458: Chapter 458 The Difficulty of Beer Brewing

Zhao Fusu looked at the canned beer placed before him, his eyes filled with excitement and emotion.

Compared to Baijiu, Zhao Fusu still preferred drinking beer.

The brewing of beer is extremely difficult.

It requires four main ingredients: Malt, water, Hops, and Yeast.

Hops, also known as Shema or Hubu, are one of the core ingredients in beer brewing and are hailed as the "soul of beer."

They not only give beer its unique bitterness and aroma but also play a key role in preservation and foam stabilization.

Hops are not distributed within the borders of Great Qin.

They are native to Europe, Northern Asia, and Eastern America.

The reason Zhao Fusu was able to brew beer was that Great Qin's caravans found Hops while trading in the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions.

People at this time had not yet realized the value of Hops; to them, Hops were much like the weeds by the roadside.

The use of Hops can be traced back to 8th-century Germany, where they were initially regarded as "evil weeds" before gradually replacing traditional spices due to their preservative and flavor advantages.

Brewers in medieval European monasteries were the first to systematically use Hops, laying the foundation for modern beer.

Zhao Fusu obtained beer production equipment through a check-in system; to produce beer, he had the caravans search for and bring back Hops while trading in the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions.

Great Qin grows wheat, so obtaining Malt is not difficult; the difficulty lies in "Malting."

The "soul flavor" of beer first comes from Malt, which requires converting ordinary Barley into a brewing ingredient rich in starch and enzymes through Malting, the foundation of beer production.

Fermentation is the core of beer's "birth," where Yeast converts the sugars in the Wort into alcohol, carbon dioxide, and flavor substances, determining the beer's mouthfeel and flavor profile.

Since Zhao Fusu had no Yeast and nowhere to buy it, he put a lot of effort into obtaining it.

It could be said that without Yeast, there is no alcohol production.

Yeast is a type of microorganism.

In many plants, Yeast grows in symbiosis.

Take fresh dark grapes, for example—the slight white "residue" on the surface is natural Yeast; without it, you wouldn't find grapes.

Another such plant is Barley.

Normally, Yeast only appears on seeds in relatively small quantities.

Malting creates the optimal environment for Yeast growth, providing nutrients throughout the seed's volume, and as it grows, it produces alcohol.

During the Malt fermentation process, many different microorganisms and fungi compete for nutrients, namely sugar.

The problem here is that many Yeasts produce Fusel Alcohols, namely Methanol, and other bacteria might cause it to ferment into vinegar.

This is why Yeast must be added to brewing.

We need to rapidly increase the population of the microorganisms that produce alcohol to crowd out others, preventing the brew from turning into vinegar instead of beer.

Through continuous cultivation and extraction, Zhao Fusu put in a great deal of effort to finally obtain the Yeast for brewing.

After adding the brewing Yeast, this specific strain of Yeast, the fermentation can be controlled.

When brewing, adding a large amount of Yeast gives this strain a significant advantage over others, and the resulting alcohol and carbohydrates protect the beverage from other organisms.