Isaac, Beer basics

Most often created from barley, beer is a product of the fermentation process. The barley is soaked and left to sit for about a week, to malt, in order to build the enzymes necessary to convert the grain’s starch into sugar. By heating the grains to between 60 and 100 degrees Celsius, the grains are kept from sprouting during the germination process that develops the enzymes. Once the barley has been malted it is steeped in water and crushed in order to remove sediment and solid particles. The next step is to mash the starch product by heating it, allowing the enzymes to convert the starch to glucose and disaccharide maltose. In order to counter balance the sweet flavor caused by the residual carbohydrates the next step is to add hops, the bitter tasting flower blossoms that give beer its biting flavor. Again, the mixture is boiled and the hops are added to release the bitter flavor. The amount of hops added is based on the type of beer desired, for example, an ale requires no hops and a lager will require a generally small amount of hops. The fermentation process truly begins once yeast is added to the mixture. The live cultures react with the mixture to convert the maltose in the starches into carbon dioxide and ethanol that gives the beer is alcohol content. This process takes about one week to complete, during which several steps requiring different enzymes are required to boost the amount of alcohol created in the beer. After this process is completed, the mixture is strained again and then bottled and left to sit for several months to age and deepen in flavor and clarity.

Steeping: to soak in a liquid at a temperature under the boiling point (as for softening, bleaching, or extracting an essence)
Maltose: a crystalline dextrorotatory fermentable sugar C12H22O11 formed especially from starch by amylase

I think it is interesting to see how often the mixture has to be boiled in order to catalyze every reaction. Since the process takes up to several months to complete it also makes me wonder how old the commercial beer is that we drink, considering that aside from the fermentation and bottling process there is also time spent in shipping containers and on vendor shelves.

This article does not raise any serious concerns other than concerns regarding the age of consumed beer products, if that is even a factor worth considering. Perhaps newer, faster, or more efficient methods of brewing will come about in the near future.

Baird, Colin "Chemistry in Your Life" W.H Freeman and Company 2006, p291-293.

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