Beer Flashcards
(48 cards)
What is the oldest beverage known to man?
Mead (beer is the second oldest)
Why is the fermentation process of beer more complicated than wine?
A grain’s starch must first be converted into sugar before fermentation can commence.
What are the two steps of the beer brewing process?
First the brewer must derive the wort from malted grain then ferment the wort.
What is wort?
A sugar-rich malty liquid extracted from the mashing process during the brewing of beer (or whisky). Hot water is added to this mash to allow enzymes to finish to conversion from start to sugar. This is wort.
-essentially, unfermented beer
What are the 4 raw ingredients used to brew beer?
Water
Yeast
Starch source
Hops
What are hops?
A flower that adds flavor and bitterness; has both preservative and antiseptic qualities that prohibit bacterial growth.
“The spice of beer”
-relative to cannabis
What is the Reinheitsgebot? When was it established?
Bavarian Purity Law, in 1516, codified the three ingredients authorized for beer production as barley, hops, and water
-the action of yeast in fermentation was as of yet undiscovered, and wheat, a component of Hefe Weizen and White Beer styles, was reserved for the production of bread.
What is the cereal grain of choice for most beers?
Barley.
What is malt?
—Malt has been called the soul of beer. It is the main fermentable ingredient, providing the sugars that yeast use to create alcohol and carbonation.
Malt is converted barley or other grains that have been steeped for approximately two days to promote germination (sprouting) of the grain, then heated, kilned (or roasted in a drum), cooled, dried and then rested.
What enzyme is responsible for converting starch cabohydrateds of the grain into fermentable sugars?
Amylase
When the malted barley sprouts to nearly an inch in length, amylase is produced.
What are the two fermentable sugars produced by Amylase?
Maltose and Dextrin
What is “green malt”?
What is the next step after “green malt”?
When the Barley grain is malted and a sprout grows.
After it becomes “green malt” the next step is roasting.
What is the purpose of roasting?
Give examples.
The length and degree of roasting determines the the style of beer desired
-heavy roasted black malts, for instance, are used for porter-style beers, whereas pale malt, dried at low temperatures and very light in color, is used for pale ales.
What is grist?
Refers to malt and cereal that is either ground (milled) or cracked in the brewhouse by a malt mill at beginning of the brewing process.
The grist is then combined with hot water in a mash tun.
What is mashing?
A process in which the grist is combined with hot water to convert and extract sugar from the malt
The mashing process lasts one to two hours, and results in flavor, sugar, and color-rich wort.
What is lautering?
A process the wort goes through, where the grain husks and other solids are separated from the liquid wort. After it is drawn off the grains it is filtered into the brew kettle, or “copper”.
**Homebrewers will often skip the mashing and lautering stages by starting out with a liquid malt extract
What is sparging?
Rinsing the spent grains with fresh water to extract additional sugar and flavor after the mashing process.
- this is later combined with the wort already in the copper, and hops are added.
- Sparging may lead to unwanted bitterness in the finished brew.
Three reasons for boiling the wort?
Boiling the wort stabilizes and sterilizes the brew, darkens the color, and causes excess water to evaporate.
What happens to the hops the longer the wort is boiling? What is a Hop-back chamber?
Hops contribute more bitterness the longer they boil, but lose aroma.
In order to retain fleeting, volatile hop aromas, the wort may pass through a hop-back chamber, which introduce fresh hops to the beer after the boil in order to retain fresh aromas lost from boiling. The wort is then strained, leaving spent hops behind, and chilled to an appropriate temperature for fermentation.
What is the difference between lagers and ales and when is this decided?
What are the different yeasts used?
Temperature differences?
—After the boiling of the wort lager beer is cooled to a lower temperature while ales require a warmer temperature. Each require different yeasts for fermentation.
—Ales require top-fermenting yeasts (saccharomyces cerevisiae), which prefer warmer temperatures (about 15 degrees warmer than Lagers) and result in fruity and richly-flavored beers. Ale fermentation is quick, usually lasting less than a week.
—Lagers require bottom-fermenting yeast (Saccharomyces pastorianus, formerly called Saccharomyces carlsbergensis) clump together at the bottom of the vessel,and ferment slower and at lower temperatures. This results in a more delicate, cleaner beer.
—Ale fermentation falls on the warm side of the scale, with yeasts that prefer a general range of 60 to 78°F (16–26°C
—Typically, lager fermentation is conducted in the range of 48–58°F (9–14°C
What are the two types of yeasts used for ales and lagers?
Saccharomyces cerevisiae for Ales
Saccharomyces pastorianus for Lagers
What happens in the beer making process after fermentation?
The beer is transferred to conditioning tanks or casks, and often pasteurized prior to bottling.
What are cask ales/cask-conditioned beer?
What is it also known as?
Unfiltered and unpasteurized beer which is conditioned (including secondary fermentation) and served from a cask without additional nitrogen or carbon dioxide pressure.
-Also known as real beer in the UK
** certain characteristics: it should contain live yeast, because it completes its secondary fermentation in the cask. Then it must be kept and served at a cool cellar temperature (52-57° F), naturally carbonated to lower levels than standard draft beers, and dispensed without the use of any extraneous carbon dioxide pressure.
—result should be decidedly less gassy, lacking the often prickly, acidic bite found in other beers. The mouthfeel is softer and gentler, while the slightly warmer serving temperature allows for a greater range of flavors and aromas to emerge.
What is a lambic beer?
A unique specialty of Belgium, where the beer is spontaneously fermented in open-top containers with native wild yeasts, such as Brettanomyces bruxellensis and Brettanomyces lambicus.
- Classic lambics are almost vinous in character, distinctively sour, and aged prior to release–often up to three years in cask.
- Generally lambics are blended before release.
