How beer is processed?

The bottle or can of beer that you purchase, manufactured with a long process. The whole process consists of ten steps. 

Ingredients: Barley, Hops, Yeast, and Water

Process in detail:

Malting:

The first step is Malting. Malting is germination where raw grains are converted to malt. The process includes, firstly fresh barley gets soaked in water and then put in germinating box for germination. In this stage, enzymes are formed. These enzymes are needed for starch separation. After germination green malt is dried carefully at 80⁰c. It tastes slightly sweet after dried. The malt sugar is then mixed with yeast culture, which then forms alcohol.

Milling:

The second step is milling. After malting, the finished malt is milled, so that it can dissolve better in water. When malt is under milling various parts of the malt get separated such as crushed malt, husks, groats, meal, semolina, and powder.

Mashing:

After milling the next step is mashing. The milled malt is mixed with water in the mash tun (Mash tun is a vat in which malt is mashed). The starch in the ground malt or grist dissolves and sugar, protein, and tannin are released. In this process, malt is extracted from the grist.

Lautering:

The fourth step is Lautering. The mash is filtered or strained in lauter tun (a cylindrical vessel for Lautering of filtering). The extracted liquid is the sugar solution called wort. And the solid part is called spent grains, are removed from the lauter tun and sold for cattle feed. 

Wort boiling and hopping:

The fifth step is wort boiling and hopping. The wort is boiled in a brewing pan or in wort kettle. In this step, hops are added. The taste of the beer depends on the type and quantity of hops added to the wort. The more hops the bitterer the beer. The boiling temperature of the wort is above 100⁰c and it depends on the gravity o the wort. After boiling, Water gets evaporated and the wort gets concentrated on the original wort. The malt enzymes, tannins, and proteins are separated, called trub (a byproduct).

Wort Clarification:

After boiling, the wort is clarified or drawing off to remove the undissolved hops. In this step, the wort is fed in the whirlpool and starts to rotate. Hops particles that have not dissolved protein (called trub) get removed by forming a cone in the middle of the container. Then the clear wort is cooled to a temperature of 10 – 20⁰c in the wort cooler.

Fermentation:

The seventh step is fermentation, the most important step. Fermentation takes place in a fermenter or in a fermentation tank where special brewing yeast is added. The yeast converted the malt sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide. As soon as the malt sugar has fermented the yeast sinks and is collected. Depending on the type of yeast and the wort preparation top or bottom fermentation is scheduled. And the beer is produced.

Storage:

After fermentation, the fermented beer is stored from three weeks to three months at the temperature of 1 - 2oc. In this time a secondary fermentation takes place. The remaining yeast particles and protein-tannin sink to the bottom. The beer becomes clear and acquires its characteristic color.

Filtration:

After storing for the required time, the remaining parts after fermentation and secondary fermentation, such as yeast particles, hops, resins, and proteins get extracted and filtered beer is stored in another container. The beer gets clear and final color.

Filling and bottling:

The last and final step is to fill the beer into bottles and cans under specific temperature and pressure. The optimal temperature and pressure for bottling are 20⁰c and 45 psi (3 atm).

Process flowchart

Source