Schönhofen

The Peter Schönhofen Brewing Company in Chicago

This brewery was founded in 1861 by Peter Schönhofen, and in the foundational year it produced 600 barrels. To the present time the production has risen to 400,000 barrels.

A carbonation compressor delivers the gas for carbonating the beers and for the bottling filling. Brewhouse. This is constructed with two brew houses, of 500 barrels capacity each. In each brew house 3 brews of 400 barrels each are made daily, which represents a daily output of 2400 barrels. The malt used and the barley used for the production of the same comes mainly from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota and Iowa. Apart from malt about 33% adjuncts are used, and for the finer beers indian rice, for the regular beers "grits".

They only brew using the infusion method, and with a concentration of the pitched worts of 12-14% Balling. The hops are stored in cooling rooms, which show an average temperature of 4 degrees reaumur. For the better beers are only Bohemian and Bavarian hops used, whilst for the regular schankbier merely American hops are used. For the production of a barrel of beer they estimate of malt and adjuncts together 48-54 pounds of material and on average three quarters of a pound of hops.

Fermentation process

The wort is pitched with yeast at a temperature of 6 degrees reaumur and rises during fermentation to 9 degrees reaumur. The fermentation takes about 10 days in striving for a degree of fermentation of 60-65%. The fermentation vats are enclosed, and the carbonation is removed from these and compressed and is partly used in the brewery, partly sold off in the marketplace. As pitching yeast they solely use pure yeast. Lagering of the beers. All of the Export and bottled beers are lagered for 3-4 months, while the schank beers are often put out after 2 months. Beer which is meant to become filling-mature quicker, is put into chip casks and occasionally for quicker clearing is fined with isinglass. For those beers, which are lagered for longer than 2 months is the use of chips and finings not absolutely necessary.

The capacity of the lager vats vary between 200 and 1100 barrels. The total lagering capacity of the brewery is about 100,000 barrels. All of the beers are carbonated. The cooling of the fermentation and lager cellar is done by direct ammonia expansion system, and thereby the fermentation cellar is held at a temperature of 3-4 degrees reaumur, the lager cellar from 0-1 degrees reaumur. Pitching. All barrels, which are used for Export, are pitched anew before each fill. The barrels which are used for the local trade are only pitched anew after being used several times.

All beers are pasteurized and for this the "Ruffapparatus" is used.