The primary ingredient is the first and most obvious answer. Beers and many liquors, such as whiskey, are made from grains, whereas wine and similar beverages are made from grapes. But these products differ in more ways than meets the eye, all the way back to how they are made. Three types of alcoholic beverages are brewing, distilling, and winemaking.
First, of course, brewing is how beer is made. Distilled drinks include liquors such as whiskey, tequila, and vodka. Several steps are commonly used in producing alcoholic beverages, but every sector uses not all. Malting, milling, mashing, lautering, boiling, fermenting, filtering, and distilling is involved.
Malting is soaking grain, such as barley, in water, germinating it, and drying it.
Beer and grain are both grain-derived products. It is then dried, and some people also roast the grain. Germination is essential for producing alfa-amylase and beta-amylase, which convert starches into sugars.
It can also add depth to the colour and taste. Breweries combine malt extract with water to create wort, which is a common ingredient in the majority of the brewing industry. Brewers will use their unique blend of other ingredients to create their signature beer style and flavour.
The wort mixture is boiled to allow the proteins to clump together so that the brewers can take the necessary steps to ensure that there are no undesirable flavours from the proteins remaining in the fluid. It is then cooled and brought to the proper temperature. It is critical to cool the wort because the next step is to add yeast to ferment the beer, and heat can kill the yeast.
On the other hand, malted distilled drinks frequently use corn and rye as a catalyst to produce sugars and pre-malt substances, which reduces the viscosity of the solution and the risk of clump formation.
Mashing is the technical term for combining grains and applying heat to activate starches into sugars. Malting/mashing is the process of breaking down grains into sugar and, eventually, alcohol in the case of both brewing and distilling.
One of the most frequently asked questions concerns the biting/burning sensation that some distilled beverages can produce. Beer rarely, if ever, produces that sensation. In some cases, assuming that the burning is only present in beverages with a higher alcohol content makes sense; however, this is not always the case. It happens because alcohol draws small amounts of absorbed water from the skin, and the burning sensation alerts the body that it is slightly more dry than before.
It also causes blood vessels to expand, which causes the warmth felt in the chest after the drink has passed through the throat. While the dehydration of skin cells may appear extremely harmful, it is not an issue as long as the beverages are consumed responsibly and in moderation.
Brewing Beer vs Distilling Spirits
Homebrewers frequently ask us if making their spirits—whisky, vodka, rum, and so on—is any different or more difficult than making wine or beer.
This is a difficult question because distilling spirits is a process, like making beer or wine, which involves several steps. Many steps are similar, whether you are brewing beer or distilling whisky.
However, both processes have distinct steps for brewing beer, making wine, or distilled spirits. It even depends on what you’re brewing or distilling. In the information below, we’ve attempted to include the steps taken by the most involved home brewer.
However, most home brewers and winemakers should be able to use this guide to determine whether distilling spirits is more involved than their current procedures.
Please remember that the descriptions below are simplified versions of what happens at each step and have been limited to beer brewing and whisky production for ease of use.
Malting
Malting is soaking grain in water, germinating it, and drying it. Grain is the primary ingredient in both beer and whisky. Although you can do your own malting at home, most home brewers buy pre-malted grain from a homebrew supply store.
Milling
Milling is another word for crushing grain. Many home brewers own a grain mill and crush their grain at home, but most homebrew stores will crush the grain for a small fee. So, while milling is a step in producing beer and whisky, it is not one that hobbyists must complete themselves.
Mashing
Starch is one of the long-chain sugars yeast is inefficient at breaking down or converting. Mashing is the process of combining milled/crushed grain with warm water to activate the enzymes that break down starches into short-chain sugars. This step is usually only found in whole-grain recipes. Homebrewers and distillers frequently purchase malt extract, a ready-to-use alternative.
Sparging (aka Lautering)
It separates the sugar from the solids while lowering the potential alcohol. Next, rinse the grains in all-grain recipes where the brewer/distiller mashes the grains, as in the previous step. This is a brewing-specific step in which you want to reduce your potential alcohol content to around 5%. However, when making whisky, you want the potential alcohol to be as high as possible, so this step is skipped.
Boiling
This step is unique to home brewing, but it can be done even if you are not using an all-grain recipe. Boiling extracts flavours from other ingredients, such as hops, to remove proteins that cause chill haze and for various other reasons that do not apply to whisky production.
Fermenting
We will now return to the distillation process, which is how alcohol is made. Making the alcohol first is necessary since distillation is essentially a means of separating compounds by boiling them, then condensing and gathering only the ones we want.
Fermentation is used to do this. The majority of distilling formulas will start with fermentation, except all-grain whisky (or all-grain vodka).
Therefore, this will be the first step in your procedure, whether you create beer, wine, or distilled spirits without grain using kits. For instance, you would dilute molasses and ferment it if you wanted to make rum, just as you would dilute and ferment a can of malt extract if you wanted to make beer using a kit.
The majority of issues occur during fermentation, whether you are making beer or distilling spirits. To prevent an infection that may ruin your entire batch, fermentation, especially with beer or whisky, calls for extreme vigilance. Regardless of the intended use, sanitise all tools and equipment used to combine your materials in order to ensure safety.
Bottling
This is the last step in the brewing process. Fermentation is complete; your beer has partially cleared, and you will add a small amount of sugar. The beer is then bottled in appropriate bottles and stored for a week or two while the yeast ferments this small amount of sugar, producing the fizz in your beer. In the case of wine, you will stabilize the wine to prevent further fermentation, then clear, filter, and bottle it. When distilling spirits, this step is not necessary.
Distilling
Rather than bottling your beer or wine, transfer the fermented liquid to your distiller. While it is optional, clearing the liquid before distilling is generally recommended to avoid scorching any remaining solids or yeast. As previously stated, distillation is simply the boiling and re-condensing of a liquid, such as water, perfume, essential oils, or alcohol. Distillation can be done in two ways, each for a different purpose. Here’s a quick rundown of the two approaches:
Reflux Distillation
Reflux distillation is the most popular method among new distillers. It, like kit brewing, is the easiest to learn and master, allowing you to become acquainted with the overall process. Reflux is most commonly used in distilling neutral spirits (vodka), some rum, and gin in more advanced procedures and equipment.
Most guesswork is eliminated because you only want to collect one component- ethanol (alcohol). This will be diluted with water and can be used as-is for vodka, or flavouring can be added to make anything under the sun.
Pot Distillation
While this method appears to be easier than reflux distillation at first glance, it can be more involved and touchy than reflux and requires more practice to obtain the best possible product. However, hobbyists who want to get more involved in the process, like home brewing, often choose pot distilling. This distillation method is most commonly used for flavoured spirits such as whisky, brandy, schnapps, etc. It necessitates controlling which parts of the distillate to collect or discard based on temperature, smell, taste, and experience.
Aging
We don’t just mean setting the product aside and waiting; we mean aging it in oak barrels or containers with oak, other wood, fruit, and so on to change the character of the finished product. This can take a long time and is usually reserved for certain types of distilled spirits, such as whisky and wine. It is not involved in the homebrewing process.
10 Essential Facts About Alcohol Abuse
What you don’t know about alcohol can be harmful, whether you drink beer, wine, or hard liquor such as bourbon, tequila, or gin.
According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 56% of American adults over 18 reported drinking in the previous month, with 24% admitting to binge drinking.
Of course, most people who drink do not binge, have no physical problems associated with alcohol abuse or alcoholism, and will never develop an alcohol problem.
But, before you pour yourself another drink, consider the following alcohol, alcohol abuse, and health facts:
- The intoxicating ingredient in alcoholic beverages is ethyl alcohol. Ethyl alcohol, or ethanol, is made from fermented yeast, sugars, and starches derived from various grains, fruits, vegetables, and plants. When you drink in moderation, your liver can comfortably metabolize alcohol from any of these beverages because ethyl alcohol is fundamentally the same in all types of alcoholic beverages. Heavy drinking, on the other hand, overwhelms your liver, and excess alcohol circulates throughout your body, including your brain. This is what causes you to become inebriated.
- You may be consuming more alcohol than you realize. “Standard” alcoholic beverages, such as the ones listed below, contain approximately 14 grams (0.6 ounces) of pure alcohol:
- 12 ounces (oz) of regular beer
- 5 oz of wine
- 1.5 oz of distilled spirits
- 8 to 9 oz of malt liquor
However, beverage serving sizes in restaurants and bars do not always correspond to standard drink sizes. As a result, a single mixed cocktail may contain the alcohol equivalent of up to three standard drinks.
Men should limit their alcohol consumption to no more than four drinks per day, or 14 per week, to maintain a low-risk drinking level that will minimize any impact on their health and susceptibility to addiction. Women and people over 65 should limit themselves to three days and seven drinks per week. It’s critical to stick to both daily and weekly limits.
- Alcohol may be beneficial in moderation. According to Lewis Nelson, MD, professor in the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Emergency Medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, many chemicals are beneficial in low doses but toxic in higher doses.
Many of alcohol’s perceived benefits are cardiovascular, potentially protecting against stroke and heart attack. However, “We don’t know whether low-dose consumption of any alcohol is beneficial, or if only specific alcohol-containing products, such as wine, are,” he adds.
- Alcohol alters the brain. According to Brad Lander, PhD, clinical director of addiction medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, your brain physically adapts to your environment to perform better at whatever you’re doing. However, if you drink alcohol regularly, your brain may interpret it as a new environment and change nerve cells and brain connections to help you function better with alcohol in your system.
“Once the brain adapts to alcohol, it does not ”unadapt”, he explains. “When alcoholics stop drinking, some of these changes persist throughout their lives.
- Alcohol affects men and women differently. Women absorb and metabolize alcohol more slowly and are also more vulnerable to long-term alcohol damage. Men are more likely to drink excessively while engaging in high-risk behaviours, resulting in a higher incidence of alcohol-related deaths and hospitalizations.
- Alcoholism is inherited in some ways. Family history is the most powerful risk factor for developing an alcohol use disorder. “Part of this is due to your parent’s genes, and part is due to the environment in which your parents raised you: nature versus nurture
- Alcohol abuse and alcoholism are not the same things. Some examples include failing to meet responsibilities at work or home, continuing to drink despite the fact that it is causing relationship problems, or encountering legal issues (such as being charged with driving under the influence) due to drinking.
Alcohol abuse is widespread and the most commonly used addictive substance in the United States. Nearly 17 million American adults aged 18 and older have an alcohol abuse disorder, accounting for nearly 7% of the population.
In addition, according to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, roughly half of all adults have a family history of alcoholism or problem drinking, and more than seven million children live in households with at least one parent who drinks excessively.
- Alcohol is one of the leading causes of death. According to the NIAAA, nearly 88,000 Americans die each year from alcohol-related causes (it accounts for nearly one-third of all driving fatalities), making it the third leading preventable cause of death in the country. Excessive drinking also raises your risk of developing other diseases, including mouth, colon, rectal, stomach, and esophagus cancers.
- Binge drinking is dangerous. According to the NIAAA, excessive drinking in a short period of time, also known as binge drinking, is common among people aged 18 to 22. The agency defines binge drinking as four drinks for women and five for men in less than two hours. Alcohol slows breathing, and drinking too much can cause you to stop breathing entirely.
Other dangerous health consequences of binge drinking include vomiting (which puts you at risk of choking), seizures, dehydration, and unconsciousness. Even if you are unconscious, your stomach and intestines can continue to release alcohol into your bloodstream, increasing your blood alcohol levels.
- Withdrawal from alcohol can be dangerous. When you are dependent on alcohol and stop drinking, some nerve cells become agitated, and you may develop delirium tremens, or DTs, which can lead to uncontrollable seizures in their severe form. DTs are a medical emergency that necessitates hospitalization.
Conclusion
Beers and many liquors, such as whiskey, are made from grains. Malting, milling, mashing, lautering, boiling, fermenting, filtering, and distilling is the steps involved. Brewers will use their unique blend of other ingredients to create their signature beer style and flavour. Many steps are similar, whether you are brewing beer or distilling whisky. Both processes have distinct steps specific to brewing beer, making wine, or distilled spirits.
It even depends on what you’re brewing; we’ve attempted to include the steps taken by the most involved home brewer. Mashing combines milled/crushed grain with warm water to activate the enzymes that break down starches. Boiling extracts flavours from other ingredients, such as hops, to remove proteins that cause a chill haze. Distillation is simply a method of separating compounds by boiling them and then condensing them. Fermenting beer and wine is the last step in the brewing process.
After fermentation, transfer the fermented liquid to your distiller. Distillation is simply boiling and re-condensing of a liquid, such as water, perfume, essential oils, or alcohol. It can be done in two ways, each for a different purpose: reflux or pot distillation. 56% of American adults over 18 reported drinking in the previous month. 24% admitted to binge drinking, according to National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
Men should limit their alcohol consumption to no more than four drinks per day. Women and people over 65 should limit themselves to three days and seven drinks per week. Family history is the most powerful risk factor for developing an alcohol use disorder. Men are more likely to drink excessively while engaging in high-risk behaviours, resulting in a higher incidence of alcohol-related deaths and hospitalizations. Women absorb and metabolize alcohol more slowly and are more vulnerable to long-term alcohol damage.
Nearly 88,000 Americans die each year from alcohol-related causes. Excessive drinking in a short period of time is common among people aged 18 to 22. Withdrawal from alcohol can lead to delirium tremens, or DTs. DTs are a medical emergency that require hospitalization.
Content Summary
- Beers and many liquors, such as whiskey, are made from grains, whereas wine and similar beverages are made from grapes.
- Three types of alcoholic beverages are brewing, distilling, and winemaking.
- First, of course, brewing is how beer is made.
- Breweries combine malt extract with water to create wort, which is a common ingredient in the majority of the brewing industry.
- One of the most frequently asked questions concerns the biting/burning sensation that some distilled beverages can produce.
- This is a difficult question because distilling spirits is a process, like making beer or wine, which involves several steps.
- Many steps are similar, whether you are brewing beer or distilling whisky.
- However, both processes have distinct steps specific to brewing beer, making wine, or distilled spirits.
- In the information below, we’ve attempted to include the steps taken by the most involved home brewer.
- However, most home brewers and winemakers should be able to use this guide to determine whether distilling spirits is more involved than their current procedures.
- This step is usually only found in whole-grain recipes.
- Homebrewers and distillers frequently purchase malt extract, a ready-to-use alternative.
- Next, rinse the grains in all-grain recipes where the brewer/distiller mashes the grains, as in the previous step.
- This is a brewing-specific step in which you want to reduce your potential alcohol content to around 5%.
- Mixing ingredients as part of the fermentation step.
- This is accomplished through fermentation.
- Aside from all-grain whisky (or all-grain vodka), fermentation will be the first step in most distilling recipes.
- So, for those who make beer or wine from kits and distilled spirits without grain, this will be the first step in your process.
- This is the last step in the brewing process.
- Rather than bottling your beer or wine, transfer the fermented liquid to your distiller.
- Reflux distillation is the most popular method among new distillers.
- It, like kit brewing, is the easiest to learn and master, allowing you to become acquainted with the overall process.
- However, hobbyists who want to get more involved in the process, like home brewing, often choose pot distilling.
- It is not involved in the homebrewing process.10 Essential Facts About Alcohol AbuseWhat you don’t know about alcohol can be harmful, whether you drink beer, wine, or hard liquor such as bourbon, tequila, or gin.
- But, before you pour yourself another drink, consider the following alcohol, alcohol abuse, and health facts:
- The intoxicating ingredient in alcoholic beverages is ethyl alcohol.
- Heavy drinking, on the other hand, overwhelms your liver, and excess alcohol circulates throughout your body, including your brain.
- You may be consuming more alcohol than you realize. “
- Alcohol may be beneficial in moderation.
- Alcohol alters the brain.
- Alcohol affects men and women differently.
- Men are more likely to drink excessively while engaging in high-risk behaviours, resulting in a higher incidence of alcohol-related deaths and hospitalizations.
- Alcoholism is inherited in some ways.
- Family history is the most powerful risk factor for developing an alcohol use disorder. “
- Part of this is due to your parent’s genes, and part is due to the environment in which your parents raised you: nature versus nurtureAlcohol abuse and alcoholism are not the same things.
- Alcohol abuse is widespread and the most commonly used addictive substance in the United States.
- Nearly 17 million American adults aged 18 and older have an alcohol abuse disorder, accounting for nearly 7% of the population.
- In addition, according to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, roughly half of all adults have a family history of alcoholism or problem drinking, and more than seven million children live in households with at least one parent who drinks excessively.
- Alcohol is one of the leading causes of death.
- According to the NIAAA, nearly 88,000 Americans die each year from alcohol-related causes (it accounts for nearly one-third of all driving fatalities), making it the third leading preventable cause of death in the country.
- Excessive drinking also raises your risk of developing other diseases, including mouth, colon, rectal, stomach, and esophagus cancers.
- Binge drinking is dangerous.
- Other dangerous health consequences of binge drinking include vomiting (which puts you at risk of choking), seizures, dehydration, and unconsciousness.
- Withdrawal from alcohol can be dangerous.
FAQ
What is the No 1 beer in the world?
The most valuable beer brand now in use, Budwiser, will be worth $14.65 billion in 2020, according to Statista.
Who owns Guinness?
Diageo plc is a large English corporation with its head office in London. It operates in over 180 countries and manufactures in over 140 locations worldwide. It was the largest distiller in the world until April 9, 2017, when China’s Kweichow Moutai passed it.
Who invented beer?
Reliable evidence indicates that the Sumerians created beer for the first time around 4,000 BCE. On a tablet discovered during an archaeological investigation, Mesopotamian inhabitants were seen drinking from bowls and using straws. Archaeologists also found a memorial to Ninkasi, the goddess of brewing.
What is the healthiest alcohol?
Red wine. The best alcoholic drink for health is red wine. Red wine contains antioxidants that can protect your cells from oxidative stress, and polyphenols that can enhance heart health. Rose and white wine also contain them, albeit in less quantities.
Which beer is good for liver?
Long drink menus can be intimidating, but your liver would probably pick something with a lot of hops if it had the last say. Yes, it would probably choose an IPA, much like most craft beer enthusiasts.