Whether it’s for pale ales, malts, or porters, beer testing is used to determine the quality of brews throughout the brewing process. For more than 7,000 years, man has been brewing beer. Today the process is done on a large scale commercially and a small scale by many home brewers. No matter the size of the operation, the process for brewing is the same. The four basic ingredients necessary for any brewing are barley, hops, water, and yeast. Each of these ingredients may be quality control tested upon receipt as part of beer testing for quality.
After acceptance of the ingredients, a brewery begins the brewing process. The general idea of the brewing process is to extract the sugar from the grain so the yeast can turn it into alcohol and CO2 which will create beer.
-
- Malting Process
Beer Testing throughout the Brewing Process
The first step in the brewing process is what’s called malting. Malting prepares the barley (though sometimes other grains such as wheat or rye are used) for brewing. The goal of malting is to isolate enzymes. After the barley has been harvested, it is soaked in a vat of water to begin germination which produces enzymes to be used later to break down the starches in the grain to sugar. After soaking, hot air is used to dry the grain, known as kilning. Different colors and flavors are produced by different temperatures and durations of kilning. Generally, the higher the temperature, the darker the color and the stronger the flavor produced.
- Mashing
Next is the process of mashing. Mashing converts the starches previously released into sugar to be fermented. This is done by seeping the barley in hot, but not boiling, water for an hour. This steeping activates enzymes that cause the grain to break down and release sugars. Once steeping is done, the water which is now full of sugar, is drained. This resulting liquid is sticky and sweet liquid and is called wort. - Boiling Process
The wort is then boiled to kill any micro-organisms in the liquid. This boiling generally lasts about an hour. Hops are also added to the boil, along with spices. Hops are the small green fruit off a vine plant that provide bitterness, flavor, and aroma to the beer. Hops are also a natural preservative, though most importantly, hops balance the sweetness of the malt previously created. - Fermenting Process
Once the wort has boiled, it is cooled to about 80 degrees, and yeast is added to the brew. Yeast is an organism that eats sugar. The wort is placed in a fermenting vessel where it is stored for a few weeks at room temperature while the yeast eats the sugar in the wort and releases carbon dioxide into the air and alcohol, as waste products. This is the process of fermentation. - Carbonating Process
After fermenting, the result is a liquid that can finally be called beer, however, it would be flat. To make it bubbly, carbon dioxide is directly injected into it in a process known as artificial carbonation, or by adding a small amount of sugar into the bottle, this way any residual yeast will eat the sugar and naturally carbonate the liquid by releasing C02. This method is known as “bottle conditioning”.
- Malting Process
BEER TESTING PROJECTS
Beer Testing for Breweries
Some recent requests that we have received from breweries or home breweries for beer testing are:
- Laboratory needed for alcohol content testing in botanical bitters for selling products in Canada.
- Laboratory needed for cream liquor testing for alcohol % and nutritional facts
- Government needs a laboratory for Alcohol Content Testing of food product samples for specific ABV%
- Alcoholic Beverage laboratory is needed for alcohol-proof testing on 4 products for alcohol proof. 3 Brandies and 1 vodka.
- Brewery needs a laboratory for Alcohol By Volume (ABV%) of beer. Please provide the price of the test and the price of shipping.
and many more!
If you are a brewery that needs beer testing, let Contract Laboratory help and Submit a Laboratory Test Request
If you have questions please contact us Toll-Free at 1-855-377-6821
