Typically we do one brew a week. It is a relaxing feeling when the process starts. Maybe it is the subtle smell as the malt drops and when temps rise, the smell of Raison Bran, Oatmeal, or maybe Bread. Depending on the brew this smell can vary but also depends on the person. The reaction to memories likely strengthen one over the other.
As we discussed in Brew Prep malts have been hanging out in the hopper all night resting up. The kettle was pre filled with water and brought to initial temperatures overnight. So it's time.
Malts drop into the kettle and the mash starts to happen.
Now recall when Zac cracked open the grain, you see the starch that were unlocked from the endosperm. So the temperature in our kettle is raised on a schedule related to the malts used. Being more like Chemistry, the starch is complex and the rising temperature allows for maximum extraction. Efficiency is a natural goal. To little then the yeild will be low.... so the beer may run out before it your turn. No we do not want that to happen.
We move to Mash out and the Lauter Tun. Here we are beginning the removal of the unwanted! Hulls and other malt material that we do not want in the boil. We are after a sweet malt called Wort. Looks like runny brown molasses. In a great way, you know like warming maple syrup so it flows all over those pancakes.
During the separation, Vorlauf, is the process of running the mash through the false bottom. Think of a strainer but the fiber material creates a bed that the wort/water flushes through. Sort of a filter. In our process we have a glass viewer and can observe the change to clean wort. We also Sparge, the addition of hot water sprayed over the grain left overs. This helps to extract some additional trapped sugars but also dilutes the mixture which will aid in bringing to the wort gravity needed for the target fermentation.
After the separation and sparging, the clean wort is ready to pump back into the kettle for the boil process.
Once the kettle is full and the heating elements bring the wort up to temperature. Commonly known, water boils at 212 degrees much the same for wort mixture. Once the boil starts, bittering hops are added. Most every beer gets a portion of bittering and you can really get a punch of these in
many IPA's or in our case the German Pils. You get that first bite but the goal of bittering is to help balance the beer.
Boils can last 60 minutes but as long as 120. Mainly our beers are running on the shorter 60 to 90 Minute. It is a brewers preference and Boiling helps to get the hops to release their oils and flavors. It also helps to remove DMS an unwanted off flavor.
Now that the party is in wind down mode, the final hops are added and we move to clean the final product back in the whirlpool
Before we can move the finished wort into the fermenter, we have to drop the temperature. The yeast is waiting on the wort and if we added it hot, it would be a massacre and little to no yeast would survive to convert the sugars to alcohol.
Check back as we add more videos of the brewing process to discuss what happens in the fermentation phases.
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