The first step toward making beer is called malting - the process of preparing your grain (usually barley) for brewing. In the brewing process what we need most from our grain ingredient is its starch, which will be converted by the brewing process into sugars for our yeast to feed upon. The malting process forces our grains to produce the starch we need.
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How beers are made
Malting
Steeping, germinating and kilning
First we steep our grain in water, allowing it to soak until germination starts. Germination means that these grains (which are essentially seeds) prepare to create roots and shoots. Before this growth can occur, the grain is put through high temperature drying in a kiln, halting the germination and locking in our desired starches.
Milling
Once this kilning is complete, we have turned our grain into malt and we will now mill it, crushing our malted grain to a grist ahead of the mashing process.
Mashing
The mashing step sees the milled malt grain added to a mash tun (essentially a giant mixing vessel) and combined with hot water (or ‘liquor’ in brewing parlance) to create a sugar-rich liquid that we call wort. The wort is then moved to a large tank known as a copper (essentially a kettle).
Hopping
The copper is where hops are added to the wort, which is then boiled. The hops help to add aroma and bitterness to the wort. Once these flavours have been instilled, the solid particles in the wort are separated out and the liquid is rapidly cooled in preparation for the addition of yeast.
Fermenting
The cooled wort is moved into a fermentation tank and the yeast is added (or ‘pitched’ in brewing parlance) to start the fermentation process. The yeast will begin to eat the sugar present in the wort, multiplying within the liquid and creating alcohol and carbon dioxide as a by-product.
Conditioning
Once the fermentation is complete, the beer will usually be moved to a conditioning tank to age, improving the flavour, before being bottled, kegged or casked.