Brew Your Own Beer

When you brew your own beer at home, it can be an enjoyable and productive hobby. You, being the brew master, can experiment with different ingredients and tweak the brewing process to impress your guests with a homebrew of exceptional color and flavor.

Not only will you become the neighborhood brew master, you'll share a bond in the historical brotherhood of brew masters who have been practicing their art of making beer for millennia, since the time before recorded history.

When you brew beer at home it need not be a complicated process if you follow simple proven techniques. Once you have mastered the basic processes, you can experiment with more advanced processes to brew more sophisticated beers. There is definitely a learning curve when it comes to brewing great homemade beer. The process can be shortened if you happen to know anyone who has a lot of experience in homebrewing.

Click Here For the Ultimate Beer Brewing Guide

Despite the avowed simplicity of making beer at home, that simplicity is a product of a basic understanding what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and where to do it. Before you begin brewing home beer, there are a few questions you need to answer:

What are your state and local laws regarding beer making at home?

How much and what kind of space can you dedicate to the beer brewing process?

What beer making equipment will you need?

What homebrew supplies will you need to be acquire and how will you store them?

Where do you get homebrew recipes?

How do you actually brew beer at home?

What about bottling and capping?

How do you store your bottled beer and for how long?

What about cleaning bottles and equipment?

All these questions, and many others that will arise, must be answered before you can brew your own beer at home with confidence. This is a great time to start learning.

The Law and Home Brewing
Before you make your own beer, it's important that you understand what your state and local laws permit regarding brewing home beer. Are you allowed to brew your own beer at home? How much can you brew for personal consumption over what period of time?

In 1978, Congress approved an act that excludes a certain amount of home brewed beer from taxation. The federal law referred to taxation only. It is still up to the individual states to determine the limits within which you can brew your own beer for home use. Most states that do permit home brewing of beer limit the quantity to about one-hundred gallons of beer per person in each household. That amounts to approximately two gallons per week, which seems to be more than adequate. In no state, are you allowed to sell your home brew to others.

The Dedicated Space
Having a special place in the home that is reserved specifically for making your own beer is an excellent idea logistically, and it may be the key to saving an otherwise happy marriage. It may be acceptable to your spouse to have you sterilizing bottles and caps in the kitchen, but he or she may not feel quite as willing to have your fermentation tank and bottle filler permanently mounted on the kitchen counters.

Ideally, you'll need enough space to install your fermentation tank, your bottling tank, and easily accessible storage areas for all of your small tools and accessories needed to manage the process: thermometers, hydrometers, tubing, consumable supplies, brushes, etc.
If you are lucky enough to have a sink and a stove or hotplate in your basement, you will be able to conveniently clean your equipment in the work area. If you don't have these facilities, your understanding spouse will undoubtedly submit to your occasional and unobtrusive forays into the kitchen for your hobby's cleaning and sanitation processes.

Once you have organized your work space with any tables, benches, and storage racks that you need, you're ready to begin installing your brewing equipment.

Beer Making Equipment

The following is a list of traditional beer making equipment needed for making beer at home. You may not require all of the items listed to brew your own beer, at least at the beginning, and you may be able to find substitutes. The list, however, does give you an idea of the level and type of home beer brewing equipment needed.

• The Fermenter: The container in which fermentation occurs. After brewing, the wort is placed into the fermenter where it becomes beer.
• The Bottling Bucket: The beer, sometimes mixed with priming sugar, is transferred from this bucket into bottles.
• The Brew Pot: The container in which wort is boiled.
• The Bottle Filler: A valve that is attached to the end of the plastic tubing that drains the bottling bucket, permitting controlled pouring of beer.
• The Capper: Used to secure the top to crown top bottles.
• The Hydrometer: Used to measure the beer's specific gravity.
• Siphoning Tubing: Used to move liquid from one container to another.
• Bottles and Caps: For bottling and sealing the finished beer.
• Thermometer: Used to measure wort temperature.
  

The above list defines most of the components and equipment that you will encounter during the beer brewing process. Other useful tools may eventually find their way into you took kit. Items like burners, large spoons, whisks, basters, tongs, funnels, measuring cups, measuring spoons, and scales.

What beer making supplies are needed?
The ingredients and supplies used in brewing beer at home will depend upon your recipe, but, there are several ingredients that will most probably be included in any recipe. The ingredients used for brewing home beer are inexpensive and readily available from local markets or from specialty suppliers on the Internet. The components found in all beers are: water, malt, hops, and yeast. The following is a partial list of the items most commonly used in most beer recipes.

Water: The main component in beer. The use of tap water is not recommended. Use filtered water, not oxygen-poor distilled water.
Malt: Dried sprouts made from barley grain. Contains the sugars and starches required for proper fermentation, but requires a process to remove these components to create the mash.
Malt Extract: A malted barley product that has already gone through the mashing process discussed above.
Hops: A small green flower that are added to the beer making process to affect taste, bitterness, and aroma.
Yeast: A living organism that converts sugars to alcohol and carbon dioxide during the fermentation process. Yeast selection can affect beer taste.

For those new to the making beer hobby, a beer making kit offers a simple solution. These kits are reasonably priced and easy to use. You will naturally be limited to the types of beer that you can make using these kits, but the experience will be worth the effort, and the beer will excellent.

If you find you enjoy your new hobby of making beer then you will want to take the next step and learn more about the actual beer making process and the intricacies of each step of the brewing process.

Click Here for the Ultimate Beer Brewing Guide

Once you gain confidence making beer with different kits, you will feel more comfortable moving into creating beers from more advanced recipes. Regardless of which way you decide to go, you'll create a beer that you can share with your friends.

Brewing Beer

Before we discuss the actual "how to brew beer", it's important that you understand a few of the important terms that you will encounter as you get deeper into your hobby.
Base Malt: The main source of sugar for fermentation.
Fermentation: The process whereby yeast breaks down sugar into carbon dioxide and alcohol.
Fermenter: The container in which fermentation occurs.
Hydrometer: An instrument that measure specific gravity, comparing liquid density to that of water.
Oxidation: A negative effect upon beer taste by the presence of oxygen in fermented beer, giving the beer a stale taste and aroma.
Priming: Adding fermentable sugar to finished beer to carbonate the beer in the bottle.
Wort: Unfermented beer. Produced after the mashing process.

Now, armed with these improvements to our vocabulary, we can discuss process on how to make beer at home. There are many different recipes that you can follow when you brew beer at home. Each one will have slight, perhaps major, differences in the type and the amount of the ingredients.

The typical batch of homebrew beer, including those processed using beer making kits, contains about five gallons. This is equivalent to about four dozen 12-ounce bottles of beer. Although the process and timing may vary, the equipment used and the process flow will be pretty much the same, as described below.
1. Fill a large bucket or pot with the amount of water specified in your recipe and bring to a boil.
2. Add the malt extract and hops to the water, let the mixture return to a boil, and boil for the specified time, which can vary from fifteen minutes to one hour.
3. Let the wort cool to the pitching temperature, the temperature at which fermentation takes place.
4. Add the yeast to enable the fermenting process.
5. Transfer the wort into the fermenting bucket, and stir it vigorously to aerate it.
6. Insert your stopper and fermentation lock, and allow the fermentation to continue for the specified time to turn the sugars into alcohol.
7. When fermentation is complete, it's time to begin bottling the brew.

Bottling and Capping
It's now time to bottle your beer for storage and future enjoyment by you and your friends. Bottling also requires some choices. There are three popular bottle styles that you can choose from the Grolsh type, which has a handle and a flip-top gasketed cap; the flip top bottle, which also has a flip top; and the crown top bottle, which takes the traditional bottle cap. The first two choices, which give your bottled beer an expensive European look, are the most expensive of the three choices. The latter choice with the traditional caps is the least costly and the most commonly used by home brewers. Brown bottles are recommended because they better protect the beer from the damaging effects of light. Although the following capping instructions apply to the crown cap types, the other two types of bottles are similarly prepared.

1. Ensure that all bottles and caps have been thoroughly cleaned and sanitized.
2. Make sure that you have enough bottles for five gallons of beer.
3. Prepare your priming solution (a solution of water and sugar to encourage the beers carbonation in the bottle).
4. Position your bottling bucket on the floor with your fermenter on a higher bench or chair.
5. Attach your transfer hose to the fermenter, and place the other end into the bottling bucket.
6. Pour the priming solution into the bottling bucket.
7. Transfer the beer from the fermenter into the bottling bucket. Stop the transfer before the sediment in the bottom of the fermenter begins to enter the hose.
8. You're now done with the fermenter. Move it and place the filled bottling bucket where the fermenter was sitting.
9. You can now transfer the beer in the bottling bucket to the bottles.
10. When the bottles are full, cap them immediately to protect the beer from oxidation.
11. Wait for at least two weeks, and then enjoy your home made brew.

Storing the beer
Home brewed beer can be stored for up to one year in a cool area. Temperatures between 35 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit are advised. Heat and light are beer's arch enemies. Even fluorescent lights can cause deterioration.

Cleaning the Equipment
Beer is a food product. Its manufacture, even if done at home, should be a clean and sanitary process. Any contamination can ruin the flavor of the beer, and could make your or your friends sick. To ensure a quality product, it's important to understand the difference between the meaning of the word cleaning and the word sanitizing.

Cleaning removes dirt, dust, and other usually visible contaminants. Sanitizing removes the unseen, but ever present, bacteria and other micro-organisms. Wash all equipment with a good household detergent, using brushes where necessary. After cleaning, carefully rinse to remove all soap films from the equipment.

When you have completed cleaning the equipment, sanitize all surfaces that will come into contact with the beer. Household bleach works well as a sanitizer. Again, after sanitizing, carefully rinse all surfaces.

The Joy of Brewing Home Beer
Brewing beer at home can be an enjoyable and fulfilling hobby. The simple act of sharing your home brew with friends and guests enhances the bonds of friendship. The fact that you pursue this hobby with enthusiasm will foster admiration from some.

The hobby itself enables you to make new friends that share your love of brewing. There are many local or Internet based organizations of societies that offer a venue for meeting those with similar interest. By joining these organizations, you can increase your knowledge about brewing and create new and lasting friendship often shared by those who share a common interest. Some of these organizations have periodic competitions in which you can participate to advertise your skills, perhaps even become a brewing champion!