Beer Brewing and Distilling Alcohol

Beer brewing and distilling alcohol are similar in that they both produce an alcohol product. They differ greatly however in how they produce that product and in the nature of the product produced.

To exemplify the difference between beer brewing and distilling, consider the following example. If you drink a 12-ounce glass of beer from the brewing process, and your friend drinks a 12‑ounce glass of alcohol from the distilling process, only you will be able to walk in a straight line an hour later. The distilled product is powerful stuff.

Learn the Most About Beer Brewing Here

When you make beer and/or distill alcohol the setup of equipment for home use may look similar to the uninitiated. Both have containers, bottles, and tubes connected together. The two systems, however, work quite differently.

Beer Brewing 

The simplest description of the beer brewing process is as follows:

Water is added to a container, about 5 gallons for home brewing, and brought to a boil. This 5 gallon amount is the typical amount for most recipes when making beer at home.

Beer ingredients are pretty much the same regardless of which type of beer you want to brew. Mash extract, barley grain which has been processed to release it sugars, and hops, added for flavor, is placed into the container and boiled for about 15 minutes.

The contents of the container are cooled to a temperature at which yeast can be added. The yeast is added, and the contents of the container are transferred to another container called a fermenter.

The fermenter is capped and the contents are left to ferment for a fixed period of time, as the homebrew yeast coverts the free sugars into alcohol

When fermentation is complete the liquid, now beer, is drained, bottled, and aged for several weeks before drinking.

The simplest description of the home distilling process is as follows:

Mash, the crushed fruits, is placed into a boiler.

Yeast may be added to enhance fermentation.

After fermentation is complete the mash is heated, and the alcohol vapors pass through an upward tilted tube into a second container called the condenser.

Water vapor returns down the tube to the boiler.

The condenser cools the gas into liquid alcohol.

Brewing and distilling processes are more complicated than indicated above, but the essentials are the same. The actual processes will involve temperature sensing, checking specific gravity, and timing to ensure that the output product is acceptable. You will need a good guide book on how to make beer at home. Once you master the process you will want to make the best homebrew and expand the types of beer you will be brewing. If you find a beer recipe online, it most likely will not live up to your expectations. To become the master beermeister you need an excellent source for reliable beer recipes.

The similarities between beer brewing and distilling alcohol, however, should be clear. Both the brewing and distilling processes begin with the basic materials or mash, derived from the fruit or grain used. Both are heated and allowed to ferment. In the brewing process, the liquid output, beer, is mechanically filtered out from the mash. In the distilling process, the alcohol is removed from the mash as a vapor, isolated, and re-liquefied.