Volunteering: Had to help out more with the kids again today since there is only one teacher. It was interesting trying to get 17 kids who are playing outside to come inside on my own when I don´t speak Spanish that well and don´t like to shout.
During my lessons today we went to the la Cervercercia Centro Americana where they make the famous Gallo beer of Guatemala. This one factory produces ALL of the beer that is distributed worldwide and also makes drinking water, soda, and chips. If you type in ¨Cervercercia Centro Americana ¨ you can learn more about it and all the fun facts I don´t remember. I would put in a link but the google here is in Spanish and I doubt that a Spanish link would be helpful to most. There are 5 different holding/mixing tanks in one room where the beer is started from 5 ingredients. Then it gets shipped underground through pipes to tall things that look like grain elevators where it ferments for 7 days and then it sits for a day before it is bottled in a different warehouse, but all on site. I got to see where the beer is mixed and the bottling factory. The older containers/mixing place is run by 20 people. The newer one is run by one person and many computers and is more efficient and can produce more beer than the older one. The bottling factory is still run by many people and robots/computers. First the old bottles are taken out of the crates, delabled and disinfected. Next they go through a computer to see if there are any abnormalities with the bottles, as in if they are dirty or broken. Next they are sent to be filled. They are heated right before they are capped to have a one year waranty and this prevents them from adding any preservatives to the beer. Next they are labled. And one guys job is to just sit there and pick out any bottles that are poorly labled. They use soap and water so the bottles slide along the assembly line with ease and prevent them from getting stuck. They are then repacked into the crates they came in and shipped to the loading dock. The bottling factory was wicked hot and humid with no fans and obviuosly no AC EVER. Even in the hotter months. They said its between 85-95 degrees inside... but the humidity makes it feel so much worse. There is tons of humidity in the factory because lots of hot water is used in the bottling process.
The guy told us an interesting story about why they pour beer to have the foam form on top.
1. The foam releases the smell of the beer and makes it more enjoyable for the person drinking it so they can smell it before drinking it.
2. The foam keeps the good flavor in the longest. He said if there is no foam, the prime time to drink it is 8 mintues after pouring the beer. But if you pour it with the foam, it has 22 minutes of prime time flavor. Afterwards the quality of the taste declines... I guess.
3. I forget exactly what.... but I think it may have just been to identify it as beer and not apple juice or something else...
Tonight I hung out with the Emily and Nataly and played a card game that was never ending. I had to forfit becasue it was getting old and no one was going to win.
No comments:
Post a Comment