Powdered beer. Technology of beer production. How to distinguish powdered beer from natural?

Beer is a carbonated low-alcohol beverage with a characteristic bitter taste and a hint of hops. The process of its manufacture is based on natural fermentation, but modern technology and the desire to reduce the cost of the process led to the emergence of a new method of production - a powder beer from dry ingredients. It is a mixture of concentrate of beer ready wort, devoid of liquid by means of vacuum. It is realized most often in the form of a powder, in rare cases has a pasty appearance. Adding yeast and diluted with water, you can get a drink, ready to eat. Powder beer is found in Russia, Japan, the USA and other countries.

Live beer

The taste of the ready-made intoxicating drink is primarily affected by the quality of the barley malt used. It is he who is the main saving opportunity for brewers. After all, not just almost all the labels on cans and bottles have a phrase like "contains barley malt". But its number in the composition is an industrial secret.

Malt belongs to the category of expensive ingredients and is often replaced by analogues with a lower price and quality. They can account for almost half of all content. Used rice rice, wheat, etc. The wort for cooking is made from malt, then it adds hops.

The present non-powdered beer has its bitter taste and specific pleasant aroma due to its base, it increases the amount of foam and is used as an antiseptic, cleansing the microflora. Many manufacturers are trying by any means to reduce the cost of production, while absolutely do not care about the final result.

After the end of cooking, the semi-finished product undergoes cooling, the addition of yeast and left for fermentation, which will take about a week if the temperature is low. Then, after separation of yeast, it is insisted for three months, due to which it acquires the qualities peculiar only to this variety. Modern production of beer at this stage is coming to an end.

But this does not end the economy. Since it is unprofitable for entrepreneurs to wait for the final preparation of a drink, accelerated technologies have spread. Special inhibitors and carbon dioxide are added to the product to reduce the fermentation process. Artificial foaming agents make it possible to obtain a fluffy foam cap.

How to make beer from a powder

Such concentrate is not profitable for large plants because of its high cost. Its use is more typical for establishments selling beer of its bottling and small breweries. It is not profitable for such organizations to produce beer in accordance with the full technology, as this requires ingredients that differ in their short shelf life and expensive equipment. Therefore, as a way out of the situation, they use concentrate. Subject to compliance with the subtleties of such a production process, it is possible to obtain a product of satisfactory quality, but it can not be compared to a real "live" option.

What is used as a basis

The raw material is dried malt extract. It is produced under special conditions from brewing malt by the method of germination of barley grains. It is characterized by the occurrence of hydrolysis under the influence of certain substances, that is, the separation of non-starch polysaccharides, proteins and starch. Formed as a result of rapidly assimilable substances with a low molecular level, among them organic acids, sugars and dextrins. In the process of malting, the vitamins of group B also accumulate and are activated in the barley grown.

Then, the preparation of the wort, which is an extract (extract), and having in its composition all the substances mentioned above, is carried out. Then, the wort is dried to obtain a pulverulent mass.

Determination of foam quality

A distinctive characteristic of beer is foam. It refers to one of the methods for determining its quality. If it is unsightly in appearance, a reddish color with a liquid consistency and a lot of bubbles, it may be powdered beer. At the present drink foam absolutely white, differs absence of bubbles, homogeneity and compactness. If it is poured into a large glass, the formed foam should be at least 4 cm high and hold for about five minutes. The lower level and rapid disappearance indicate the not the best quality of the product. You can try to blow a little on the foam, it should bend, but not disappear. There is also some "sticking" to the glass.

Many use a coin as a verification method, laying it on the top layer. It will not drown if the drink is of good quality. Remains of foam remain on the glass with a good beer . In their absence, one can question the naturalness of the product.

Colour

There is a light and dark type of drink. But its own shade is present in the product of each manufacturer. For evaluation, the European Convention uses special standards, consisting of several discs of glass with different tones. Iodine dilution in water is also used, before the formation of a color similar to that of the drink, the determination is based on the specific mass of iodine.

In this concept, not only a special tone plays a role, but also the presence of a color scale, transparency. Light beer is harder. It should have a certain gloss, golden, slightly transparent clean shade, with no greenish, brown or red tones. But the product of a dark variety does not need to have such characteristics, but at the same time no professional can not determine powdered beer by its color.

Smell

When evaluating beer, most attention is paid to smell, not vision. At the tasting the basic perception occurs by means of a nose, during inhalation of a specific aroma of a product. And this is not surprising, since a person has a much more sensitive sense of smell, but taste buds are less multifaceted. To find out which beer is not powdered, you need to determine the harmony of mixing all odor notes, after inhaling and a small sip. To describe used characteristics such as yeast, fresh, pure, hop and even floral.

What you need to know

It is worth noting that the nose is not an olfactory organ, it is a passage for getting oxygen to the mucous surface, which has very small dimensions, because of which quite few odors are determined. To feel the aroma as much as possible, you need to inhale through your nose and exhale with your mouth, repeat this action several times. But the smell during the sip is perceived in a slightly different way, since fragrances absorbed by the mucous surface of the mouth reach the envelope. At the completion of the throat, the perception reaches a maximum.

How to distinguish powdered beer from natural to taste

Most of the brands of foam drink contains all four basic tastes: salty, sour, bitter and sweet - in various combinations. And such a concept as "tasty beer" is formed, out of a general feeling, while stretched for a while. During a slow gustatory transition, pleasant sensations should appear, as well as in the aftertaste. All harmony can disappear because of any dissonance. During the tasting, not only the tongue, but also the sky, cheeks and lips participate in the receptor as a receptor, which allows to form thermal and tactile characteristics. And among them - oiliness, astringency, consistency and temperature, which is very important when you need to determine draft beer from a powder.

Differences

A light beverage is distinguished by the hopeless finest bitterness, in which the extracted elements should not prevail. After it, the language should remain sensation of a specific, rapidly disappearing bitterness, with a virtually no aftertaste. The real light foam drink is characterized by such terms as "harmonious", "clean", "thin".

In the darker version, hops and malts are felt differently, there is no expressed bitterness, but the taste is more complete and "dense". The feeling of malt is the leading one.

The aftertaste is a characteristic that deserves no less attention. In this case, a prolonged sense of bitterness indicates a poor-quality product, because it arises from the violation of production techniques or poor quality of the ingredients.

Features

The classical technology of beer production is the use of malt, purified water, yeast and hops. Belonging to a certain class is formed by choosing a malt base. In Russia, for the production of quality beer, imported ingredients are most often used, this is due to the high cost of the technique for obtaining dried barley. Hops cones are responsible for the formation of foam and specific bitterness. Many believe that Chuvashia is the country that makes the best hops. But even it has drawbacks, among which there is a rapid loss of odor and other characteristics, so necessary for making a foamy drink. Therefore, many countries store it in vacuum special packages, in granular form.

Stages of production

The technology of beer production consists of the following stages.

First of all malt is prepared. For this, the cereals are germinated, dried, after which they are removed from the shoots.

For the wort finely ground malt and mixed with purified water, due to which the taste is formed with a sweetish hue. A mixture of crushed cereal products is called a bolt, afterwards it is again rubbed with water.

Then the shutter is filtered by transferring it to a special container and dividing it into two components: an unoxidized wort and a so-called grains, the base of which is represented by small particles of barley.

All ingredients are heat treated. During boiling for 2 hours, hops are completely dissolved, and elements that have a negative effect on flavor and aromatic characteristics are evaporated.

Clarification is carried out in the whirlpool - this is a special installation, into which hops and malt are separated, not dissolved during the previous stages. Under the influence of centrifugal forces they accumulate on the sides of the device. The settling of the wort takes about 30 minutes, then the dense remains are separated.

At the cooling stage, a fermentation tank is used to transfer the base of the beverage. At this time, the must gets a lower temperature and is saturated with oxygen, which is the main condition for the work of yeast.

Fermentation

Special brewer's yeast is added to other ingredients. The brewing technology at the factory requires about a month for complete fermentation. Thus, a rather turbid substance is formed, which does not taste like beer at all and requires additional fermentation, in the form of soak in a closed container under the influence of a slight pressure. As a result, carbon dioxide is formed. In this case, the period of stay on the extract determines the grade of the future drink.

Then again, insoluble residues are separated. This process is most common in industrial manufacturing. Due to some methods it is possible to increase the shelf life, thanks to the destruction of the existing microflora.

The final stage is pasteurization, during which the drink is brought to a temperature of 80 degrees. It is not used for all varieties, and similarly filtration, prolongs the shelf life. But many believe that the taste characteristics are reduced after such heat treatment.