Does brewing beer require carbon dioxide?
Beer is highly prized for its malty aroma and rich taste. The raw materials needed for craft beer mainly include malt, hops, yeast and water.Carbon dioxide is also one of the main components of beer and an important component of the unique flavor of beer. So it plays an important role in craft beer.
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Contents of this article
- Why is carbon dioxide added to beer?
- The role of carbon dioxide in beer
- The quality of carbon dioxide
- Problems that should be paid attention to when using carbon dioxide
Why add carbon dioxide to beer？
Beer has maintained a very close relationship with carbon dioxide since its birth, and carbon dioxide was present in beer thousands of years ago. During beer fermentation, yeast decomposes decomposable sugars into carbon dioxide and alcohol under anaerobic conditions, and these gases combine with water to produce carbonic acid, which is conducive to removing oxygen in beer, preventing beer oxidation, and ensuring beer. taste.
The role of carbon dioxide in beer
The carbon dioxide and organic acids in beer are refreshing and refreshing. On the one hand, moderate drinking can reduce excessive excitement and tension, and can promote the relaxation of human muscles; on the other hand, it can stimulate sensory nerves and promote digestion. The carbon dioxide in beer is not only conducive to the formation of uniform and rich foam, but also gives the beer a killing taste. In addition, it can also precipitate part of the hop resin to make the bitterness of the beer more delicate and soft and inhibit the contamination of bacteria, thereby prolonging the shelf life of the beer.
To put it bluntly, beer without carbon dioxide is a cup of bitter water, and it is difficult to make people have the desire to continue drinking.
The low carbon dioxide content also occurs in the beer production process. One of the reasons is that the carbon dioxide content is not well controlled during the fermentation process, resulting in lower carbon dioxide levels at the end of fermentation and poor taste. Another reason is that when a beer is produced with high concentration dilution, the concentration of carbon dioxide decreases due to dilution with water.
Beer with lower carbon dioxide content was difficult to sell, so in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the process of artificially injecting carbon dioxide slowly appeared and is still in use today. Most brewers now use high-pressure aeration to pump carbon dioxide into beer.
The quality of carbon dioxide
As an essential and important part of beer, the level of carbon dioxide content has a great impact on the taste and filling production of beer, and if the control is too low, it will affect the killing and foaming properties. However, the carbon dioxide content in beer is not as high as possible. If the content is too high, it will cause the filling of wine, which will cause harm to the production, transportation, storage and other processes.
In recent years, with the booming development of craft beer, some beer gardens, craft restaurants, and craft beer bars have also started a self-brewed sales model. The diversification of carbon dioxide supply channels has also led to vicious incidents such as industrial carbon dioxide injection into beer.
The first reason is that carbon dioxide suppliers are shoddy, supplying industrial carbon dioxide instead of food carbon dioxide to brewers. On the other hand, some craft brewers lack the awareness of carbon dioxide identification and mistakenly inject industrial carbon dioxide into wine. These situations reflect that the network coverage of food-grade carbon dioxide is not enough, and the publicity is not in place, which has caused many craft brewers to fall into misunderstandings.
Problems that should be paid attention to when using carbon dioxide
Therefore, both consumers and craft brewers need to increase their awareness of identifying carbon dioxide. For ordinary consumers and home-brewing practitioners, it is impossible to go to relevant agencies to detect whether it is food-grade carbon dioxide. Therefore, when purchasing carbon dioxide or self-brewed beer, you can ask the merchant to issue relevant qualifications for operating or using carbon dioxide, or check whether there is a corresponding food label on the carbon dioxide cylinder.
Carbon dioxide is a very common and familiar gas in our daily life, but it has a huge and magical role in beer. However, for ordinary consumers and home-brewing practitioners, understanding and improving the ability to identify and use food-grade carbon dioxide is where we need to pay the most attention.
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