Did You Know The Home Brew Ingredients?

By Martha Ellis


Local preparation of beer is very common. The local beer is better as compared to the commercial ones because they lack chemicals. The brewer uses natural raw materials most of which are used as food. Here we discuss the contribution of each of the major home brew ingredients.

One of them is the malted grains or just malts. Barley is the most used grain for preparing beer. This is because; it can produce more sugar than other cereals. Also, it contains natural hull which makes working with it much easier.

Apart from barley, we can also prepare beer with other grains such as wheat, oats, rice, and corn. These grains are always added to a base grain which in most cases is barley. Their purpose is to add their particular flavors and character to the beer.

When making malts, the grains are allowed to sprout partially. They are then heated up inside a kiln or oven to stop the germination process. This is done to remove starches from them. The carbohydrates are converted into sugar. During the process of fermentation, yeast feed on the sugar.

A big percentage of beer is composed of water. Beer does not need special water. Therefore the water from the tap will just be fine as long as it is safe for drinking. Of importance to note is that hard water and soft water have different effects on the brew. With time, you can try adding some minerals to the water to know these effects. However, for beginning brewers, there is no need to worry about water hardness.

Usually, the liquor has some degree of bitterness and sweetness well balanced. Hops flowers do the balancing. It is their green buds which are responsible for the balancing. Furthermore, they add flavors and aroma and make the beer stay for long before going bad.

There are two components of hops flowers which make them ideal for brewing. These are resins and oils. Resins provide the bitter taste whereas oils provide the sweet tastes and smell. There are different varieties of resins and each producing a particular level of bitterness.

Last but not least, we have yeast. These are small living organisms which convert the sugary malts into a real beer. They consume sugar from the grains to produce carbon dioxide. Once everything has been consumed, they slowly drift into a snoozy condition of hibernation. At this point the beer is ready.

There are two types of yeasts which can be used. They include ale and lager yeast. The ale type works well in a fairly wide temperature range which makes it ideal for home brewers. Lager yeast, on the other hand, works best at cooler temperatures.

Yeast is available as liquid yeast or dry yeast. The dry ones are usually in foil pouches and resemble the powdered yeast used for bread baking. An unopened packet of these dry yeast can last for many months when kept in a drawer or even years when kept in a refrigerator. Liquid yeast has poor keeping quality thus goes bad very quickly even when kept in a refrigerator.




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