Understanding Craft Beer
What is craft beer: Craft beer is known as "craft beer" in foreign countries, which directly translates to "craft beer". This kind of beer is usually a relatively small amount of brewing characteristics of beer, but its core value does not lie in the quantity or quality of fine, but innovation. The focus is on the craftsmanship (spirit of craftsmanship) that Craft represents, and if the brewer and the brewery are committed to the starting point, rather than catering to the public's tastes, then this kind of beer can be called craft beer.
The rise of the trend: craft breweries emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s, referring to small and limited capacity breweries, focusing on multiple styles of brewing spirit, and brewing only a single product-oriented distinction between large commercial breweries; and in the past few years the rise of craft breweries around the world.
Development: Craft brewing has broken through the geographical limitations, for example, a Brazilian brewery can brew a classic German lager; a Japanese brewery brews a Belgian-style beer. Some brewers are even trying to recreate the flavors of beers from Egyptian and Greek times. "Some of these long-gone types of beer have returned to the scene, preserving cherished flavors and rekindling the public's imagination of what beer can be," he said.
The four main ingredients of craft beer
Water: To make good beer, you need good water, and water quality is a key factor. Soft water, which contains less minerals, is suitable for brewing a refreshing style of beer, such as Pilsner; while hard water, which is high in minerals, will emphasize the characteristics of hops, such as English Pale Ale.
Malt: Malt is one of the most important ingredients in brewing beer. Malt provides the sugar needed for fermentation and is the key to a beer's taste and color. While most beers are brewed with barley, wheat, oats, rye, and chocolate wheat are also used in brewing. The color of the beer is determined by the degree of malt roasting, and is divided into dark and light roasts.
Hops: The hops that give beer its bitterness and aroma, formally known as 'Snake Flower', are grown at latitudes between 35 and 55 degrees, and varieties vary around the world, with floral, fruity, grassy, and tropical flavors. Hops are usually divided into flake and pellet types, and in addition to giving beer a wonderful aroma, they also have a preservative function.
Yeast: Yeast ferments the wort to produce alcohol and carbon dioxide, and different yeasts have different flavors. Duan Yuanjie said, because of the characteristics of different yeast, the development of the upper fermentation of ale and the lower fermentation of lager beer. Aier yeast fermentation period is shorter, the temperature is high, the yeast will gather in the top of the fermentation tank, characterized by the yeast's strong fruity flavor; while the lager yeast fermentation period is longer, the temperature is low, the yeast will be gathered in the bottom of the fermentation tank, characterized by the taste is refreshing. In addition, there are wild yeasts that float in the air and give the beer a special tart flavor.
Awareness of the brewing process
Step 1 Barley malt and water are mixed and saccharified into wort
The beer brewing method is to crush the malted and dry barley malt and mix it with water, and then saccharify the malt porridge in the saccharification pot at a temperature of about 65-70 degrees Celsius, which is a range of temperatures that will cause the enzymes in the wheat husk to convert starch into sugar. After 1 hour of soaking and saccharification, it becomes clear sweet wort. Then it will be transferred to the filtering tank for filtration to separate the wort from the dregs; the brewer will agitate the filtering tank as necessary so that it will not be clogged.
Step 2 Wort + hops boil, cool down and add yeast
Then the separated wort will be pumped into the boiling pot and heated up to 100 ℃, after boiling, add bittering hops and then roll for 1 hour, this 1 hour is to let the beer to produce a bitter taste, and before quitting the fire, add aroma hops, so that the beer produces a variety of aromas of hops. Then immediately pump the hot wort to the vortex tank to settle hops and impurities, you can get a clean wort, and then through the plate cooler cooling, so that the hot wort instantly turned into ice wort, you can add yeast to the fermentation tank to start fermentation.
Step 3 Waiting for fermentation to mature
A good beer takes time to ferment and mature, about a month or more in some cases. Irish beers are fermented at around 20-22°C; lagers are fermented at 7-13°C.
Step 4 Filter the yeast and impurities and bottle
Finally, the yeast and excess impurities are filtered out and the beer is ready to be bottled. Some craft breweries make their brews without filtration, such as Northern Taiwan Ale's in-bottle 2-fermentation technique, which boasts that you can drink the yeast and add flavor.
The key to brewing is also:
Other Ingredients: In addition to the 4 main ingredients, you can also add other ingredients, such as orange peel and coriander seeds, to add depth and flavor to the beer.
Brewers: It has been said that there is no beer without brewers, because in addition to controlling the process and determining the flavor of the beer, they also try to use the 4 main ingredients of brewing with other ingredients, invent new recipes, which can be said to be a combination of technology.
Brewing your own beer
Do you want to have your own craft beer? Since Taiwan joined the WTO, you can brew your own beer at home! As long as the total volume of finished and semi-finished products does not exceed 100 liters and is not sold, there is no violation of the law! In addition, there are also materials and tools combination packages and teaching, home brewing beer is no longer difficult!
Ingredients: 1.3 kilograms of ground malt, 10 grams of Hallertau bitter hops, 12 grams of Hallertau aroma hops, 75% alcohol, 60 grams of sugar;
Tools: 45x45cm laundry bag, 1 each of 20L and 50L pots, spatulas, thermometers, 50 ml measuring jugs, hydrometer (or brix meter), 15L medicinal wine jar, water seal, 11.5g of WB-06 wheat beer yeast, 30 330ml beer bottles (or replace them with Coke Bolt bottles), funnel, 30 beer bottle caps, bottle press.
Brewing steps:
1. Put the wheat malt and barley malt into a laundry bag, set on the edge of the 20L pot, pour in 19L of 72 ℃ water, mix with a spatula, and use a thermometer to detect, so that the temperature is maintained at 67 ± 1 ℃, and then leave it to stand for 1 hour. If the temperature is too high, you can add 100ml of room temperature water at one time, and if the temperature is too low, you can heat it with low heat.
2. Lift the laundry bag to drain and set aside. Use a measuring cylinder to take 50ml of wort at room temperature and put it into a hydrometer to confirm the specific gravity of 1.048±10%, or you can use a sugar meter to measure the sweetness, if the sweetness is up to 12 can also be. Wort residue can be recycled as food waste. If the specific gravity of the wort is slightly lower (1.048-10 ~ 30%), you can slightly extend the heating time of the next step, such as 10 minutes as a unit, so that water evaporation. If the specific gravity is slightly higher (1.048+10 to 30%), add about 100 ml of water.
3. Cover the pot and heat all the wort in the pot on high heat until it boils, then turn down the heat, then lift the lid, turn on the extractor fan and add the bitter hops, continue to heat for 1 hour, add the flavorful hops in the last 5 minutes, then turn off the heat and cover the pot. Be careful when cooking wort, wort boiling may bubble out of the pot, and turn off the heat, cover the pot must be avoided after contamination, such as repeatedly lifting the lid, speech, etc..
4. Put the pot in step 3 into a 50L cauldron filled with half a pot of ice water and let it cool down to 20-25℃, as long as it feels cool when you touch the pot with your hand. At this point, you can first drill a 1cm diameter hole in the pot of medicinal wine with an electric drill. You can also switch to ice cubes for quick cooling and better beer flavor.
5. After sterilizing the pot and the water seal with several sprays of alcohol, pour the wort from step 4 into the pot, and don't pour in any more hops residue if it looks like mud, then pour in the yeast, put the lid on, insert the water seal, and inject the alcohol into the water seal to block it from the outside world, and put it in a cool place at 20-25℃ for 2 weeks of fermentation. Avoid sunlight or you may get a skunk smell. Adding alcohol to the water seal will allow the carbon dioxide from fermentation to be discharged and keep the oxygen from entering. If the fermentation environment in the summer room temperature of 28 ℃, for example, can be wrapped in cloth, immersed in half a pot of water in a pot, with a fan blowing throughout the day, can be slightly cooled 3 ~ 5 ℃.
6. Beer bottles and funnels should be disinfected and sterilized with alcohol first. Beer bottles were fermented by adding 2 grams of sugar, then poured into the liquid in step 5 with a funnel, sealed the bottles by pressing the caps with a bottle press, placed in a cool place at room temperature for another week of fermentation, and then refrigerated for 12 hours. Can be sterilized by putting 100ml of water in a pot, pouring in beer bottles and boiling for 5 minutes.
Beer Tips
Is beer better when it's cold?
While cold temperatures enhance dryness, they also mask other flavors. Generally speaking, wheat beer is suitable for temperatures of 4 to 7 degrees Celsius; English ale is 12 to 14 degrees Celsius, and Belgian Lemann's Black Cherry Old Brown Ale should be drunk hot for better flavor.
Is beer better when it's fresh?
Usually beer is best when it is fresh from the brewery, but some beers with a high alcohol content need to go through two fermentations in the bottle to get a better flavor, such as Belgian abbey beers and English full-bodied barley wines, which get better as they sit. It is recommended that you store your beer at an ideal temperature of 10?12°C and place it in a dry, dark corner where it will be less likely to deteriorate.
Why do I have a beer belly when I drink beer?
1 bottle of beer has about the same amount of calories as 1 bottle of Coke, so if you drink too much you will naturally have a beer belly. It is recommended to drink craft beer to savor the unique styles and flavors of different countries in order to feel the flavor of different craft beers.
Is it bad for beer to have a bitter flavor?
The bitterness of beer comes from the hops, without which it would be like drinking sweet wort. Bitterness gives beer different flavors and aromas, such as citrus, cedar, etc. There are even some beers that have a rich and pleasant bitter taste that makes people remember, so don't be afraid of bitterness if you want to drink quality craft beer!