Since we don't let people in the brewery when we are activiely
brewing we decided to put up this information center so that
people can get a feel for the glamour associated with brewing.
OK, Glamour may be pushing it a bit. Brewing is hot work that
involves moving 1000's of pounds of grain, working around
boiling liquids, and getting wet constantly. We enjoy it, but its
certainly better to watch this one from the comfort of your easy
chair.
The traditions of brewing beer are quite ancient. Although the process has been refined
over the years, the process that we use today is the same as was developed centuries ago.
Beer starts off life as grain, typically barley. The barley is malted. Malting is a process
where the grain is soaked in water and just as germination starts the grain is dried killing
the seed and stabilizing the grain for use in brewing. The malting process releases
enzymes that can break starch into sugar.
The malted barley is crushed and soaked in a mash tun. The mash is then strained in a
lauter tun to release the sugar. We spray fresh hot water on top of the mash, and as it filters
through the mash it picks up additional sugar. This sparging process allows us to extract
all of the sugar from the grain.
The sparge water, now full of sugar, is transferred into the kettle where we boil the wort with
hops to make a sweet tea. This sweet tea, is then cooled and transferred into a fermenter
where we add yeast. The yeast convert the sugar in the liquid into alcohol and carbon
dioxide. The result is beer.
Grain comes in more varieties than you can shake a stick at. Not only do you
have different grains, but each grain has different processing techniques that are
applied to it and in turn bring out different flavors and characteristics of the grains.
We use malted barley, rye, and wheat. Of barley we use 2-row pale malt, Vienna
Malt, Aromatic Malt, Caramel Malt, and some Chocolate Malt.
We, like most brewers, sometimes kick things up a bit and use adjuncts. Simply
put, anything that isn't grain that goes in our beer is an adjunct. For example our
Southern Pecan has pecans in the recipe.
We perserve the character of the local water when we brew, and the
water here is South Mississippi is uniquely suited to brewing darker
beers. Pleasantly enough, the water also allows us to brew lighter
bodied beers with more flavor than people are use to.
So, we keep the adjucts to a minimum, the main exception being
pecans. Our Southern Pecan has dark roasted pecans as a major
portion of the overall mash bill. The dark roast really brings out the
character and aroma of the pecans.
Grains come to us whole. The precious enzymes and starch locked
away inside the husk. In order to release the tasty goodness of the
grains, we have to smash them up, but we walk a fine line between
smashing the grains to release the starch and turning the grain into
flour. Flour gets rather gummy and makes it difficult to collect the sugar
that gets created in the mash.
Our mill is a two roll mill and operates a lot like the old hand crank
laundry ringers. The two rollers come very close together, but do not
touch. As a result the grain is smashed into a consistency similar to
grits (I apologize to all the Yankees that may not understand the
reference).
The mashed grain is then run through a flexible auger. The white tube
in the photo at right contains a coil that looks a lot like a slinky. The coil
spins and the smashed grains are carried up from the bottom of the
mill into the mash tun.
The mash is where all the magic happens. As the grains are
conveyed into the mash tun we add hot water (scalding hot). The
grains and the hot water mix, and all those enzymes are released
in close proximity to the starch in the kernals of grain. Starch is
just a group of sugars. So as the enzymes work, they cut the
starch into pieces. The result of chopping starch is sugar.
The grains themselves also have a variety of flavors. So in the
great simplification of things we are both making sugar water and
a grain tea.
The bottom of our mash tun is actually a sieve (similar to a
collander) and we have a pipe that comes out underneath the
sieve so that we can get to the liquid without the grains.
The lautering process, or the process of collecting all of the sugar
that we can from the mash, involves spraying hot water on top of
the mash, and collecting the runoff. As the water percolates
through the mash, it picks up the sugars and flavors and then is
transferred into the kettle.
As the wort is collected we monitor the color
and the consistency of the runoff. This is part
of the art of brewing. Every batch of grains is
different, and knowing when all of the flavor
and the sugar has been extracted is an
important parameter that is left to the brewer.
You can't just let it go unsupervised, because
as the sugar leaves solution the tannins and
other bad flavors start to come off and the
result can be bad beer.
Boiling serves several purposes in the
production of beer. Boiling sterilizes the wort.
It also denatures proteins in the liquid which
allows them to clump together into flocks (like
snowflakes).
Hops are added at this point. Hops help to
acidify the beer. By lowering the pH of the
beer, a more yeast conducive environment is
created. The hops also provide aroma and
flavor. And lastly, the hops balance the
sweetness of the wort, making the finished
product not only pleasant but also thirst
quenching.
At the end of the boil, the content are stirred
around and around, until a whirlpool forms.
The whirlpool sucks all of the protein solids
into the middle where they form a trub cone.
This coagulated protein is left in the kettle after
the wort is removed and we mix it into the
spent grains that we give to the local dairy
farmer.
The last step in the brewing process is fermentation and condition.
As the hot wort is pumped out of the kettle it goes through a heat
exchanger where cold water is used to cool off the boiling wort. The cold
wort is oxygenated and pumped in on top of the yeast which have been
placed in the fermenter. The system is capped off with an air lock, and the
beer never sees the light of day again until its poured in a glass.
After 10 days in the fermenters we filter the bulk of the yeast out, and pump
the beer (finally) into the conditioning tank. We cap off the conditioning
tank and carbonate the beer. We let the beer condition for about another
10 days which allows the flavors to mellow out and get happy with one
another. Then we package the beer (we prefer kegs). We store the
packaged product for a week, after which we conduct our QA tests and
then we ship the product to our neighborhood distributor.
We don't skimp on conditioning time, because we know how important it is
to let the beer rest. In fact the resting stage is so important to us we made
it part of our name (*Lazy Magnolia Brewing Company*).
(Ben Franklin)
