Essay On Beer Brewing

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REACTIONS INVOLVED IN BEER BREWING
Beer brewing has been known since very early human civilization. Continued even to this date, the widely used process has remained greatly unchanged. Beer typically has about 450 chemical compouds in it. The flavours and aromas of different types of beer result from changes in these compounds. The main ingredients for beer brewing are malted barley, hops, yeast and water.
The process of brewing begins with malted barley, which is the major ingredient. This, when milled and heated, gives a sweet liquid rich in protein called wort. Wort is an ideal medium for yeast to grow in. The yeast then turns sugars in the malt to alcohol which is called fermentation. In comparatively recent times, hops began to be added to boiling wort. Hops is resposible for the bitter flavour and the characteristic aroma of beer.
The brewing process consists of several important steps:
1. Malting
Brewing can use barley, corn or wheat as its main ingredient. However, barley is the grain most commonly used.
As was said earlier, the major ingredient of beer is malted barley. Thus brewing begins with the malting of barley. Barley cannot be used as it is to produce the solution called wort. This is because the starch in the flour contained inside barley is insoluble. This necessitates the malting of barley.
Malting too has several steps within in. The first of them is steeping. In this step barley seeds are allowed to soak in water for about 40 days. The second step is germinating. The barley plant in allowed 3 or 4 days to sprout. In this process enzymes are produces which break down the starch (large molecules) in to molecules of shorter length. If allowed to continue the natural process of germination will have converte...

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...tabilizer polyvinylpolypyrrolidone which prevents the polyphenols from combining with proteins.
The result of flavour unstability is that beer will usually end up with a cardboard taste. This is attributed to trans-2-nonenal. This is the result of an oxidation reaction the exact process of which is unknown. It’s important to minimize the oxygen content in beer as much as possible during brewing to avoid the stale taste. Many opt for bisulphate for this since it’s a natural antioxidant and can counteract the compounds responsible for flavour instability. However, bisulphate is converted to sulphate in the end so it is not a permanent solution to the problem.

8. Finishing
Finally, beer is filtered and carbonated. After this step it is stored until bottled or canned.

References
1. http://www.esu.edu/~scady/mueller/home.htm
2. http://www.alabev.com/brew.htm

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