Enlarge / In dry hopping, hops are added throughout or after the fermentation stage of the brewing course of. (credit score: Natasha Breen/Getty Pictures)

Craft-beer aficionados relish the countless taste variations that may be achieved by mixing and matching completely different types of hops, whether or not one favors refreshing citrus or fruity notes or one thing a bit extra earthy or pine-scented. However a number of the chemical compounds that contribute to these flavors are current in such hint quantities that it is troublesome for brewers to measure and observe them in the course of the brewing course of. Now German scientists have devised an automatic, environment friendly methodology for doing simply that, based on a latest paper printed within the Journal of Agricultural and Meals Chemistry.

As we have beforehand reported, all beer accommodates hops, a key flavoring agent that additionally imparts helpful antimicrobial properties. (With out them, beer spoils rapidly.) Brewers mash and steep grain in scorching water, which converts all that starch into sugars. That is historically the stage when hops are added to the liquid extract (wort) and boiled to offer the beer that trace of bitterness. Through the boiling course of, a sure portion of the resins (alpha acids) in hops isomerize into iso-alpha acids. That chemical rearrangement of the molecules is what produces bitterness. Yeast is then added to set off fermentation, turning the sugars into alcohol.

However slightly hops goes a great distance. Add too many hops, and the beer will probably be so bitter as to be undrinkable.