Chemistry in beer by
In this essay I will be exploring chemistry and its place in the production of beer. To do this, I will look at a brief history of beer, what it is used for and the process behind making it.
Beer is one of the oldest beverages made by man, it dates back to the ancient Egyptians and ancient Mesopotamia. In ancient Mesopotamia the beer Brewers were mainly women, they were fairly well respected. "Beer was made from bippar, (twice-baked barley bread)"(http://www.ancient.eu/article/223/)
Beer is used for a wide range of activities, these including drinking it, serving it in bars for people to drink, buying it from the bottle shop to drink, to put in cups for beer pong so it can be played and later drunk and finally to put with fish to batter it, creating beer-battered fish.
"Work in the brewery is typically divided into 7 steps: Mashing, Lautering, Boiling, Fermenting, Conditioning, Filtering, and Filling" (http://www.sterkensbrew.be/sbm/beer_making.html)
Mashing is the process of mixing milled grain with water, and heating this mixture up with rests at certain temperatures to allow enzymes in the malt to break down the starch in the grain into sugars.
Lautering is the separation of the extracts that have been gained during mashing from the spent grain. It has two stages, the first is wort run-off, this is when the extract is separated in an undiluted state from the spent grains, the extract that remains with the grains is rinsed off with hot water.
Boiling is the sterilisation of the beer, the wort(the beer, it isn't classified as beer yet) at the present state is boiled to help prevent infections and/or diseases from the beer. During the boiling hops (hops are flavouring and stability agent, mainly used in beer) are added. This contributes bitterness, aroma and flavour to the beer. The boiling also helps the proteins stick together in the beer and the pH to fall. At the end of the boil, the wort is set into a...