THE BREWING
PROCESS
ETHOS
Our beer making
process is founded on the belief that care taken
in the selection and processing of the raw materials will be
repaid in the beer flavour. Beer can move from being an alcoholic
commodity to a sensory product as worthy of the name as any wine,
tea or coffee.
Our motivation
The trouble
with us is we have a passion and something to prove. Just like
flowers and fruits, we know that hops contain Terpenes. These
Terpenes are what give grapes their varietal aromas and indeed
give fruits and flowers their smell. With the right raw material
and attention to detail in the brewing process these hop derived
fruity or floral varietal aromas can show in beers.
Taste our
Yankee and look for aromas of lychees, Muscat grapes or roses.
Try our Oyster Stout (when it's in season) and look for the coffee,
liquorice and chocolate aromas. In our Wrangler look for grapefruit
and Sauvignon aromas.
In our pale
coloured beers,
we do this with our hops selection and usage. Flavours of grapefruit,
tangerine, peach and Muscat grapes are not uncommon in our beers.
But just as in wines, the intensity of these aromas will vary
according to the quality of last year's harvest. Our job is to
get the very best out of the hops we have selected. With
our darker
beers, the
principle of preserving the best of what is in the raw materials
holds true here. Aromas of toffee, roast coffee, dark chocolate
and liquorice are quite common. Richness and smoothness and as
many of the aromas above are what we seek.
Brewlength (brew batch size) 25
barrels, we now make about 60 barrels a week. Brewhouse We use a 25 barrel continental
brewplant imported from Cleveland USA. It has a steam fired kettle
and mash tun, a lauter tun, hot and cold liquor tanks.We also
have a state of the art home brew 22gallon experimental plant.
BREWING
MATERIALS
We use only the best raw materials we can find. Hop harvests
and barley harvests vary from year to year. In the case of hops,
like grapes, some vintages are great and others just good.
Hops:
We use hops from
all over the World. We buy from a variety of hop merchants and
other sources. We travel to Yakima Valley in Washington USA each
year to select our hops from dozens of samples. In common with
most brewers we store our hops cool and Vac Packed.
This last year
(2008) has been a nightmare for all brewers in sourcing and the
pricing of hops from the 2007 harvest. For a mixture of reasons
the hop harvest was insufficient to cope with demand and the
prices of hops has doubled and sometimes tripled. Next year may
be as hard as the American brewers have now been sensitised to
the problem and the prices are again being forced up prior to
the 2008 harvest. Having suffered low prices for years the growers
are now reaping the rewards of short supply.
Malts:
We use Maris
Otter and Golden Promise Malt from Simpsons of Alnwick. Coloured
malts such as crystal, chocolate, black, roast, amber malt, melanoidin
malt, smoked malt, wheat malt etc.come from a variety of suppliers.
Some of the specialist malts come from further afield. Malt
prices rose again this year 2007/2008 by about £120-00
per tonne due to changes in demand for fuel crops and rising
wheat prices.
Water: We treat our water according to the style
of beer we are about to make. Coming from the Dales Harrogate
water is soft so contains very few salts. It is perfect to adapt
to make any kind of beer we want. We dont take anything
out, just add the salts we need.
Making the beer
The Mash
We mix water and crushed malted barley together
to make a porridge called a 'mash'. At 63c - 65c the enzymes
in the mash convert the starches into sugars that will be later
turned into alcohol during the fermentation. When all the starch
has been converted to sugars, the mash is over. The conversion/'mash'
lasts an hour or so. When the mash is over, the sweet liquid
called 'wort' is drained from the mash and pumped to the boiling
kettle. While this is happening the mash is rinsed or 'sparged'
with hot water to remove the remaining sugars. This liquid is
also added to the boiling kettle and heated.
Floating mash as seen through the top
manway.
The Boil
The 'wort' is boiled for several reasons, to sterilise the wort,
to halt all enzyme activity, to drive off unwanted smells in
the 'wort' and to coagulate insoluble proteins that have passed
from the malt to the 'wort'. The boil lasts for between 1.25
- 1.5 hours. During the boil the hops are added. These are added
in two, three or multiple portions. Those added in the early
part of the boil give mainly bitterness and those added at the
end of the boil give both aroma and bitterness. The exact timing
and quantities of hops added are a big part of what determines
the final character of the beer in our beers.
The Fermentation
When the boil is over the 'wort'
is cooled through a plate heat exchanger to around 17c - 20c
so that yeast can be added to start the fermentation. This chilling
happens as the wort travel from the kettle to the fermentation
tank. The beer ferments for 4 - 5 days before being allowed to
rest for 48 hours and then cooled to 9c -10c. 24 hours later
the beer is barrelled and will be ready to be drunk in 7 to 10
days. Isinglass finings are added to the beer before despatch.
The beer is clear to drink within 24 hours of being delivered
to the pub.
Fermentation
head after 12 hours in the fermenter.
Roosters brewery, Knaresborough,
UK. | Contact us
Site created by
Glynn Snowden.
|