How to Brew Your Own Beer at Home

You no doubt have enjoyed drinking with pals in public pubs. Quite likely, you perhaps have wondered whether you could homebrew your own stuff at home. You are not alone. Home brewing is a hobby to many, an obsession to some, and a way of life to several others. Despite the false common knowledge that making your own brew at home is impossible, the truth is that it is so easy to make your own spiky drink within the confines of your lounge. If you can make your own cheese or snacks in your kitchen, then you make your own crisp beer, all by yourself. As such, this article offers you tips on how to make your own beer at home from an extract recipe. There are many home brewing techniques on how to brew your own beer at home. For your to succeed in home brewing, you need to understand the various home brew recipes. To know how to treat yourself with something personally customized to your taste, read on.

To begin with, you ought to ensure that you have the necessary ingredients and equipment that you need for the brewing process. Apart from this, you need to have some basic knowledge of the brewing procedure. However, this should not put you off if you are brewing for the first time. Many, just like you, felt unsure but they followed all the given instructions until they emerged with something quite to their taste. Just a little advice: beer brewing is not for those that think they know, it is for those do not know but are ready to be taught. Just be open-minded enough to follow instructions and the next few days you will be drinking something of your own making.

As they say, success is 90% preparation and 10% inspiration. The same applies in beer brewing. Preparing tasty beer will involve boiling, hops, malt, and water to come up with a sugary and grainy liquid. Into these we add yeast and fungus and we allow time to pass. When we allow time to pass, this becomes warm but flat beer. To this we add a bit of sugar and in a matter of weeks this becomes carbonated beer.

Note that fungus is supposed to convert the sugar in the beer into alcohol. For this to be possible, we have to create an environment that is conducive to the growth of this fungus or yeast. This yeast has to be left alone without any competition. Bacteria are an example of foreigners who would bring about this disruptive rivalry. Worse still, presence of bacteria means that your beer is contaminated and hence not fit for human consumption. Presence of bacteria would also ruin the fresh taste of beer. Such beer bottles would also issue some undesired pungent smell. As such, you need to ensure that you kettle is spotless clean. You should not worry too much about this since the presence of wort precludes possible proliferation of bacteria in the brewing vessel. If you want to embrace sanitizing solutions, then feel encouraged to do so. There are many sanitizing options at your disposal. And what is more, these sanitizers are easy to use.

The reason why you need a sanitizer is because it will keep your equipment clean and infection-free. Boil kettles will be required for boiling your wort and fermentation vessels will be required to ferment your beer. The fermentation lock prevents your beer from getting oxidized. A spoon is necessary for whirl-pooling and to prevent boil-overs. Further, you will require a hydrometer in order to know your original and final gravity. You will of course need bottles because you have to bottle your beer after it has been brewed. An auto siphon will help you transfer beer from one fermentation siphon to another. Bottle cappers and caps are important because you need to keep your beer safely sealed to avoid contamination and to aid the final brewing processes. After you have procured all these, you are at liberty to choose the best starter that you feel the most comfortable with.

As for the ingredients, you need malt, water, and yeast. You are advised not let yourself get fooled by this list. With only these, you will be in a position to make any beer you want, ranging from the most refreshing lager to the best stout.

First, it is important that you understand the essence of malt. In all brewing processes, the grains are allowed to sprout. The germinating process is stopped through kiln drying. The malting process motivates the proliferation of the amylase enzyme in the grain. The malting process converts the starch in the grains into sugars. Such sugars are then rinsed from the grain and the resultant liquid is known as wort. This wort is burned with hops and other ingredients. After this wort is boiled and cooled, it becomes the flavorsome beer you have been drinking in pubs.

However, many home brewers choose not to do the mashing procedure themselves. Liquid malt is extracted and dry malt extract are the concentrated outcomes of this process. Extract brewers then steep a small amount of specialty grains to get flavors and colors in the finished beer.

For those that are new to hops, they are some cone-shaped flowers of the Humulus Lupulus plant. They are added to the brewed beer to bring about the bitter delicious taste you experience when drinking beer. It is also added to bring about the different aromas and flavors that make beer outstandingly sweet. Hops also help preserve the beer and are good for keeping it from expiring too soon. Although the use of hops in the brewing process has been actively embraced today, it was first used in Germany and only began spreading to the other parts of the world in the sixteenth century. Before this, beers were preserved using other plants such as rosemary, heather, and spruce, among others.

Note that hops are grown in different varieties. They also contain alpha and beta acids. These acids add to the stability and bitterness of beer. They again contain a number of essential oils that contribute to the singularly striking aromas you feel in beers. Note that each variety of hops contributes to different qualities in beer. These various flavors are often classified as floral, grassy, flowery, spicy, etc. etc. If you want to do everything yourself, you can also opt to grow your own hops at home.

The early brewers forgot to include yeast among the ingredients involved in the brewing process. This ingredient is one of the most important since it the one that contributes to the fermentation process in brewing. There is a popular saying that brewers make wort but yeast makes beer. Without yeast, all the revelers in the world would not have beer. You can imagine how essential this ingredient is!

Yeast is simply a type of fungus. It is an organism that reproduces asexually. In places that have limited oxygen, these organisms consume sugars and issue out carbon dioxide and alcohol as waste products. This process is called fermentation. Just like the name indicates, the accumulation of these microorganisms is most at the top and at the bottom although the effect is spread throughout the wort.

Now that we have looked at the things that you need for the brewing process, let us look at the brewing process itself. First, begin by preparing the yeast. In this case, you are free to use either dry or liquid yeast. If you choose to use dry yeast, then be keen to activate the pack by breaking the inner pouch with some firm smack. After this, you should let it incubate within room temperature for about three hours. If you have dry yeast instead, just allow it to warm to room temperature. Since you will be using it in the latter brewing stages, you are advised to set some aside.

After you have prepared your yeast and kept some aside, you are supposed to fill the brew kettle with about two and half gallons of water. You should not worry about the water since any safe drinking water can do. Finally put the grains while in a muslin bag into the water and ensure that water is not beyond 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Note that excess heat will result in excessive bitterness.

At this point, you are advised to add malt. As you embark on boiling malt, you will notice some tremendous changes in your brewing kettle. You will notice that some foamy substance is forming on top of the kettle and it will be slowly rising and covering your kettle. This foam is as a result of the proteins contained the malt. After some few minutes, say five to twenty, the heavy mass of proteins will settle to the bottom of the kettle.

Many home brewers keep on asking whether or not they should cover their kettle. Although you can cover your brewing kettle, you should note that covering may ruin the desired flavor. Worse still, it may introduce other flavors you did not look forward to having. As such, you should not be motivated by the sheer fact that you will achieve the boiling point easier by covering your kettle. You would rather wait longer and have your beer tasting exactly like you had desired than to hurry everything up and you end with something you did not desire. Again, beer brewing is people who are patient enough. The process is long but every step matters.

After you have added malt, you are now free to add hops. Note that there order in which these hops are added. Although some drinks require you to add the hops one after another in a successive schedule, you may be required to put them all at once in some other cases. The hop that is added before the others is the one that is meant to give your beer that much-desired crisp bitter taste. The hops that are added the last arte the ones that contribute to the flavor and the aroma.

Chilling is another important aspect when brewing your own beer at home. You should note that yeast is highly temperature specific. Note that temperatures that are either too cold or too hot are going to kill the yeast. As such, you are advised to keep the yeast within temperature ranges that do not kill it since there can be beer without yeast. Since it may not be easy to determine which temperatures are the best for the yeast in your beer, you are advised to put your brewing kettle in some cold water. This is a sure way of keeping the yeast active. There is no room for guesswork since you may end up spoiling everything.

Now that your wort has been prepared, it is time to transfer it to the fermentation vessel. This is a delicate procedure. First add two gallons of water into your fermenter. After this, pour the cold wort. After this, add some cool water. Finally, you are advised to seal the fermenter. Using a hydrometer, measure the current gravity and the final one. Using hydrometer to measure the gravity before and after fermentation will help you know whether or not the fermentation process is complete. With the knowledge whether or not fermentation is complete, you will be able to estimate the alcohol content in your beer. After this procedure, you need to give your beer about two weeks.

Since you are brewing your own beer, you will be in a position to determine whether or not to pitch your beer. Pitching is simply adding some more yeast. After pitching, you are advised to seal your bottles and keep them in a dark place.

After two to three days, the fermentation process begins. You are again at liberty to choose whether or not to do secondary fermentation. However, since proper and thorough fermentation contributes to the taste and flavor, you should do secondary fermentation. In this process, you just transfer the already fermented beer into a new fermenter.

When the second fermentation is complete, you can now bottle your beer. Ensure that the bottles are clean and sanitized to avoid spoiling the whole process after investing so much in it.