5Ws+1H: How It's Done: Brewing beer can be tricky

Skyler Hammons |, Tahlequah Daily Press, Okla.
·3 min read

Feb. 22—While brewing beer may seem difficult, the main thing to watch is the temperature during most of the process.

Gene Snyman, owner of Downing Brewery LLC, said the entire brewing process takes about a month to six weeks. Snyman said one of the main components is the temperature.

The process starts with two kettles — a boil kettle and mash tun. One holds purified water, which Snyman said minerals in water can cause different flavors and colors, and contributes to the feel of the beverage. Snyman said the water is placed in a kettle that heats up to 150-155 degrees. The water is then transferred to the mash tun for an hour, before the grain is incorporated.

"We start off first by crushing the grain," Snyman said. "You can't put whole grain in there. For the most part, we are using barley. We have a light beer here that you use rice flakes in. We also have an oatmeal stout that you put oatmeal in, but for the most part, all beer you buy in the store and that breweries make is from malted barley."

Snyman said malted barley is grain that has just started to sprout, and conditions the grain to release its starches. The grain should not be finely ground when placed in the mash tun, but it needs to be broken into a few pieces. The grain and warm water then starts to interact and convert the starch into sugar. Once the hour-long process is complete, Snyman said, more water is poured on the grains to extract as much sugar as possible. The sugar barley water, also known as wort, is put into the kettle again and boiled for another hour.

"You boil it so you can get all the impurities out, but the other important thing that is happening in the boil is when we add the hops," Snyman said. "Hops is the bittering flowers that give beer its distinctive bitter taste."

If the hops are placed in the kettle at the beginning of the boil, Snyman said, the oils will evaporate but leave the strong, bitter taste. Tossing in the hops toward the end of that process can offer an essential oil aroma. A gravity reading is then taken to determine how much alcohol will be in the liquid.

After the boiling process is complete, the liquid is transferred to the fermenter. Snyman said the yeast is added to the mixture, and the brewer needs to make sure no air can get to the liquid. The fermentation process can take three to eight days for the yeast to successfully convert the sugar into alcohol. The temperature of the liquid has to be decreased during the fermentation process, with an ale needing to drop to around 68-70 degrees and a lager around 55 degrees.

Snyman said there are two byproducts of the fermentation process: alcohol and CO2.

"The way we can monitor how much of the sugar has been consumed is we keep an eye on how much CO2 is being produced, because if it is actively bubbling, the yeast is still eating up the sugar in there," Snyman said.

Another measurement of the specific gravity is taken to tell how much sugar was converted to alcohol. Snyman said the mixture is transferred to another fermenter for a week or two. The liquid is more clear when it is transferred to the second fermenter, and the temperature is lowered to about 43 degrees.

"What happens when you drop the temperature down to about 43 degrees, all the proteins in the beer clarify and fall out. That's how you get a nice, super-clear beer, as opposed to one that has a lot of haze and stuff floating around in it," Snyman said.

After the fermentation process, the beer is ready to be stored in kegs and conditioned at about 38 degrees for three to four weeks.

"Just letting it sit in the keg for another couple of weeks to three weeks really changes the flavor, and then it gets to where we are ready to serve it," Snyman said.