1.
Barrel
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A barrel, cask, or tun is a hollow cylindrical container, traditionally made of wooden staves bound by wooden or metal hoops. Traditionally, the barrel was a size of measure referring to a set capacity or weight of a given commodity. For example, in the UK a barrel of beer refers to a quantity of 36 imperial gallons, wine was shipped in barrels of 119 litres. Modern barrels and casks can also be made of aluminum, stainless steel, someone who makes barrels is called a barrel maker or cooper. Barrels are only one type of cooperage, other types include, but are not limited to, buckets, tubs, butter churns, hogsheads, firkins, kegs, kilderkins, tierces, rundlets, puncheons, pipes, tuns, butts, pins, and breakers. An aging barrel is used to age wine, distilled spirits such as whiskey, brandy, or rum, beer, tabasco sauce, when a wine or spirit ages in a barrel, small amounts of oxygen are introduced as the barrel lets some air in. Oxygen enters a barrel when water or alcohol is lost due to evaporation, in an environment with 100% relative humidity, very little water evaporates and so most of the loss is alcohol, a useful trick if one has a wine with very high proof. Most beverages are topped up from other barrels to prevent significant oxidation, although others such as vin jaune, beverages aged in wooden barrels take on some of the compounds in the barrel, such as vanillin and wood tannins. The presence of these depends on many factors, including the place of origin, how the staves were cut and dried. After roughly three years, most of a barrels flavor compounds have been leached out and it is well on its way to becoming neutral, barrels used for aging are typically made of French or American oak, but chestnut and redwood are also used. Some Asian beverages use Japanese cedar, which imparts an unusual, in Peru and Chile, a grape distillate named pisco is either aged in oak or in earthenware. Some wines are fermented on barrel, as opposed to in a container like steel or wine-grade HDPE tanks. Wine can also be fermented in large tanks, which—when open to the atmosphere—are called open-tops. Other wooden cooperage for storing wine or spirits range from smaller barriques to huge casks, the tastes yielded by French and American species of oak are slightly different, with French oak being subtler, while American oak gives stronger aromas. To retain the desired measure of oak influence, a winery will replace a certain percentage of its barrels every year, some winemakers use 200% new oak, where the wine is put into new oak barrels twice during the aging process. Bulk wines are more cheaply flavored by soaking oak chips in them instead of being aged in a barrel. Sherry is stored in 600-litre casks made of North American oak, the casks, or butts, are filled five-sixths full, leaving the space of two fists empty at the top to allow flor to develop on top of the wine. NOTE, This section uses both the U. S. –Irish typical spelling whiskey and the British–Canadian typical spelling whisky, laws in several jurisdictions require that whiskey be aged in wooden barrels
2.
Beer
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Beer is the worlds oldest and most widely consumed alcoholic drink, it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. Most beer is flavoured with hops, which add bitterness and act as a natural preservative, the fermentation process causes a natural carbonation effect, although this is often removed during processing, and replaced with forced carbonation. Beer is sold in bottles and cans, it may also be available on draught, particularly in pubs, the brewing industry is a global business, consisting of several dominant multinational companies and many thousands of smaller producers ranging from brewpubs to regional breweries. The strength of beer is usually around 4% to 6% alcohol by volume, archaeologists speculate that beer was instrumental in the formation of civilisations. Approximately 5000 years ago, workers in the city of Uruk were paid by their employers in beer, the earliest known chemical evidence of barley beer dates to circa 3500–3100 BC from the site of Godin Tepe in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran. The Ebla tablets, discovered in 1974 in Ebla, Syria, a fermented beverage using rice and fruit was made in China around 7000 BC. Unlike sake, mould was not used to saccharify the rice, almost any substance containing sugar can naturally undergo alcoholic fermentation. It is likely that many cultures, on observing that a liquid could be obtained from a source of starch. Bread and beer increased prosperity to a level that allowed time for development of other technologies, Beer was spread through Europe by Germanic and Celtic tribes as far back as 3000 BC, and it was mainly brewed on a domestic scale. The product that the early Europeans drank might not be recognised as beer by most people today, alongside the basic starch source, the early European beers might contain fruits, honey, numerous types of plants, spices and other substances such as narcotic herbs. What they did not contain was hops, as that was an addition, first mentioned in Europe around 822 by a Carolingian Abbot. Beer produced before the Industrial Revolution continued to be made and sold on a scale, although by the 7th century AD, beer was also being produced. During the Industrial Revolution, the production of beer moved from artisanal manufacture to industrial manufacture, the development of hydrometers and thermometers changed brewing by allowing the brewer more control of the process and greater knowledge of the results. Today, the industry is a global business, consisting of several dominant multinational companies. As of 2006, more than 133 billion litres, the equivalent of a cube 510 metres on a side, of beer are sold per year, the process of making beer is known as brewing. A dedicated building for the making of beer is called a brewery, a company that makes beer is called either a brewery or a brewing company. Beer made on a scale for non-commercial reasons is classified as homebrewing regardless of where it is made. Brewing beer is subject to legislation and taxation in developed countries, however, the UK government relaxed legislation in 1963, followed by Australia in 1972 and the US in 1978, allowing homebrewing to become a popular hobby
3.
Smoking (cooking)
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Smoking is the process of flavoring, browning, cooking, or preserving food by exposing it to smoke from burning or smoldering material, most often wood. Meats and fish are the most common smoked foods, though cheeses, vegetables, and ingredients used to make such as whisky, smoked beer. In Europe, alder is the traditional smoking wood, but oak is often used now. In North America, hickory, mesquite, oak, pecan, alder, maple, and fruit-tree woods, such as apple, cherry, other biomass besides wood can also be employed, sometimes with the addition of flavoring ingredients. Chinese tea-smoking uses a mixture of uncooked rice, sugar, and tea, some North American ham and bacon makers smoke their products over burning corncobs. Peat is burned to dry and smoke the barley used to make whisky. In New Zealand, sawdust from the native manuka is commonly used for hot smoking fish, in Iceland, dried sheep dung is used to cold-smoke fish, lamb, mutton and whale. Historically, farms in the Western world included a building termed the smokehouse. This was generally well-separated from other buildings both because of the danger and because of the smoke emanations. The smoking of food directly with wood smoke is known to contaminate the food with carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, the smoking of food dates back to the time of primitive cavemen. As caves or simple huts lacked chimneys, these dwellings could become very smoky, until the modern era, smoking was of a more heavy duty nature as the main goal was to preserve the food. Large quantities of salt were used in the process and smoking times were quite long. The advent of modern transportation made it easier to transport food products long distances. Smoking became more of a way to flavor than to preserve food, in 1939 a device called the Torry Kiln was invented at the Torry Research Station in Scotland. The kiln allowed for uniform mass-smoking and is considered the prototype for all modern large-scale commercial smokers, smokehouse temperatures for cold smoking are typically done between 20 to 30 °C. In this temperature range, foods take on a smoked flavor, cold smoking does not cook foods. Meats should be cured before cold smoking. Cold smoking can be used as an enhancer for items such as chicken breasts, beef, pork chops, salmon, scallops
4.
Malt
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Malt is germinated cereal grains that have been dried in a process known as malting. The grains are made to germinate by soaking in water, and are then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air and it also develops other enzymes, such as proteases, which break down the proteins in the grain into forms that can be used by yeast. Depending on when the process is stopped one gets a preferred starch enzyme ratio. Malt also contains amounts of other sugars, such as sucrose and fructose. Further conversion to fermentable sugars is achieved during the mashing process, Malted grain that has been ground into a coarse meal is known as sweet meal. Various cereals are malted, though barley is the most common, a high-protein form of malted barley is often a label-listed ingredient in blended flours typically used in the manufacture of yeast breads and other baked goods. Malted grains have probably been used as an ingredient of beer since ancient times, for example in Egypt, Sumeria and China. In Persian countries a sweet paste made entirely from germinated wheat is called Samanū in Iran, Samanak, or Sümölök, a plate or bowl of Samanu is a traditional component of the Haft sin table symbolising affluence. Traditionally, women take a party for it during the night. In Tajikistan and Afghanistan they sing, Samanak dar Jūsh u mā Kafcha zanēm - Dīgarān dar Khwāb u mā Dafcha zanēm, in modern times, making samanu can be a family gathering. It originally comes from the Great Persian Empire, Mämmi, or Easter Porridge, is a traditional Finnish Lenten food. Cooked from rye malt and -flour, mämmi has a resemblance to Samanū. Today, this product is available in shops from February until Easter, a survey in 2013 showed that almost no one cooks mämmi at home in modern-day Finland. The cereal is spread out on the floor in a layer of 8 to 12 cm depth. The malting process starts with drying the grains to a content below 14%. When ready, the grain is immersed or steeped in water two or three times two or three days to allow the grain to absorb moisture and to start to sprout. When the grain has a content of around 46%, it is transferred to the malting or germination floor. The grain at this point is called green malt, the green malt is then dried and pre-toasted in an oven to the desired colour and specification
5.
Barley
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Barley, a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago, Barley has been used as animal fodder, as a source of fermentable material for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods. It is used in soups and stews, and in barley bread of various cultures, Barley grains are commonly made into malt in a traditional and ancient method of preparation. In 2014, barley was ranked fourth among grains in quantity produced behind corn, rice, the Old English word for barley was bære, which traces back to Proto-Indo-European and is cognate to the Latin word farina flour. The direct ancestor of modern English barley in Old English was the derived adjective bærlic, the first citation of the form bærlic in the Oxford English Dictionary dates to around 966 CE, in the compound word bærlic-croft. The underived word bære survives in the north of Scotland as bere, the word barn, which originally meant barley-house, is also rooted in these words. Barley is a member of the grass family and it is a self-pollinating, diploid species with 14 chromosomes. The wild ancestor of domesticated barley, Hordeum vulgare subsp, spontaneum, is abundant in grasslands and woodlands throughout the Fertile Crescent area of Western Asia and northeast Africa, and is abundant in disturbed habitats, roadsides and orchards. Outside this region, the barley is less common and is usually found in disturbed habitats. However, in a study of genome-wide diversity markers, Tibet was found to be a center of domestication of cultivated barley. Wild barley has a spike, upon maturity, the spikelets separate. Domesticated barley has nonshattering spikes, making it easier to harvest the mature ears. The nonshattering condition is caused by a mutation in one of two linked genes known as Bt1 and Bt2, many cultivars possess both mutations. The nonshattering condition is recessive, so varieties of barley that exhibit this condition are homozygous for the mutant allele, spikelets are arranged in triplets which alternate along the rachis. In wild barley, only the central spikelet is fertile, while the two are reduced. This condition is retained in certain cultivars known as two-row barleys, a pair of mutations result in fertile lateral spikelets to produce six-row barleys. Recent genetic studies have revealed that a mutation in one gene, two-row barley has a lower protein content than six-row barley, thus a more fermentable sugar content. High-protein barley is best suited for animal feed, Malting barley is usually lower protein which shows more uniform germination, needs shorter steeping, and has less protein in the extract that can make beer cloudy
6.
Bamberg
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Bamberg is a town in Upper Franconia, Germany, on the river Regnitz close to its confluence with the river Main. A large part of the town has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993, during the post-Roman centuries of Germanic migration and settlement, the region afterwards included in the Diocese of Bamberg was inhabited for the most part by Slavs. The town, first mentioned in 902, grew up by the castle Babenberch which gave its name to the Babenberg family, on their extinction it passed to the Saxon house. The area was Christianized chiefly by the monks of the Benedictine Fulda Abbey, in 1007, Holy Roman Emperor Henry II or Heinrich II made Bamberg a family inheritance, the seat of a separate diocese. The emperors purpose in this was to make the Diocese of Würzburg less unwieldy in size and to give Christianity a firmer footing in the districts of Franconia, Henry II ordered the building of a new cathedral, which was consecrated 6 May 1012. The church was enriched with gifts from the pope, and Henry had it dedicated in honor of him, in 1017 Henry also founded Michaelsberg Abbey on the Michaelsberg, near Bamberg, a Benedictine abbey for the training of the clergy. The emperor and his wife Kunigunde gave large temporal possessions to the new diocese, pope Benedict VIII visited Bamberg in 1020 to meet Henry II for discussions concerning the Holy Roman Empire. While he was here he placed the diocese in direct dependence on the Holy See and he also personally consecrated some of Bambergs churches. For a short time Bamberg was the centre of the Holy Roman Empire, Henry and Kunigunde were both buried in the cathedral. From the middle of the 13th century onward the bishops were princes of the Empire and ruled Bamberg, in 1248 and 1260 the see obtained large portions of the estates of the Counts of Meran, partly through purchase and partly through the appropriation of extinguished fiefs. By the changes resulting from the Reformation, the territory of this see was reduced nearly one half in extent, since 1279 the coat of arms of the city of Bamberg is known in form of a seal. The witch trials of the 17th century claimed about one thousand victims in Bamberg, the famous Drudenhaus, built in 1627, is no longer standing today, however, detailed accounts of some cases, such as that of Johannes Junius, remain. In 1647, the University of Bamberg was founded as Academia Bambergensis, bambrzy are German Poles who are descended from settlers from the Bamberg area who settled in villages around Posen in the years 1719–1753. In 1759, the possessions and jurisdictions of the diocese situated in Austria were sold to that state, when the secularization of church lands took place the diocese covered 3,305 km2 and had a population of 207,000. Bamberg thus lost its independence in 1802, becoming part of Bavaria in 1803, Bamberg was first connected to the German rail system in 1844, which has been an important part of its infrastructure ever since. The first republican constitution of Bavaria was passed in Bamberg, becoming known as the Bamberger Verfassung, in February 1926 Bamberg served as the venue for the Bamberg Conference, convened by Adolf Hitler in his attempt to foster unity and to stifle dissent within the then-young Nazi party. Bamberg was chosen for its location in Upper Franconia, reasonably close to the residences of the members of the dissident northern Nazi faction, in 1973, the town celebrated the 1, 000th anniversary of its founding. Bamberg is located in Franconia,63 km north of Nuremberg by railway and 101 km east of Würzburg and it is situated on the Regnitz river,3 km before it flows into the Main river
7.
Kiln
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A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects made from clay into pottery, tiles, various industries use rotary kilns for pyroprocessing—to calcinate ores, to calcinate limestone to lime for cement, and to transform many other materials. The word kiln descends from the Old English cylene (/ˈkylene/, which was adapted from the Latin culīna kitchen, cooking-stove, burning-place. During the Middle English Period, the n was not pronounced, as evidenced by kiln having frequently been spelled without the n, Another word, miln, a place where wheat is ground, also had a silent n. Whereas the spelling of miln was changed to mill to match its pronunciation, kiln maintained its spelling, which most likely led to a common mispronunciation, however, there are small bastions where the original pronunciation has endured. Kiln, Mississippi, a town known for its wood drying kilns that once served the timber industry, is still referred to as the Kill by locals. Unwittingly adding the n sound at the end of kiln is due to people being introduced to the word through the language before ever hearing the actual pronunciation. Phonetically, the ln in kiln is categorized as a digraph, from English Words as Spoken and Written for Upper Grades by James A. Bowen 1900, The digraph ln, n silent, occurs in kiln. A fall down the kiln can kill you, Bowen was pointing out the humorous fact that kill and kiln are homophones. A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning, the earliest known kiln dates to around 6000 BC, and was found at the Yarim Tepe site in modern Iraq. Neolithic kilns were able to produce greater than 900 °C. Ceramics require heat at high temperatures so chemical and physical reactions will occur to permanently alter the unfired body, in the case of pottery, clay materials are shaped, dried and then fired in a kiln. The final characteristics are determined by the composition and preparation of the clay body, after a first firing glazes may be used and the ware is fired a second time to fuse the glaze into the body. A third firing at a lower temperature may be required to fix overglaze decoration, modern kilns often have sophisticated electrical control systems to firing regime, although pyrometric devices are often also used. Clay consists of fine-grained particles, that are weak and porous. Clay is combined with other minerals to create a clay body. Part of the process includes sintering. This heats the clay until the particles partially melt and flow together, creating a strong, single mass, composed of a glassy phase interspersed with pores, through firing, the pores are reduced in size, causing the material to shrink slightly
8.
Brewery
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A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse. The commercial brewing of beer has taken place since at least 2500 BC, in ancient Mesopotamia, brewers derived social sanction, the diversity of size in breweries is matched by the diversity of processes, degrees of automation, and kinds of beer produced in breweries. A brewery is typically divided into sections, with each section reserved for one part of the brewing process. Beer may have known in Neolithic Europe and was mainly brewed on a domestic scale. In some form, it can be traced back almost 5000 years to Mesopotamian writings describing daily rations of beer and bread to workers. Before the rise of production breweries, the production of beer took place at home and was the domain of women and this industrialization of brewing shifted the responsibility of making beer to men. The oldest, still functional, brewery in the world is believed to be the German state-owned Weihenstephan brewery in the city of Freising and it can trace its history back to 1040 AD. The nearby Weltenburg Abbey brewery, can trace back its beer-brewing tradition to at least 1050 AD, the Žatec brewery in the Czech Republic claims it can prove that it paid a beer tax in 1004 AD. This layout often is preserved in breweries today, but mechanical pumps allow more flexibility in brewery design, early breweries typically used large copper vats in the brewhouse, and fermentation and packaging took place in lined wooden containers. Such breweries were common until the Industrial Revolution, when better materials became available, today, almost all brewery equipment is made of stainless steel. During the Industrial Revolution, the production of beer moved from artisanal manufacture to industrial manufacture, a handful of major breakthroughs have led to the modern brewery and its ability to produce the same beer consistently. The steam engine, vastly improved in 1775 by James Watt, brought automatic stirring mechanisms and it gave brewers the ability to mix liquids more reliably while heating, particularly the mash, to prevent scorching, and a quick way to transfer liquid from one container to another. Almost all breweries now use electric-powered stirring mechanisms and pumps, the steam engine also allowed the brewer to make greater quantities of beer, as human power was no longer a limiting factor in moving and stirring. Carl von Linde, along with others, is credited with developing the machine in 1871. Refrigeration allowed beer to be produced year-round, and always at the same temperature, yeast is very sensitive to temperature, and, if a beer were produced during summer, the yeast would impart unpleasant flavours onto the beer. Most brewers would produce enough beer during winter to last through the summer, the discovery of microbes by Louis Pasteur was instrumental in the control of fermentation. The idea that yeast was a microorganism that worked on wort to produce led to the isolation of a single yeast cell by Emil Christian Hansen
9.
Beech
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Beech is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia and North America. Recent classification systems of the genus recognize ten to thirteen species in two subgenera, Engleriana and Fagus. Further differentiating characteristics include the whitish bloom on the underside of the leaves, the visible tertiary leaf veins, Fagus japonica, Fagus engleriana, and the species F. okamotoi, proposed by the botanist Chung-Fu Shen in 1992, comprise this subgenus. The better known Fagus subgenus beeches are high-branching with tall, stout trunks and this group includes Fagus sylvatica, Fagus grandifolia, Fagus crenata, Fagus lucida, Fagus longipetiolata, and Fagus hayatae. The classification of the European beech, Fagus sylvatica is complex, research suggests that beeches in Eurasia differentiated fairly late in evolutionary history, during the Miocene. The populations in this area represent a range of often overlapping morphotypes, within its family, the Fagaceae, recent research has suggested that Fagus is the evolutionarily most basal group. The southern beeches previously thought closely related to beeches, are now treated as members of a separate family and they are found in Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, New Caledonia, Argentina and Chile. The European beech is the most commonly cultivated, although there are few important differences between species aside from detail elements such as leaf shape, the leaves of beech trees are entire or sparsely toothed, from 5–15 cm long and 4–10 cm broad. Beeches are monoecious, bearing male and female flowers on the same plant. The small flowers are unisexual, the flowers borne in pairs. They are produced in spring shortly after the new leaves appear, the bark is smooth and light grey. The fruit is a small, sharply three–angled nut 10–15 mm long, borne singly or in pairs in soft-spined husks 1. 5–2.5 cm long, known as cupules. The husk can have a variety of spine- to scale-like appendages, the nuts are edible, though bitter with a high tannin content, and are called beechnuts or beechmast. The name of the tree is of Indo-European origin, and played an important role in debates on the geographical origins of the Indo-European people. Greek φηγός is from the root, but the word was transferred to the oak tree as a result of the absence of beech trees in Greece. Beech grows on a range of soil types, acidic or basic. The tree canopy casts dense shade, and carpets the ground thickly with leaf litter, in North America, they often form beech-maple climax forests by partnering with the sugar maple. The beech blight aphid is a common pest of American beech trees, Beeches are also used as food plants by some species of Lepidoptera
10.
Beer in Australia
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Beer arrived in Australia at the beginning of British colonisation. The most popular style in modern Australia is lager. The oldest brewery still in operation is the Cascade Brewery, established in Tasmania in 1824, within an alcoholic beverage market worth some $16.3 billion, beer comprises about 48% compared to wine at 29% and spirits at 21%. Within the beer sector, premium beers have a 7. 8% share of the market, full strength beer has 70. 6%, mid-strength holds 12%, 85% of beer is produced by national brewers, the remainder by regional or microbreweries. Microbreweries manufacturing less than 30,000 litres receive a 60% excise rebate, the history of Australian beer starts very early in Australias colonial history. Captain James Cook brought beer with him on his ship Endeavour as a means of preserving drinking water, ill eat yer Norfolk Dumpling Like a juicy Spanish plum, Even dance the Newgate Hornpipe If yell only gimme Rum. The first official brewer in Australia was John Boston who brewed a beverage from Indian corn bittered with cape gooseberry leaves and it is likely though that beer was brewed unofficially much earlier. The first pub, the Mason Arms was opened in 1796 in Parramatta by James Larra, Lager was not brewed in Australia until 1885. Early beers were also brewed without the benefit of hops, as no-one had successfully cultivated hops in Australia, James Squire was the first to successfully cultivate hops in 1804, and he also opened a pub and brewed beer. The Government Gazette from 1806 mentions that he was awarded a cow herd from the government for his efforts, in September 1804, a government-owned brewery opened in Parramatta, followed by a rival privately owned brewery three months later. The government brewery was sold two years later to Thomas Rushton, who was its head brewer, as of 2013, the Parramatta brewery remains the only government-run brewery in Australia. Brewing rapidly expanded in all of the Australian colonies and by 1871 there were 126 breweries in Victoria alone, notable events from this period include,1824 – Peter Degraves starts the Cascade brewery in Tasmania. As of 2013, the brewery is Australias oldest operational brewery,1838 – John Mills establishes the first brewery in Melbourne. 1862 – Thomas Cooper establishes the Coopers Brewery, as of 2013, the brewery is owned and operated by the Cooper family, and is the largest Australian-owned brewery. 1864 – Carlton brewery opens in Melbourne 1881 - CS Button opens the Esk Brewery in Launceston,1885 – Gambrinus brewery in Melbourne becomes the first brewery in Australia to brew lager. 1887 – The Foster brothers arrive from New York with refrigeration equipment,1889 – Lager is first brewed in Queensland at the Castlemaine and Quinlan brewery. By 1900 the number of breweries had begun to dwindle as a result of the recession of the 1890s, in 1901, just after Federation, the new federal government passed the Beer and Excise Act. This act regulated the making and selling of beer and made homebrewing illegal, the provisions in this act, regarded by many as draconian, led to the closure of many breweries
