Brewing your own beer at home is easy, cheap, fun, and will in all likelihood allow you to get better beer than many commercial canned beers. Plus, you'll be cheered on by all your beer-loving friends! In this article, you'll find the basic steps to get started, and we'll show you how to improve your skills and expand the variety of beer you can brew. Keep reading!
Ingrediants
- Malt extract (liquid or dry)
- Hop
- Selected cereals
- Yeast (the variety will depend on the type of beer you want to make, and all of these products are available in kits)
Steps
Barley malt is immersed in hot water to release sugars. The malt and sugar solution is boiled with hops to give it the characteristic aroma. The solution will be cooled and the yeast will be added to begin fermentation. The yeast will cause the sugars to ferment, releasing carbon dioxide and ethyl alcohol. When the main fermentation is complete, the beer is bottled with added sugar to allow carbonation.
Part 1 of 3: Preparation
Step 1. Keep everything clean
As any experienced brewer will tell you, 80% of the secret to brewing success is cleanliness. Carefully clean and disinfect all tools that will come into contact with your beer. The easiest way to do this is to use a dishwasher on the highest temperature or you can use a powdered detergent.
Don't use an abrasive surface to clean tools - pathogens proliferate in the marks you will leave, and it would be nearly impossible to disinfect those spots. Rinse well, then soak briefly in a solution of bleach or iodine
Step 2. Rinse everything thoroughly
Rinse bleach from items using very clean distilled or drinking water. Do not assume that the tap water is disinfected enough to rinse the brewing tools.
- If you use bleach to disinfect, add 30ml of bleach and 30ml of wine vinegar to 20 liters of cold water. Don't mix the bleach and vinegar together before adding the water! The vinegar will make the solution more acidic, favoring the disinfectant action of the bleach.
- Do not rinse the solutions with iodine, just let the tools dry.
- Note that bleach can cause unpleasant aromas in beer, and requires rinsing, which can introduce microorganisms into your tools. If you want to disinfect your tools properly, use a food container cleaner or disinfectant that does not need to be rinsed; or use an iodine solution.
- Remember, in brewing beer, you can be creative, add your favorite ingredients, make the type of beer you want - but properly disinfecting the tools is the most important aspect of the whole process. Dedicate the time and energy needed to do this well.
Step 3. Prepare everything before starting
This includes cleaning and disinfecting as described above, and preparing and measuring all ingredients in advance.
Part 2 of 3: Brewing Beer
Step 1. Take some notes
Before starting your brewing adventure, grab a notebook and write down everything you do - the cleaning process, what type of yeast you used, what type and amount of malt, the variety of hops, and all the others. chosen grains or other ingredients that you used to make your beer.
This will allow you to reproduce a specific beer, and will be used for your future experimentation and improvement
Step 2. Macerate the cereals
Put the grains in a soaking bag (similar to a tea bag, but much larger) and soak them in a large 10-liter pot, filled with hot (66 ° C) water for about 30 minutes.
Remove the grains and drain the water from the bag into the pot. Do not squeeze the bag, as this could cause the tannins to enter the water and give the beer a bitter taste
Step 3. Add the malt extract and bring everything to a boil
You will need to add the hops at various intervals to add flavor, a bitter note or aroma and you can find these instructions inside the kit for your type of beer.
In general, if you add hops early in the boil, the beer will be more bitter and have less aroma and flavor. You will get the opposite effect if you add the hops at the end of the boil
Step 4. Cool the liquid
After you have boiled the liquid, you will need to cool it down as quickly as possible. The easiest way to do this is to put the entire pot in a sink or bathtub filled with ice-cold water.
- You will be able to stir the liquid gently to speed up cooling, but try not to splash or aerate the liquid while it is still hot.
- When the water reaches around 27 ° C you can transfer it to the fermenter.
Step 5. Pour the room temperature liquid into the fermenter
When the liquid is colder and before fermentation begins it is the only time to let the beer oxygenate. Yeasts need oxygen to perform their action.
- Once fermentation has begun, minimize exposure to air, as you will lose the flavors and aromas.
- Using a large colander, remove the hops - you have already exploited their properties. (If you use a demijohn, filter the liquid as you pour it into the demijohn.)
- Add water to get 20 liters. Now it's time to add the yeasts. Some yeasts need to be activated (mixed with warm water) before being added, others do not. You may find that even yeasts that don't need to be activated will start working faster if you activate them, but that's not a critical aspect.
- Put the lid on the fermenter (or the cap on the carboy) and apply the bubbler on top of it. Place the fermenter in a dark area that remains steadily at room temperature. In about 24 hours, you will feel the first bubbles coming from the bubbler, and if you feel nothing after 48 hours, you may have a dead yeast problem.
Part 3 of 3: Bottling
Step 1. Get ready to bottle
After about a week, the bubbler's activity will be greatly reduced. The beer will be ready to be bottled. Your kit probably contained sugar or dry malt extract. They will be used to allow the carbonation of your beer when you have bottled it.
Boil the sugar in some water and let it cool. Then, add it to the empty, cleaned and disinfected bucket with the tap or to the fermented beer
Step 2. Transfer the beer
Use washed and disinfected plastic tubes as siphons to transfer the beer as gently as possible - so there is very little aeration - from the fermenter to the bottling bucket, with the sugar solution inside. Try not to transfer sediments from the fermenter to the bottling bucket.
Attach the clean and disinfected tap to fill the bottles to the plastic tube and the other end of the tube to the plug. (If you are using only one bucket, it is important to let the fermented beer sit before mixing the sugar solution. There are sediments at the bottom that will transfer their flavor to the beer.)
Step 3. Wash and disinfect your bottles well
If you are using a bottling bucket, open the plug and put the tap for the bottles in the bottle. Push the tap all the way down and let the beer flow.
If you use the single container method, fill the tube with water and put the open side into the fermented beer and put the faucet in a glass, bottle or sink, press to let the water flow and let the beer flow into the tube like a siphon. Fill each bottle to the brim, then remove the tap; you will leave the right space in the neck of the bottle. Cap the bottle and repeat the process with all the bottles
Step 4. Age the beer - for a short time
Store the bottles for at least a week or two at room temperature, then refrigerate them.
Step 5. Drink your beer
When you're ready, open a bottle and pour the beer carefully into a glass. Leave at least a finger of beer in the bottle - the sediments don't taste good and will cause you to develop gas.
Step 6. Enjoy it
Advice
- Most beers can benefit from a second fermentation stage. When the fermentation has slowed down (the bubbler is no longer bubbling, or 2-3 bubbles per minute), carefully siphon the beer from the first fermenter to another disinfected fermenter, preferably a glass demijohn. Oxygenating a beer is not recommended at this stage. It is best to siphon it slowly and gently. This secondary fermentation gives the beer more time to clear. This will leave less sediment in the bottle and taste better.
- Start Collecting Bottle Caps Before starting this hobby, you will need at least 50 bottles for a standard amount of beer. This is a good excuse to start buying quality beers. -
- There are many types of selected cereals, yeasts, hops, malts and preparations. Experiment with different combinations of ingredients, and create your own unique beer.
- Glass demijohns, although heavier and more expensive, are best if you will be brewing beer for a long time. Plastic buckets will eventually scratch, be difficult to clean, and the plastic will let oxygen through.
- Plastic screw caps are a great choice for beginners. Most non-home brewers don't like the look and feel of plastic bottles but they work well. They are cheap, strong and easy to use. If you are going to use them be sure to remove the labels so that someone does not take the bottle thinking it is a fizzy drink.
- A bottle brush would be useful for cleaning bottles. Get a good thermometer too.
- You can buy cans of malt extract on the internet or in specialty stores. They come in different flavors and produce different tasting beers.
- An easy way to keep the temperature low is to keep the fermenter in a large bucket of water and wrap everything up with a large blanket. You can add ice packs or frozen water bottles to further lower the temperature.
- A container filled with water and bleach is a great tool for soaking bottles and disinfecting them.
Warnings
- When boiling beer, be careful not to overdo it. Malt extract can throw a tantrum when it starts to boil.
- Learn about your country's laws regarding beer production.
- DO NOT use brewer's yeast that you can find in food. They are dead yeasts and you won't need them.
- Before adding the extract to boiling water, turn off the stove. Stir it well gently before turning the heat back on. This way you will avoid burning the extract and avoid boiling it too much.
- Be careful when adding sugar to your carbonation bottles. If you add too much they could explode!
- If you are using a glass demijohn, never pour boiling liquid into it, or you may break it due to the difference in temperature.
