Malt, hops, yeast and water: four simple ingredients that combine to make a beverage that Boston University students and millions of people around the world enjoy daily.
For big brewing companies and amateur hobbyists alike, the beer-making process is the same.
David Daly is an employee at Modern Brewer, a brewery supply store in Cambridge. He likened beer brewing to baking a cake. Someone does not have to know the science behind baking a cake to make one.
But as a professional brew master, Boston Beer Works Head Brewer Jodi Andrews said it is important to understand the science behind brewing.
“When it comes to the science side of it,” she said, “it’s all relative. There are so many different things you want to know about the science. Like chemical pathways, there are billions of things produced and if you halt fermentation too soon the beer might stay in solution.”
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UNDERSTANDING THE BREWING PROCESS
According to Andrews, beer brewing involves the fermentation of sugars to create alcohol. And while fermentation is a “simple enzymatic process,” it is only one part of the complex beer-brewing technique.
Malt, a derivative of barley, is heated in water at a specific temperature to extract wort, a type of sugar. Heating malt at different temperatures can affect the amount of sugar produced.
The wort is run off into a kettle, where hops and spices are added. Hops provide the beer with its color and distinct bitter taste. The substance is boiled for about 75 minutes and the wort is then cooled to a temperature of 65 degrees for the addition of yeast, which begins fermentation process.
As the yeast ferments, it eats the sugar in the wort, creating carbon dioxide and alcohol.
The entire process takes four to five days.
Andrews said taste differences between beers are caused by the fermentation temperatures and the types of yeasts used.
“If you go in too high, it’s a lot like over-cooking pasta,” she said. “You’re basically messing up the beta glucans and destroying the brew.”
After fermentation, the yeast is re-harvested and used in the next batch of beer.
“Ultimately, the baby of brewing is the yeast,” she said.
HOME BREWING DIVERSITY
For one Boston University sophomore who requested anonymity because he is under 21, beer brewing is a much less delicate process.
The student said brewing attracted him because it was a cheap and easy way to obtain alcohol.
“A friend of mine was brewing beer in [Warren Towers Dormitories] and it really intrigued me that I could go out and make beer of my own accord while I was underage,” he said. “I went on eBay and bought two kits that were kind of cheap. I made two batches and the first batch was the best beer I’ve ever had.”
It was easy for him to churn out beer at his off-campus location, he said.
“It took about a half hour to 45 minutes to get one batch going,” he said. “I bottled it a week later. Bottling was the most time consuming part.”
The student said he has also experimented with creating other types of alcohol.
“To make wine and hard lemonade all you need is grape juice or lemonade, then you’re all set,” he said. “To make wine, you can probably get a batch going in 10 minutes after sanitizing the bottles.”
The student said his background in science also helped him brew alcohol.
“I’m a physics major and I’m into chemistry,” he said. “It’s almost like a science project and seeing the results definitely pay off.”
Daly, the brewery supply employee said the greatest interest in brewing is with males a couple of years out of college
“Guys who drank whatever in college who have a refined palette are more interested and want to reproduce the beers that they’ve tasted,” he said.
Recently-out-of-college males are not the only group attracted to brewing though.
“We have kind of a cross pollination of people coming into our store,” he said.
“The home-brewing movement has been in existence since the ’70s when President [Jimmy] Carter legalized it,” Daly said. “Longer than the average college student has been around, people have been brewing for 30 years or so.”
BREWING: HOME VS.
PROFESSIONAL
Andrews said there is not much of a difference between freshly brewed beers.
“All beer is made by somebody and I really respect beer and the people that make it, whether it is Budweiser or some crazy brewery that has a little homebrew set up,” she said.
Andrews added that the larger breweries have actually contributed to the success of the smaller breweries with new techniques and technology.
Oftentimes there is no difference between the qualities of beer, Andrews said. Rather it is a matter of personal preference as long as the beer is clean and free of taste-modifying infection.
“When it comes to sensory evaluation and making sure that a beer is right on, you have to eliminate all your biases,” she said.
Boston Beer Works, which produces up to 3,000 gallons of beer weekly during baseball season, uses sophisticated sanitation practices to keep the beer free of harmful bacteria.
Andrews said 75 to 80 percent of her time brewing is cleaning and sterilizing the tools. All equipment, including hoses and taps, is cleaned with a hot sodium hydroxide solution, then rinsed with cold water and phosphoric acid. Finally the equipment is cleaned with Iodophor, a sanitizing agent used in brewing, to keep it sterilized.
“Whether beer has left [the equipment] or beer is going into it, there are lots of microscopic things you can’t see that can certainly affect the product,” she said.
Andrews added that the inability to keep the beer free of microscopic organisms could lead to problems during the rest of the brewing process.
“It can give you myriad of problems,” she said. “Like off flavors, carbonation issues and filtration problems.”
Daly said the average home brewer uses less sophisticated methods for sanitizing beer-making equipment.
He said the most common sanitizer used is household bleach in small amounts. Brewers use a very diluted bleach solution, and then soak the equipment in hot water to remove the residue.
The anonymous brewer said he has not met many people who brew alcohol on campus, but after looking back at the brewing he has done, the process would be easy.
“If I did live on campus,” he said. “I could actually brew it up in the kitchen by taking warm water from common room sink and letting it ferment in my closet.”
While this student said he does not consider himself a beer connoisseur, his experience with brewing has helped him appreciate the beer brewing process and understand what beer should taste like.
“It was a damn good beer at the very least considering it was made in the closet,” he said.”