Purchasing Equipment and Ingredients

If you haven’t already, you should read my post about must have beer equipment. Once you have most of the necessary equipment it is time to get some ingredients. Beer is made by mixing 3 things with water: malt, hops, and yeast. The process is a little more complicated than just mixing all the ingredients together. Most beer brewing supply stores have kits already put together for a certain recipe. You will have to choose brewing either an ale or a lager. I recommend brewing an ale as your first beer, because it can be fermented at room temperature. Pick a style of ale you like to drink such as an India pale ale, or an Irish red ale. Make sure to pick an extract kit and not an all grain / mash recipe. An extract kit comes with malt extract and is much easier to brew for a beginner. Also make sure that the kit includes a liquid yeast. This will save you some time re-hydrating yeast. I recommend Wyeast smack packs. Once you have your equipment and ingredients, it is time to start.

Preparation

The kitchen is a great place to brew your first batch. You will need a sink near the stove both for water and to clean equipment before and after the brewing. Lots of brewers stress about having the right water to make beer with. If the water out of your tap tastes good then use it in your batch. If your water tastes or smells bad then you will have to buy water. Purchase 8 gallons of drinking water at the store. In a large bucket prepare a sanitizing solution. I like to use a one step sanitizer that when mixed with water requires no washing after the sanitizer has come into contact with equipment. Sanitizer should be available at any home brew store. Prepare 2 gallons of sanitizer. You will also need some ice to cool down your once it has been made. If you purchased a Wyeast smack pack it is best to prime the yeast as soon as possible. I sometimes even prime it the night before. Lay the package on a flat surface and locate the bulge in the center. The bulge in the center is nutrients that will cause the yeast to wake back up. Smack the bulge hard enough to burst the center package, but not hard enough to make the packaging explode and ruin your yeast. Once the bulge has been popped, give the yeast a good shake. I sometimes put my ear up to the package and listen to the bubbling going on inside to make sure the bulge has been popped.

Let the Brewing Begin

1. Pour 3 gallons of drinkable water into the brewpot. Turn the stove to high and let it come to a boil. It might take some time for the water to start boiling so now is the time to grab a beer out of the fridge.
2. Once the water has come to a fast and heavy boil, it is time to add the malt. You should either remove the pot from the heat or turn the burner off while adding the malt. It is possible to scorch the malt and ruin the batch before you even get started. Continue to stir the pot as you add the malt. Once the malt has been added and everything is dissolved, turn the heat back up enough to get it boiling again. Congratulations you now have wort, or unfermented beer.
3. Set a timer for 60 minutes. The countdown begins.
4. Each recipe kit varies so you will have to read the instructions. Most of them will list a time to add the hops. Usually this is a time from the end of the boil. This can get confusing. For example, if a recipe says to add 1/4 oz of cascade hops at 40 minutes, you should add the hops 20 minutes after the wort has started to boil. Usually you will have to add hops twice, once for the bittering hops, and once for the aroma hops. Be careful when adding the hops to the boiling wort. It can sometimes cause the wort to boil over and make a huge mess. Just keep an eye on it.
5. After 60 minutes has passed, you should fill the sink with as much ice as you possibly can, and water. Carefully place the pot in the sink to get it to cooled as quickly as possible. Make sure to put a lid on the pot. You want to get the pot down to 80-90 degrees Fahrenheit.
6. While the wort is cooling, begin sanitizing your equipment. Fill a fermenting bucket or glass carboy with a sanitizer solution. Make sure that everything the beer will touch has been soaked in sanitizer. This includes your airlock, stopper, and carboy.
7. Empty the carboy and place a sanitized funnel in the top. Carefully pour the cooled wort into the carboy. Add water to the wort to produce a total of 5 gallons. Cut the yeast package open and pour into the carboy.
8. Fill the airlock with enough sanitizer to seal it. This creates a one-way valve that only lets air escape and not air into the wort. Quickly place a sanitized airlock and stopper on the carboy and close. Over the next couple day you will notice a large amount of foam at the top of the carboy. This is an indication that fermentation is happening. You also will notice air bubbles being produced in the airlock.

Over the Next Couple Weeks

1. Periodically check on your beer to make sure that the airlock still is full of sanitizer, and that bubbling is still seen in the airlock. Over time the bubbling in the airlock will slow. When the bubbling has stopped it is time to transfer to another container for secondary fermentation. This gives the beer a much cleaner taste and color.
2. Once again sanitize everything that will come into contact with the beer. You will need a racking cane, tubing, and a carboy cover.
3. You will need to start a siphon to move the wort from the primary carboy to the secondary clean one.  Put the racking cane through the top hole in the cover and thread the cane into the carboy with the wort.  The curved part of the cane should be on the bottom of the carboy.  Make sure that the cover is snug over the top of the carboy.  Attach a length of vinyl tubing to the cane and run it into your clean carboy.  It helps to have the primary carboy on the counter and the clean secondary on the floor. 
4. Once everything is connected, blow into the open side of the carboy to start a siphon.  Make sure your racking cane is not too low in the carboy or it will suck up the sediment on the bottom of the carboy.  Continue to let the new carboy fill with the beer until you get to the sediment, which should be left in the primary carboy.  Store your carboy as before for two weeks.  You will not see much bubbling going on in the airlock, this is ok.  The beer is conditioning and not fermenting like it was earlier. 

Almost Good Enough to Drink

1. After two weeks of conditioning has passed, it is time to bottle your beer.  Once again sanitize everything that will touch the beer.  Siphon the beer out of the secondary carboy and into a bottling bucket.
2. While the beer is siphoning, prepare the priming sugar that came with your recipe kit.  Heat 2 cups of water on the stove and dissolve the priming sugar into the pot.  Continue stirring until everything is dissolved.  Once you have an even solution, pour it into the bottling bucket.  Gently stir the beer to mix the priming sugar through out. 
3.  Connect a siphon hose to the spigot on the bottling bucket.  Attach a racking cane to the end of the tubing.  Once again sanitize everything that will touch the beer.  The bottles that you will use must be clean.  Make sure they do not have any dried on beer and if they do remove it with a small brush.  The bottles you will be using must also be the pop-top style caps and not the twist off caps.  These are the kind of caps that require a  bottle opener.
4. This step is best done with a helper.  Bribe a friend or roommate with some homebrew to take home.  Put the racking cane into a clean bottle and push the cane down onto the bottom of the bottle to start the flow of beer.  Once the bottle is a couple inches from the top release the racking cane and pass the bottle to your helper. 
5. The beer bottle will need to be capped with an unbent bottle cap and a bottle capper.  Place a bottle cap on the magnet of the capper.  Position the capper onto the top of the bottle and press both arms down.  This will bend the cap onto the bottle. 
6. Keep the bottles at room temperature for 1 week.  The yeast will become active inside the bottles and produce C02 which will get forced into the beer as carbonation. 
7. After 1 week refrigerate the beer with the bottles upright.

Time to Drink

1. Grab your favorite clean glass and slowly pour the beer down the side.  Do not pour the last inch or so of beer into the glass.  While the bottles have been stored up right in the refrigerator, most of the sediment and remaining yeast has settled to the bottom.  This sediment can effect the taste of the beer so be sure to leave it in the bottom of the bottle.

In order to brew beer there is some equipment that you can’t get away with not having. This list is the bare minimum of things you will need. Once you brew your first batch and become hooked you will want to upgrade and add more equipment to make things easier. This, however, should get you started.  All of this equipment is available at Northern Brewer.

• One Step Sanitizer-Being clean is the most important step in brewing. One step is a powder that when mixed with water will sanitize your equipment before and after a brewing secession.
• Carboy x 2-This is the glass jug that your beer ferments and ages in. Don’t skimp here. You can probably brew beer in a plastic bucket that some companies offer, but this is not a good solution. You will need 2 of them. One for primary fermentation and one for secondary.
• Carboy brush-As discussed in other posts you will need this to clean the carboy between secessions.
• Stopper-This will seal the carboy from air getting in. It should have a hole in it for an airlock.
• Airlock-The best kind of airlock is the bubbler style. It prevents air from getting in but lets air escape freely.
• Racking cane and cover-This allows you to siphon your beer from carboy to carboy as well as bottle your beer. It snaps on top of the carboy and when you blow into one side of it, it starts a siphon.
• Siphon Hose-This hose should fit snugly onto your racking cane. It should be at least 6 feet long.
• Funnel-A funnel makes pouring wort into a carboy easy and mess free.
• Empty Pop Top Bottles-If you plan on bottling your beer you must use pop top style bottles, and not twist off bottles. Twist off bottles do not create a good enough seal to store fresh beer in.
• Bottle Cappper-This tool will allow you to bend bottle caps onto bottles.
• Unbent Bottle caps-These bottle caps have the skirt bent wide open. This allows you to put it on top of your bottles and use a bottling tool to bend them onto the bottle. Used bottle caps will not work here.
• Bottling cane-A Bottling cane attaches to end of your siphon hose and turns the beer flow on and off while filling bottles.

Creating a wort starter guarantees that your yeast will go to work right away.  No more delayed fermentation starts.  It also helps having a healthy starter in high gravity batches.

Things you will need

• Beer yeast - dried or liquid
• Dried malt extract
• Erlenmeyer flask
• Stir plate and stir bar
• One Step Sanitizer
• Stopper and airlock
• Ice

When dealing directly with yeast you must keep everything sanitary.  Everything must be surgery grade clean.  Prepare a bucket of sanitizer or a container large enough to soak your Erlenmeyer flask, stir bar, airlock, and stopper. 

Once everything is clean fill the flask with 2 cups of water and begin heating the flask on the stove.  Once the water is boiling, add 1/4 cup malt extract while off the stove.  Stir well until the malt is dissolved.  Boil the solution for another 3 minutes and remove from the heat.  You will need to quickly cool the solution.  Prepare a bath of ice to rapidly cool the wort.  The faster the wort gets cooled, the less the chance of infection.  Place an airlock and stopper onto the flask and place the flask into the ice.  Let it sit long enough to cool down to room temperature.  Now it is time to pitch the yeast and stirbar.  Carefully pour the yeast into the flask and add the sanitized stir bar.  Quickly replace the stopper and airlock.  Next place the flask on the stir plate and turn to medium.  Let the plate run until it is time to pitch the yeast.  You should notice a change in color of the wort.  After 24 hours the yeast has increased in volume and should be ready to put into your latest batch. 

One of the easiest ways you can add your own touch to a beer is to grow your own hops.  Hops can be grown just about anywhere, on a fence, a trellis, or even up a wall.  First you must locate a source of rhizomes.  A rhizome is a root cutting off of a female hop plant.  I like to get my hops from Northern Brewer.  It is best to pre-order a month or two before spring.  After some experimentation, you will find that some strains grow bigger and quicker than others.  My personal favorite is cascade because it is high yielding in the North Carolina heat. 

Once your hops have arrived, it is time to plant them.  Use Lowes frost date chart to make sure the last frost has passed.  If the date has not passed you can refrigerate the hops until it is time to plant.  Just make sure they are in a sealed bag with a slight bit of moisture. 

Planning of where your hops will be planted is important.  You want them to get a good bit of direct sunlight.  You also will have to think about what you want them to grow upon.  If you are planning for the hops to grow up an object make sure you plant on the sunniest side of it.  Dig a hole large enough for the rhizome.  Next look closely at the rhizome.  You should see some small buds or white specks coming out of the rhizome.  The rhizome should be planted horizontally with these buds facing up.  Fill the bottom of the hole with a good potting soil.  The rhizome only needs to be planted about 1-2 inches below the top of the soil.  Cover the rhizome with potting soil and give the plant a good watering. 

When the plant grows to about a foot tall, it is time to start thinking about training the plant to climb.  If you are trying to get the plant to climb a fence or structure wait until it gets longer and is able to cling onto something.  You will have to check on it every couple days to make sure it is growing where you want.  If there isn’t anything close by the hops to grow on; stakes can be placed into the ground and twine attached.  I like to use hemp twine because it holds up well and the hops clings to it nicely.  Just simply run twine from the stake in the ground near the rhizome to a nearby tree, house, etc. 

Towards the middle of the summer you should have some hop buds appearing.  It will take some practice and experimenting to tell exactly when the hops are ready to harvest.  Most people crush the hops and give them a good smell.  You should also notice a yellow powder within the hop.  If they look and smell like the hops you would buy from your homebrew store, then it is probably time to harvest.

To prevent your beer from becoming infected and tasting terrible, cleaning your carboy is very important.  When you have emptied a carboy of fermented beer there often is a ring around the top where the foam has touched.  This will require a brush such as this one.

Fill the carboy with a water and sanitizer solution following the directions for the sanitizer.  PBW is a good sanitizer and does not require a rinse after cleaning.  A couple scrubs from the brush and the residue should be gone.  Empty out the carboy in the sink or tub and place a sanitized stopper and airlock in the top.  This should keep it fairly clean for when you are ready to use it next.  You should always rinse the carboy with sanitizer before using it to make beer.  You should never use a cleaner such as bleach or soap as it can effect the taste and quality of the beer.

So you plunked down the big bucks (around $60) to upgrade from a hydrometer.  Refractometers have a couple advantages.  The first being ease of use.  The second is that they only use a couple of drops to get a gravity reading. 

The first thing you want to do is to calibrate your refractometer.  This can be done with the included solution or by using distilled water.  Lift the cover at the end of the refractometer and place a couple of drops on the blue colored prism.  Close the cover and look through the refractometer.  You might have to twist the eye piece to focus the image.  You should see what looks like a blue ruler.  Turn the adjustment screw until the white section stops and blue begins at the 0 level.

It should hopefully look like this when you have it calibrated. 

Now you are ready to take a reading.  Put a couple of drops of wort on the prism and close the top.  If the wort is hot, you should allow it to cool on the refractometer for several minutes.  This will ensure an accurate reading.  Where the blue meets the white is your %Brix.  Multiply this number by 4 and you’ve got your specific gravity.  Now you can use this to make sure you hit your target gravity or calculate the alcohol content of your beer.