain content and make it dissolve in water while it is being brewed. What happens then is that much starch gets transformed into sugars that are ideal for fermentation and the beginning of germination is the stage that is known as malting, which is one of the prerequisite stages of making beer, and which is an industry in itself that is known as the malting industry.
Furthermore, the malting process requires to first steeping the grain for about three days after which it must be spread out in layers for seven days so that it germinates and to stop the germination use is made of desiccation in a kiln.
Solubilise Starch And Proteins In The Malt
There is another stage of making beer which is the brewing stage which helps to solubilise the starch as well as proteins in the malt, and which requires three liters of water to be kept at fifty degrees Centigrade for every kilogram of malt and the water then has to be put in a boiler that has a powerful agitator. To get the best results, the water has to be progressively heated in stages and different temperatures will make for optimum action by various enzymes.
It is also left to the discretion of the brewer as to the best composition of beer wort which he can achieve by choosing the stages with care. In any case, this stage of making beer should continue for about two hours.
After this stage of making beer has been completed, there is another stage that the beer has to go through which is the fermentation process, which requires that yeast be added to the wort that has been allowed to cool and then the fermentable sugars that had dissolved while the brewing stage was in progress will now get transformed into alcohol and also into carbon dioxide. It takes about a week for the fermentation stages of making beer to complete, and you can choose between two categories of beer that depend on which method of fermentation is used.
There are bottom-fermented yeast beers that need to be fermented at temperatures not higher than five to ten degrees Centigrade in which the yeast will sink to the bottom of the beer. On the other hand, the other stage is the top-fermented beers that need to be fermented at temperatures between fifteen and twenty-five degrees Centigrade in which the yeast will come up to the surface of the beer after fermentation.
The last stages of making beer is the bottling stage in which, after the beer has been filtered in order to remove yeast particles, the beer can then be bottled.
With so many avid home beer lovers brewing their own beers and who are spread in many parts of the world, though most notably in England, there is need for them to have some convenient and effective way by which to get best results from brewing their own homemade beers. They need not look further than micro beer brewing which is a means that is ideally suited for anyone wishing to brew their beer from the comforts of their homes, and even in small pubs. In fact, the term micro beer brewing first gained prominence in the United Kingdom during the seventies and it described making beer with the help of single units that are capable of making their own beers as well as the more traditional cask ales.
A New Approach
However, before the seventies, the term micro beer brewing referred mostly to output volumes as well as to brewery sizes and in America, the term actually referred to breweries that produced less than fifteen thousand barrels of beer each year. However, today, the concept of micro beer brewing has changed and is quickly becoming the term that signifies a change in the approach to how beer can be brewed, and it also alludes to some amount of experimentation taking place as well to customized service.
Also, every beer aficionado will readily agree that the best brewed beers in the world are often those that are the product of micro beer brewing, and the reason is that when micro beer brewing takes place, makers of this form of beer are at liberty to come up with their own concoctions and will also be able to experiment with flavors. All this has led to mushrooming of the use of micro beer brewing and many micro-breweries thus have sprouted up in different parts of the world.
The most distinctive aspect to micro beer brewing is that allows the maker to give the beer its own distinctive flavor, which often is richer in taste and darker in color than mass produced commercial beers. Also, because any pub or home can make use of micro beer brewing, there are bound to be many different and distinct beers being produced thus assuring beer drinkers that they can get a lot of variety of flavors that each will appeal to different taste buds.
However, in the US not every state allows for micro beer brewing, and so you should be sure that you are not indulging in illegal beer brewing and if you want more information in this regard, you could check out the American Homebrewers Association where you will find the necessary information, especially regarding restrictions and also many how-to tips as well.