Ever Wonder How Beer Is Made?
Ever wonder how beer is made? We highlight some of the key steps in making White Labs Beer! At White Labs, we take brewing as a fun experiment, keeping the all the ingredients the same except for the yeast to showcase how much of an impact they make on the beer.
Milling
Milling is where the grain is broken up from its grain and grain husk, parts of the milling product are similar to rough ground flour.
Mashing
The mash mixer combines the milled malt and barley with water and is cooked at 148- 158°F. This allows the grain starches to be enzymatically converted to fermentable sugars for the yeast to eat.
Lautering
The lauter tun separates the grain husks and physical material from the fermentable liquid we call ‘wort.’
Boiling
Wort is boiled to denature any malt enzymes and other organisms. The kettle is also where hops are added, which add bitterness and aroma to a beer and can help with shelf-stability. Through heat, hops have alpha acids that are isomerized or change configuration to become iso-alpha acids, one of beer’s main providers of bitterness.
Whirlpool
The wort is spun around in a gentle whirlpool which helps the proteins fall out and produce bright wort.
Fermentation
Fermentation is where the magic happens; everything up to this point has been the same. When the wort is split-batched into two different 5-hectoliter fermenters, different yeast is pitched into each one. This showcases how yeast plays a crucial role in beer! Try for yourself and see and taste the difference!
Beer Analysis
Using our TTB certified White Labs Analytical Lab, we open-source our recipes as well as breakdown certain fermentation parameters to really highlight the differences between yeast strains.