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The process of brewing a beer is the artful and meticulous combination of four select ingredients: malt, water, hops and yeast.
Malted Barley is barley that undergoes the malting process. The malting process takes barley that is harvested and soaks it in water, encouraging it to grow. At a specific point, the barley that is beginning to grow is placed into large ovens and kilned. This will stop the growing process while reducing the moisture level. By encouraging the barley to begin growing, the maltster develops the plant’s enzymes necessary for the brewing process. While in the oven, the barley can be roasted to varying levels of darkness and flavor. By doing this, the brewer is able to use the different malts to produce drastically different colors and flavors.
Hops are the cone like flower of the humulus lupulus plant. Hops are added to beer because they provide bitterness and aroma which adds balance to the finished product. Hops also have an antiseptic value, a feature that helped them become a staple brewing ingredient before modern refrigeration techniques were available.
Since beer is composed of mostly water, it is critical that the water used for brewing be of the proper chemical composition. Fortunately, Lancaster’s municipal water supply is excellent for brewing. For example, calcium is very important and Lancaster water is rich with this mineral. This is one of the reasons why our beer is so much better than many others.
Yeast is a microscopic single cell organism responsible for processing sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. There is basically two types of yeast responsible for the two main types of beer. Top-fermenting yeasts produce ales, and bottom-fermenting yeasts produce lager beers. Here at Lancaster Brewing, we use both varieties to produce our award-winning beers.
Milling or grinding is the first step in the brewing process. In this step, we crush the grain husks to expose the starch in the center of the barley kernel. By doing this we make it easier to dissolve the starch in the next step of the brewing process. The crushed grain, known as grist, is then transported to the grist case until enough grain for the batch has been milled.
The next step is called mashing. The grain is dropped from the grist case into the mash tun and mixed with hot water. At the desired temperature, enzymes in the grain husks are activated and they begin to break down the starches into simple sugars. This is important because the yeast are unable to process the starches in their original form. This conversion process takes about 60 minutes; the resultant sweet fluid is known as wort.
Lautering separates the sweet wort from the spent grain. It is accomplished in the same vessel as mashing. In the bottom of the mash tun there are slotted plates that work similarly to a colander. The grain remains on the plates and the wort is allowed to pass through and be pumped to the kettle.
As the sweet wort is removed from the lauter tun, it is pumped to the kettle where it is boiled for 90 minutes. Boiling serves to sanitize the wort, and extracts bitterness from the hops, which are added during the boil. After the boil, the wort is cooled and pumped to a fermenter.
Fermentation begins when the yeast is added to the wort as it is pumped into the fermenter. The yeast consume the sugars produced in the mashing process and convert them into carbon dioxide and alcohol. The fermentation process takes about 4 weeks to complete and is composed of two distinct stages: primary fermentation, during which the yeast are actively consuming the sugar producing a large amount of CO2. And secondary fermentation; where the yeast slow their pace and begin to develop various flavors. Secondary fermentation occurs at a cooler temperature, which facilitates the slowing down of the yeast. At this time the beer is said to be maturing.
After the fermentation process is complete, the beer is filtered to remove the yeast and brighten the final product. We use a “DE” Filter to accomplish this task and it takes approximately two hours to filter 1,000 gallons of beer.
Once the beer is filtered it is pumped into the bright tank and carbonated to the desired level. At this point the beer is transferred into bottles or kegs and shipped fresh and non-pasteurized to restaurants and beer distributors.
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