Home Brewing

How to brew beer

A brief guide to get you started making your own home brew

Brewing

Boil water

Brew kettle For extract brewing, you’ll need something that holds at least 3 gallons of boiling wort. Got a turkey fryer? You’re in business. Large canning pots work well, too.

Bring 2 to 3 gallons of water to a boil in the brew kettle. If specialty grains are included in the recipe, you'll need to steep them first.

Malt Grains such as barley are allowed to germinate and then quickly dried. These malted grains provide the sugar for the yeast to feed on and ferment the beer. Whole grain

Dried extract Liquid extract

Grains are crushed and soaked to draw out the sugars.

Extracts are the concentrated sugars extracted from malted grains.

Add malt extract A A

Turn off the heat. Stir in extract until it’s completely dissolved. ■ ■

Return to a boil The wort will form foam and may easily boil over during this stage until it reaches a hot break, when the foam recedes.

Add bittering hops B B

Hops The cone-like flowers of a climbing vine; used to provide bitterness, aroma and flavor to beer. They also act as a preservative.

Long-handled plastic or metal spoon

Some recipes call for later hop additions.

Whole

Plugs

Pellets

Boil for one hour Add finishing hops, during the last 15 minutes (if called for by recipe). Immerse the kettle in a cold water bath and cool to between 65 and 90 degrees.

Thermometer Measures the temperature of your wort. Use the dial kind that clips onto your brew pot or a digital kitchen model. Avoid glass, which can break and ruin your batch.

Pour wort into fermenter D

Fermenter bucket

Cool the wort quickly C

Easy to strain from the wort; often used in dry hopping. These soak up more wort than pellets.

C

Pellets dissolve and are difficult to strain from the beer, but store fresh for a long time.

Fermenting Carboy

Pour vigorously, allowing it to splash, adding oxygen. Strain hops as you pour.

Add water

Add bottled or boiled water to make a total of 5 gallons in your fermenter. D

Airlock Lets gases escape from the fermenting beer while keeping air out. The airlock fits into the lid of the fermenter bucket or a stopper in the carboy. Hydrometer Measures the gravity, or concentration of malt sugar in your wort. This allows you to monitor the progress of your fermentation and estimate alcohol content.

Measure the gravity E Use the hydrometer in a tall glass or test jar to determine the original gravity.

Yeast Yeast is made up of microorganisms that consume sugar in the wort and emit alcohol and carbon dioxide. Yeast is sold in dry or liquid form.

Pitch the yeast F Pour liquid or rehydrated dry yeast into the fermenter.

Seal and store G Seal your fermenter with lid or stopper. ■ Put the airlock in place and fill it with clean water or sanitizer solution. ■ Leave in a safe location where the beer can ferment undisturbed at a temperture between 65 and 70 degrees for up to two weeks. ■

E

F

A plastic bucket or glass carboy can be used to ferment the beer. Some kits include a secondary fermenter, which gives beer extra time to condition and clarify before bottling.

Homebrewing glossary

Original gravity: The concentration of

Ale: Beer brewed from a top-fermenting yeast, with a relatively short, warm fermentation. Hot break: The stage at which proteins coagulate and settle out during the boil.

Kraeusen (pronounced “KROY-zen”):

sugar before fermentation. The final gravity determines how much of the sugars have been converted to alcohol.

Trub (pronounced “troob” or “trub”):

The foamy head that builds on the top of fermenting beer. Lager: Beer brewed from bottom-fermenting yeast and given a long, cool fermentation.

The stuff that settles to the bottom of the fermenter; includes hops bits, coagulated proteins and dead yeast. Wort (pronounced “wert”): The malt-sugar solution that is boiled with hops prior to fermentation.

G

Bottling Prepare priming sugar ■ ■

Boil 2 cups of water with sugar and allow to cool. Pour into bottling bucket.

Siphon beer into bottling bucket

Priming sugar Added before bottling to spark the secondary fermentation that gives the beer its fizz.

Use an auto-siphon or racking cane and tubing to transfer beer to bottling bucket; make sure not to splash.

For transferring beer from one container to another. An autoAuto-siphon siphon makes the job a lot less messy.

Racking cane

Bottle filler Spring-loaded opening allows you to easily fill bottles without overfilling. Plastic tubing

Bottling bucket

Transfer to bottles Fill bottles using the bottle filler attached to spigot on the bottling bucket (or use siphon if spigot not provided). ■ Seal on bottle caps with capper. ■

Carbonate Store bottles out of light at 65 to 75 degrees for two weeks.

Source: How to Brew by John Palmer

Bottle capper

Non-twist-off Grolsch-style You’ll need 40 to 50 bottles, depending on the size, cleaned and sanitized. You can raid your neighbors’ recycling bins or buy new bottles. Swing-top Grolsch-style bottles are great as long as the gasket is intact.

Bottle caps

Bottle brush

Photos by KELLY JORDAN, Research by ED STANSEL, Graphic by ANNA BERKEN/The Times-Union