Five Easy Steps to Brewing

Greetings, Alehounds--Alemonger here.

You know, for a long time I wanted to be a homebrewer, but I held off because I thought it was such an involved process that I was scared away. I suspect many budding homebrewers are in the same boat, so I want to share some of my thoughts on how to begin.

I'd first like to address the notion that homebrewing is or has to be difficult. Sure, it can be as complicated or involved as you want, but in its most basic form it's as easy as cooking, and just as rewarding! I posted a basic explanation of how beer is made a couple of posts ago, so check that out along with these five easy steps, and you could be having your first homebrew in just a few days.

Five Easy Steps to Homebrewing

• Equipment.  It all starts with selecting the right equipment. Home brewing will not be successful if you are not armed with the right equipment. Now don't be distracted by the costs associated with buying these items--for less than $100 you can have your own basic set of tools that you can use to make many batches of great beer. At a minimum, to start out you'll need a brewing bucket, air lock (which lets carbon dioxide out, but doesn't let outside air come back in), bottles, and a big cooking pot--two gallons or bigger.  You should have a hydrometer as well.  There is more equipment available out there that you can get later, but this will get you started.

• Ingredients. You can either buy the ingredients separately, or pick up an ingredient kit from one of the many homebrew supply companies out there. If you're a first time brewer, I'd suggest using a kit for whatever style of beer you find most appealing. The kit should include the malt extract, hops, and yeast at a minimum, plus a set of instructions on how to use these ingredients. Additionally, the kit may include a mesh muslin or cheesecloth bag for infusing the hops, brewing sugar for the bottling process, specialty grains, and spices or flavorings if applicable to your beer.

• Preparing the beer. This is where the cooking part comes in. Start by making sure all your equipment is cleaned and sanitized. I cannot overstress the importance of cleanliness in brewing--there's nothing more disappointing than spending time and money to make a great beer, only to have it contaminated by bacteria or wild yeasts. Following the directions that come with your kit, start with one to two gallons of water in your cooking pot and heat it to the proper temperature. You will then add the malt extract and bring to a boil. Once the wort (that's what it's called before it becomes beer!) is boiling, add the hops and other ingredients according to the schedule in the instructions--the boil should go for about an hour. It's very important during process this that you stay close and keep stirring--all that sweet syrupy goodness can make quite a nasty mess if it boils over, and if you look away even for a minute, chances are that it will! Once the boil is done, it is important that you cool down the wort as quickly as you can. More advanced brewers will use fancy counterflow chilling aparatus, but when I started out, I used a simple ice-water bath in the kitchen sink. When the wort is cool enough, pour it into the brewing bucket, add cold water to make the proper volume, and add the yeast--this step is called pitching the yeast. Cap the bucket and add the airlock.

• Monitoring the fermenting process. This is where the yeast does its job. There is little to do but wait during this process, which takes anywhere from a week to a month, depending on a host of factors. Just make sure the temperature stays constant, and check daily to see if carbon dioxide is still bubbling out of the air lock.  When this stops, or slows down to about one bubble a minute, it's time to check the beer with a hydrometer. We'll talk about this tool in another post, but for now, just use it to measure the specific gravity of your beer. When the reading is the same on two consecutive days, you're ready to bottle.

• Priming and Bottling. There are lots of options for packaging your beer. When I started out, I reused 12 ounce plastic water bottles, which worked great. You can also purchase or re-use glass beer bottles. Some advanced brewers will even keg their beer, which saves time. Priming the beer means adding a small amount of sugar to the beer to "wake up" the yeast cells for a small amount of fermentation. The primed beer is then put into bottles, which are capped tightly. Meanwhile, the yeast cells consume the priming sugar and make carbon dioxide, which goes into solution inside the capped bottles, creating carbonation. This process takes about a week or so. After that, chill a few down, open one up, and enjoy!