Your Step-By-Step Guide to Learn the

Difference Between Home-Made

Beer and Factory-Made Beer

By Iva Cotter
Introduction

Have you ever taken a drink of beer? I believe most people's answers are "yes". Actually,
beer is one of the most common and widely consumed alcoholic drinks in the world.
Brewed from cereal grains, the beer is given a special aroma and good taste, which makes
it the third most popular drink in the world. We used to buy beer in the supermarket or
drink some in a pub. Now, the ways are changing—people begin to brew their own beer at
home. However, do you know the difference between home-made beer and factory-made
beer during brewing? This article will show you differences step by step.
 Steps
The First Step: Saccharification

The Second: Step Filtration

The Third: Step Boiling and Cooling

The Fourth Step: Fermentation and Bottling

 Equipment and Materials
Malt crushing equipment: hand mill or roller-crushing mill.
Saccharification equipment: 7-gallon barrel, 5-gallon stainless steel pot, mixing tools,
filter, sugar meter or hydrometer, glass measuring cylinder(250ml), thermometer,
electronic scale, silicone tube (supporting the mash of the mashing pot), measuring
cup(500ml) , triangle bottle(250ml) (or other containers used to activate yeast).
Boiling equipment: one 8-gallon stainless steel pot.
Cooling equipment: 8-15m coil (stainless steel or copper tube, or plate heat
exchanger), or 3-5 large beverage bottles filled with water frozen into ice.
Fermentation equipment: fermenter (recommend to prepare 2 fermenters, 1 for
fermentation and another for bottling).
Other equipment: 1-2m silicone tube, 75% alcohol or other disinfectants
Bottling equipment: capper, empty bottle, metal cap or swing cap, bottle brush, or
PET plastic bottle.
Materials: • Malt 4kg • Hops 40g • Yeast: 11.5g • Water 28L
Saccharification
What is Saccharification?
Saccharification is actually the process of converting the starch in the
malt into maltose, which is then converted into alcohol by yeast. That
is the reason why you would be drunk after drinking too much.
Nevertheless, saccharification is actually a complicated process, in
which some special substances are produced, adding flavor to the beer.
How?

The saccharification method is simple. Just place the milled malt in water (66-68 ℃)
for at least one hour.

As mentioned above, both hand mill and roller-crushing mills are ok. The final
purpose is to crush the malt. Please remember not to mill for too long, as over-
crushed malt is easy to agglomerate, which is not good for filtering.
The ideal crushed condition is to make
the malt being just right ruptured but the
outer wheat bran is as complete as
possible. Complete wheat bran plays an
important role in the filtration of wort in
later steps. The gap formed between the
wheat bran facilitates the filtration of the
wort and makes the wort clearer.
It’s time to put the milled malt into
the hot water (16L/75℃) when the
malt is ready. Just slowly pour the
malt into the hot water and stir to
avoid agglomerating. When all malt
is poured into the water, the
temperature will decrease. Once the
temperature decreases to 68℃, put
on the lid and let it stay for one hour.
In fact, when the food factory produces beer, some enzymes such as
saccharification enzyme, β-amylase, and pullulanase will be added during the
saccharification process for better saccharification results.

Glycosylase, also known as glucoamylase, hydrolyzes alpha-1,4 glucoside bonds

from non-reducing ends to produce glucose. To add glucoamylase is a simple but
efficient way to produce clean and tasty beer.

Beta-amylase can help hydrolyze dextrin to maltose, the main ingredient of wort.
Pullulanase is capable of hydrolyzing linear oligosaccharides of branched α-D-1,4
glucosidic bonds in starch and dextrin. Since α-amylase and β-amylase could not
hydrolyze amylopectin, a certain amount of boundary dextrin still exists in the
wort. Usually, the enzyme can be used together with a saccharification enzyme or
a beta-amylase to produce maltose syrup.
Filtration
During the waiting period, you need to prepare 12L hot water of 75 ℃ for washing the
malt residues.

One hour later, open the lid and filter out the wort. This is called the first wort, which
seems turbid. First of all, pouring the wort into a measuring cylinder and measured the
sugar content. Place the filtered wort into cold water. When the temperature
decreases to 20℃, place the hydrometer in and record the corresponding value, which
is called the specific gravity of the first wort.

Then pour the turbid wort back into the barrel. Repeat the step of filtering until the
wort becomes clear. Finally, connect the silicone tube to the faucet and place the tube
in the bottom of the barrel before opening the faucet, which efficiently avoids the
oxidation of the wort.

When all of the wort run out of the barrel, you can start to wash the malt residues.
Slowly pour the washing water (prepared during saccharification) into the malt. The
movement should be as gentle as possible to avoid destroying the shape of the malt
residues.
Why You Need to Wash the Residues?

In the saccharification process, the ratio of malt to water required is between 1:2.5
and 1:5. We prepared 4 kg of malt and 16 L of water, which is exactly 1:4. There is no
way to dissolve all the maltose in 16L water. In addition, both the malt and the
saccharified water are in a static state and a lot of maltose remains in the malt. The
purpose of the washing is to dissolve the maltose remaining in the malt into the
water.

Use 6L water to wash the tank for the first time. The collected wort is called the
second wort. Another 6L of water is used for second washing. The collected wort is
called the third wort. After the washing process, the concentration of wort is getting
lower and lower, and maltose is thoroughly washed out.
Boiling and Cooling
Why Boiling?

1.Sterilization
2.By boiling, the active ingredients in the
hops could add a bitter flavor to the beer.
3.The protein and polyphenol which are
easy to make the beer turbid in the wort
are condensed to form a precipitate during
the process of boiling, rendering the beer
clear.
How to Boil?

When boiling, the lid should not be covered, as some harmful substances produced
during the boiling process need to be discharged with the steam. In addition, the
wort does not need high fire, instead, keeping it on gentle fire for 60 minutes.

Hops need to be put into the boiling wort

10g hops need to be put into the wort after boiling for the first time. 30 minutes later,
put into another 15g hop. When boiling for 55 minutes, put into the last 15g hop
before turning off the fire. The hops provide a bitter taste for the beer by boiling with
the wort for a long time.

Activating Yeast
Prepare a clean bottle and pour some boiled wort (cooled boiled water is ok) into the
bottle. When cooled to 30℃, diluting the liquid to 5-8P. Then put the yeast in the
liquid, and shake well. Stand it still for 30-60 minutes.
Cooling

The hot wort needs to be cooled as soon as possible. Clean the coil, spray it
with alcohol, and set aside. At this time, it should be noted that since the
wort has been boiled, the bacteria are very easy to breed. Therefore, all
equipment should be disinfected to avoid pollution.

Stir the boiled wort in one direction when the fire is turned off and stand it
still for 5 minutes, aiming to precipitate the impurities in the wort. Put the
coil in and connected one end of the coil to the faucet to start cooling. About
20-30 minutes later, when steam disappeared from the surface of the wort,
it means the temperature is reduced to at least 25℃.
Fermentation and Bottling
Fermentation

It is ready for fermentation after cooling to at least 25℃. First of all, disinfect
the equipment with 75% alcohol. Then pour the wort into the fermenter.
When filling the fermenter, try to make the wort splash in order to absorb
oxygen, which is useful for yeast breeding in the early stage.

Store it in the dark place and create a suitable ambient temperature

according to the characteristics of the yeast. In general, the main
fermentation will end in 7-10 days or so. The fermentation time of some high-
concentration wines can be extended to 2 weeks or even longer.
When producing beer in the factory, some enzymes will be added in the
fermentation process not only to guarantee better taste and quality but to avoid
the beer from being polluted as well. In the fermentation process, the added
enzyme preparations mainly include fungal amylase, α-acetolactate
decarboxylase, lysozyme and the like.

An important aspect of beer ripening is the flavor, and diacetyl is one of the
main indicators. α-acetolactate decarboxylase added can shorten the
fermentation time of beer, reduce diacetyl in the final beer, and improve the
flavor stability of the beer.

Lysozyme is a peptide polysaccharide hydrolase that catalyzes the hydrolyzation

of bacteria cell walls. A small amount of lysozyme added during the early stage
of fermentation can prolong the shelf life.
Bottling

Wash and dry the bottle at first and disinfect all equipment needed in this step.
Prepare 180g sugar and dissolve the sugar with boiled water (9g sugar per liter of
beer). Leave it completely cool. Pour the cooled sugar water and the beer into a
bucket. It is time to pour them into bottles when the two liquids are totally mixed
up. Let the bottles stand at room temperature for one week and then keep them
under 10℃ in the refrigerator. One or two weeks later, the home-made beer is
finished.
Sponsored by Creative Enzymes