Chemistry, physics, biology - all contribute to achieving spumoasei drinks in a complex process in which modern scientific knowledge have joined traditional.Categorized as drinks beer factory worldwide, and each population to make what is at hand: local resources determine the type of beer. Basically, it's about the fermentation of liquid containing starch - that's the basic principle. From here, start variations - countless - because starch can come from various plant sources, fermentation can do it with different types of yeast and fermentation product can be added to all kinds of other ingredients that have a deeply on the taste, aroma and other characteristics of the final product. For example, Africa is rich in starchy root beer from a plant called cassava or manioc, potatoes are sometimes used in Brazil, while in Europe the source of starch are cereals. Beer cereal is actually the most widespread (the drink, that is) today, which is why it interests us first.
In Europe, beer grain has a long tradition, but that does not mean all the beer is today a thousand years ago. If the basic principles remain the same, the details have changed technological process, keeping up with the times. Beer, even if it seems to take sometimes mysterious alchemy (or so we like to think) is today a well known and controlled process in all its complexity of detail chemical, biological. Cereals, so ...What is beer, then? "From you," he said one facetious, and it is true that access to certain resources conditioning manufacture any product, not just beer. Current use barley, sometimes wheat and corn recently - all the sources that provide the sugars that will be subject to fermentation.But historically been associated with beer barley and barley is done and today most of the beer drunk in the Western world, so let's start our journey through a virtual brewery imagining that we prepared to make a beer "classic" from barley.The first step is to obtain malt, which is nothing but barley sprouts (germinated) and dried.Temperature and humidity conditions, germinating barley grains, which results in activation of enzymes (amylase) that will convert starch into maltose grain. Starch is a polysaccharides, a carbohydrate substance with a very long molecule formed by chemically linking thousands of simple molecules of mono saccharides. Imagine enzymes as some scissors to cut the long molecular chains into smaller fragments of only two drives. These fragments are molecules of maltose, which is a disaccharide.So we sugars and now need to extract in an aqueous solution, in order to begin the process of fermentation. For this, the malt is ground and mixed with hot water. Malt sugars thus pass water.In solution rich in sugars - called mash beer - malt enzymes break down starch into maltose. Wort is then collected in huge boilers copper or stainless steel and is cooked in about an hour. Boiling concentrated solution - water evaporates and the ratio of sugars increases - and inactivates the enzymes left.
At this stage add the hops - female plant flowers (hops plant is Delicious, meaning individuals are male and female individuals.) Adding hops in beer dates back to the Middle Ages, people used to add to the wort different plants, but somehow won among all the hops. Not accidentally, of course, but because people appreciated his contribution: not only hops give the beer a bitter flavor and taste specific prized so, but has antibacterial properties that help preserve and stimulate action brewing yeast. Is given by a bitter substance in plants called lupin.The hops are boiled more beer, the bitter taste is more pronounced, but the flavor will be weaker.The amount of hops, the temperature at which the mixture is subjected to time and as hops is in contact with the juice are factors that determine the final taste of the beer and manufacturers for each type of beer which he manufactures, precise recipes and even "trade secrets ".
The mixture is then cooled boiled - reaching only warm, because this is the temperature at which "works" best yeast. A too high temperature will kill yeast cells, and at a temperature too low yeast enzymes would be activated and could not perform fermentation.What is fermentation? Broadly, it means the transformation of sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide under the action of specific enzymes found in cells of microorganisms. This happens in the case of beer: special enzymes in yeast converts maltose from boiled and cooled wort into alcohol and CO 2 . Once, at the beginning of fermentation is under the action of so-called wild yeasts - microscopic fungi in the air. (We live in an "ocean" of microorganisms - are everywhere around us: viruses, bacteria, microscopic fungi. Some are pathogenic and cause diseases, some are harmless, others are useful and the most useful yeasts are contributed significantly to cultural evolution. With their help we managed to make bread, wine, cider, beer.) But it was a process largely subject to the whims of chance, because fermentation with wild yeasts in the air could not be controlled and manipulated intentionally so that the result can not be perfectly uniform from one batch of beer to another. Today, brewing yeast culture based on selected each plant using certain strains with well known features. Rarely, wild yeasts are also used in the case of special beers that are more like curiosities, for example, beer type Lambic , made ??in Belgium.Okay, so I added yeast, it's been a while (a few weeks) had their fermentation and lees deposited (settled) at the bottom of the fermentation vessel. Now what? Filtered beer make it clear that eventually added some clarification so-called agents, substances that "gathers" of beer solids so that they can be removed more easily (Unless you want a rustic beer, unfiltered, with a little cloudy, which has its charm). 
And then, a "pack" the packaging to be sold. If small traditional brewery store, here and there, custom wooden keg, beer is packaged in modern factories or in metal barrels, stainless steel or aluminum, of different capacities (in Europe the most common are 30 - 50 liters) either in bottles or in cans cylindrical metal ("doses") or plastic bottles (PET). Metal Butties intended generally premises, of which, the beer is extracted using a special device - a tap with valve - to fill cup after cup. 
In short, it is beer, but in reality, the process is complex and each detail has its importance.Quantities, times, temperatures, pressures and other parameters are strictly controlled, because any failure can destroy the harmony process and therefore on the final product. Throughout the production flow, the entire process is monitored, in any modern brewery is missing laboratory tests, the samples of all intermediates and the final product are carefully analyzed, using specific methods to give assurance that everything is going well.
We have come a long way, for millennial, from the first clay vessels brewery vessels in which grain mash ferment only what nature gave up the impressive factory today, with halls equipped with machinery sparkling brass or steel with advanced laboratories, with a production flow developed in the smallest details. It is a piece of becoming human species from its long cultural evolution, in its various aspects - food, technology, even psychological and social - development that brought us to this stage, where beer consumption is actually both food and company act and its production - technological performance.'via Blog this'
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