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HOMEBREWING BEER
THE EASY WAY |
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We've been Homebrewing Beer and making Wine for
many years and really love doing this.
If you can follow a simple recipe and keep your
Homebrewing equipment clean , its very easy to make
great homemade beers & wines.
It doesn't cost a fortune to set yourself up
with the basic necessary equipment nor is this
an excessively time consuming Hobby if you don't
want it to be.
This is what we love about Homebrewing ... you
have choices , you're not stuck with one
absolute way of going about this.
If you're like us, and don't have a bunch of
extra time on your hands you can keep it
relatively simple. Or if you prefer ...you can
get really serious about this and set yourself
up with your own micro brewery.
Basically ,we look at Homebrewing Beer or making
wine in a similar manner to bread making. When
you're making bread you can go about it in a
simple way , and just use good store bought
flour ...or go the hand-crafted artisan route of
grinding your own grains and the like. In the
end ,either way produces a great loaf of bread
that's far superior to the stuff buy in the
store. |
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Homebrewing is no different ...you can produce a
wonderful tasting Beer or wine using a simple
canned no-boil kit ,which will save you a lot of
time and effort ...or go the more hand-crafted &
time consuming route of using separate
ingredients.
Just remember to have fun doing it
....follow the directions on your particular
batch and you'll do fine ...but also don't
be afraid to experiment a bit. We've made
some great Brews by adding on to a
recipe........
Here's how we make our beer....
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To make our Stout were using a 'Kit'
...which comes with everything we'll
need to make 5 gallons of Stout. We like
the Good beer making kits because you
get quality ingredients measured out and
ready to go... and also they're a good
deal money wise if you shop at a good
Homebrewing shop.
Actually we've found the Kits often cost
less then buying the ingredients
separately.... |
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The ingredients in
this Irish Dry Stout kit are....
Malt Extract : 6 lbs. British light Bulk
Malt and 1 lb. Extra Dark Dry Malt
Extract
Grains & Adjuncts : 1 lb. Roasted Barley
& 1 lb. Flaked Barley
Boiling Hops : 1-1/2 OZ. Northern
Brewers Hops & 1/2 OZ. Fuggle Hops
Finishing Hops : 1/2 OZ.Fuggle hops
Yeast : Irish Stout Liquid Yeast
Step 1 |
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Pour 2-1/2 gallons of cold
water into your pot (we use stainless for
our boiling kettle ) Then put your Grains
into a strainer bag and add that to your
pot. Bring the pot to almost boiling point ,
remove from heat ,cover and let sit for
10-15 minutes. |
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Remove the Grain Bag and
place the bag into a clean strainer over
your brew kettle ...pour 1-quart of hot
water over the grains and let it drip into
the kettle. Next ,you'll toss out the grains
and add the Malt syrup and dark malt powder
(DME)
...and stir that into the pot until its
completely dissolved.
Bring the pot to a boil. |
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Once the wort is boiling
...add the Boiling hops to a mesh bag and
submerge it into the wort.
Now you're going to boil your wort for an
hour ( with the lid on.) Don't be surprised
when your wort boils over ,because it will.
What I do is stay by the stove and the
minute I see the wort start to boil over , I
lift the pot up off the burner ...to let the
'suds' subside , then I put the pot back on
the burner with the lid slightly ajar....and
the heat turned down a bit. |
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5-10 minutes before the
boiling time is finished ...pull out the
Hops bag , let it drain into the wort . Then
dump the contents out and replace them with
your finishing Hops , submerge the bag into
the boiling wort ...and let it boil till
your wort has finished its boiling time. |
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Take the Pot off the stove
and let it cool for 20 minutes . You can
speed up the cooling process by putting the
pot in cold water or by using a Wort Chiller
(pic on right) . I normally use my wort
chiller , but since its winter here I just
put the pot outside to cool off. |
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Pour 2-1/2 Gallons of Cold
water into your clean & sanitized fermenter
. I'm using a plastic 6 gallon primary
fermentation bucket.....next pour in your
cooled Wort and add more cold water until
your 1-inch above the 5 gallon mark on the
fermenter. |
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Now add your yeast . If
you're using a dry yeast , sprinkle it on
top of your batch , don't stir. I'm using a
liquid yeast specific for and Irish stout ,
so I just pour in in.
Next put the lid on
the fermentation bucket and attach your
fermentation lock .
Within 24-48 hours ,depending on temperature
the yeast should start working and you'll see your fermentation lock
bubbling away... |
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Since this is a murky Brew
, I tend to always put it into a secondary
vessel to Clear it up before kegging.
To clarify the Stout I use 1 teaspoon of
unflavored Gelatin mixed into 1-cup of warm
water ( 180 F )... pour this solution into
the 5 gallon Carboy first before racking the
Beer into it.
In 24-48 hours the Stout will be ready to go
into the Keg |
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Today we transferred the
Stout into a keg ...and pressurized the keg
with CO2 ...
Now the Stout will age in the keg for 2
weeks ...
So far its taken 7 days to get to this point
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4-5 days before the 2 week
aging period is finished ...attach the CO2
gas line to the keg and give it 20-25 lbs.
PSI for the final 4-5 day aging period to
carbonate the Beer ....
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For this Batch of
Stout were using a canned no-boil
extract .
Since Canned extracts of this type
pretty much always need extra Malt , we
add 3 lbs of dried malt to the mix.
Typically you'd use 1-1/2-2 lbs.of dried
malt for a 5-gallon recipe ,but we like
a bit more alcohol to our Beer , so we
'Kick' it up a bit . And use 3 lbs. |
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Now you can go 2
different ways about this....add 3
gallons of warm water to the Brew Bucket
and dump in the dried & Liquid extracts
stir it all up good , then top it up
just above the 5-gallon mark on the brew
bucket with cold water , toss in your
yeast and that's that....or boil the
dried Malt extract a bit to smooth the
beers taste .
We do it both ways , if were in a big
hurry we just dump it all in and that
works fine....today I boiled the dried
extract with some hops for a nice
flavor....
First off ...The ingredients in
this Irish Stout are....
1 64oz. can Ironmaster Irish Stout , 3lbs.
Dark Dried Malt (DME) and 1 oz. Cascade
Hops
Yeast : Scottish Ale Liquid Yeast
NOTE on The No-Boil Canned
Extracts....if you buy a good brand of
these like Ironmaster ,Coopers etc. you
can make a very good tasting beer and
save yourself the time and mess of
Boiling. We like them when we want to
brew but don't have 2 hours to mess
around doing it.
But if you use a no-boil canned kit beer
like these ...No-Boil means don't boil
it. If you do you'll wind up with a very
bitter tasting beer because lots of
these kit are
pre-hopped ....
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Pour 2-1/2 gallons of cold
water into your pot (we use stainless for
our boiling kettle ) Heat it up a bit and
then pour in the 3-lb. bag of Dried Malt ,
stir it up good .....pop the hops into a
boil bag and put that into the pot and bring
to a boil ...let boil 25-30 minutes ( remove
Hops after 10 minutes of boiling) ...then
add a few gallons of cold water to your brew
bucket and dump the hot malt mixture into
it. |
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Pour the Can of pre-made
Stout mixture into the fermenter, stir well...then top it up
just past the 5-gallon mark with very cold
water and if the
mixture is cool enough pour in the Yeast.... |
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Pop the top of the
fermenter on ...add your vapor lock
....and let it do its thing ... |
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Siphon the Stout
into a keg ...and pressurized the
keg with CO2 to seal it up and
exhaust any oxygen from it ...
Now the Stout will age in the keg for 2
weeks ...
So far its taken 6 days to get to this point
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