By mixing malted barley with brewing liquor (water treated with salts and acids) we create a porridge like infusion called a 'mash'. Enzymes in the malt quickly go to work converting the cereal starch into simpler sugars such as glucose and fructose. Later, brewers' yeast will metabolise these sugars into alcohol.
You'll have deduced by now that the strength of a beer is reliant upon the amount of malt employed to brew a fixed amount of it. The above photograph shows the mash tun as it is just at the moment: filled to the absolute brim. More full in fact than it has ever been before. The majority is a quater tonne of pale malted barley but there is some crystallised malt, a little roasted barley, some chocolate malt and a judicious weight of crystallised rye in there too. We're brewing a barley wine, already titled 'GADDS' Number 1' and as yet of indeterminate strength.
More on that later.
Like I said, it beats working for a living.
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