Main Beer Brewing Ingredients
- Malt
- Hops
- Sugar
- Yeast
- Water
Other Ingredients
Malt
Malt is one of the basic ingredients of beer. It provides all or part
of the sugar for fermentation and a good deal of the flavour. Malt also
gives the beer 'body'. Terms like 'body', and descriptions of flavour
and aroma in beer are hard to define. But if you drink and enjoy beer,
you will understand what is meant.
Malt can be made from almost any grain but usually is made from
barley. In the malting process, the grain is wetted and caused to
germinate. When the germination has reached a given point, it is stopped
by drying the grain with heat. Low drying temperatures produce light
grain malt. Higher temperatures produce dark grain malt, or crystal
malt. Finally, roasting produces patent black malt.
The malt is extracted from the malted grain by crushing the grain,
mixing it with water, and holding the temperature of the mixture between
63°C and 68°C for several hours. This process is called mashing.
During the mashing process, the starch in the malted grain is converted
to simple sugars, which are extracted into the water along with the flavour.
Malted grain is usually hard to obtain, and most home brewers would
not want to go to the trouble of mashing. Besides, if the conversion of
the starch to simple sugars is not complete, there is a risk that starch
haze will occur in the beer. It is much simpler and better to use either
liquid or dried malt extract.
Liquid malt extract is the most commonly used extract and is the most
readily available. It is a syrup containing about 80 per cent
fermentable sugar, the rest mainly being water. That is to say, one
pound of liquid malt extract contains about 350g of
sugar, or,
600g of extract is equivalent to one pound of
sugar.
However, a small variations of malt, more or less, does not make a great deal
of difference to the recipes and only slightly affects the alcoholic
content of the beer.
Liquid malt extract can be purchased in two-pound cans or in bulk.
Both are satisfactory. In bulk, the high diastase variety seems best and
also the supplier can weigh out the exact amount needed for your recipe.
Dried malt extract is not as readily available as the liquid and is
much more expensive. The quality is consistent and it produces a
slightly different flavour in the beer. If you can obtain it, you may
find it worthwhile substituting for the liquid extract in one or two
brews to see if the flavour suits you. Dried malt extract is virtually
100 per cent fermentable sugar. Crystal malt in relatively small
quantities is included in some beer recipes. It is not essential to use
crystal malt to produce good beer, but a little improves the body and
colour. It produces a richer, smoother flavour. Crystal malt is not easy
to obtain, but it is worth trying if you like a heavier style of beer.
Mashing is not necessary to extract crystal malt. It is merely cracked,
then boiled with the other ingredients to make the
wort. Cracking is
done by rolling the grain on a firm surface, such as a laminated kitchen
board, with a bottle or rolling pin. The object of this, is just to
crack the grains open, not to grind them to powder. Patent black malt,
as already noted, is made by roasting malted grain at a high temperature
almost burning it. It is seldom used in beer making, but it is an
important ingredient in stout, to which it imparts a dark colour and a
bitter, burnt flavour.
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