The process of making beer is really not complicated. It goes through some basic steps, which turn the malted barley and the added hops to our favorite aromatic drink, with the help of water, yeast and time. Let's try to explain the process in a simple manner in five steps...
Malt is essentially barley, which has been processed with moisture and heat in order to germinate, then gets dried and possibly roasted to a degree. The goal is to unleash the magical powers of the hidden enzyme mechanisms that nature set in the grain, so that the starch inside would turn into different types of sugar. This happens with the help of heat and water, which at certain temperatures cause the activation of different enzymes in the milled malt. They “break” the starch into simpler sugars, which people and the brewing yeast can process. You are aiming at preparing a delicious sweet “soup”, which yeast would love, having enough nutrients and other conditions to provide for multiplication and ample feeding. Meanwhile, this soup must have a certain amount of residual sugars and other substances left, which yeast cannot eat, but people would find to their liking. These other ingredients would make up a great deal of the color, “body”, head (foam) and aroma of the final beer.
The process described above works by following a certain temperature schedule: the mixture of water and milled malt (called mash) needs to be heated up to certain steps and kept at the same degrees for set periods of time. This provides the necessary conditions for each of the enzymes to play their role. The process may take anywhere between 45 and 90 minutes, depending on the recipe. An accurate, fast and handy thermometer comes to the rescue here. It’s recommended to have a digital one with a probe attached to a long enough cable.
