The process begins when Miller brewers mix corn grits with water, then boil the mixture in large cereal cookers. At the same time, malted barley is being steeped in other large cooking vessels called mash tuns. The remaining brewer's grain from the lauter tun makes an excellent, high-protein livestock feed. From the brew kettle, the wort is chilled and pumped to the fermenting cellars, where yeast is added to begin the fermentation process. Each brewery's yeast differs and brewmasters take great care to preserve the integrity of their strains.
Fermentation produces alcohol and carbonation in beer.
When fermentation is complete, the beer is filtered to remove brewer's yeast and is piped to aging tanks. After being aged 10 to 14 days, the beer is ready for packaging in bottles, cans or kegs. Return to top of page. Back to the Powers Distributing home page.