How to Make Beer in 12 Easy Steps for Home Brew Beer and Homemade Brewing Recipes

Do you know how to make beer? Home brew beer doesn't need to be difficult, nor does it have to be on the same scale as commercial beer brewing. With our easy beer making instructions and home brew beer recipes there should be no more mistakes. In 12 easy steps you too can soon be enjoying your own homemade beer.

Making homemade beer is lots of fun! If beer brewing was done back in the times of the Ancient Egyptians, then it must have been a simple process! And it is! Sometimes, people like to make things appear more difficult than they actually are. After reading our simple beer brewing instructions you will soon be brewing your own beer and drinking your own home brew!

How to Make Beer? Take some barley, and just before it starts to sprout roast it to make a malt. Boil this with water to extract the starch, let it ferment, add some hops and Bob's your uncle! You have made some homemade beer! See our step-by-step beer instructions below on how to make beer at home, and then try our homemade beer recipes.

HOW TO MAKE BEER AND BEER BREWING EQUIPMENT

These days, if you want to learn how to make beer at home or on your homestead, you can buy beer brewing kits that come complete to make up your first batch. They are not too expensive and will give you all the equipment necessary to make your home brew beer. beer homebrewing kit

* Fermenting Drum with Spigot
* Large Pot
* Spoon
* Bottle-Filling Tube
* Air Lock and Grommet
* Sanitizer
* Brush
* Thermometer
* Hand Capper
* Crown Seals
* Malt/Sugar Carbonation Drops
* Wort Concentrate
* Hydrometer

HOW TO MAKE BEER WITH HOME-BREW KITS

Home-brew kits can be obtained from home-brew suppliers, large supermarkets and some hardware stores. This is probably the easiest way to get to know how to make beer if you are a novice beer maker. Kits that include a fermenter with a clip-on lid are the best. All kits contain everything that a home-brewer needs to produce homemade beer. They contain full written instructions on how to set things up, with additional instructions printed on the labels of the ingredients. It is wiser to buy a home brew kit from a home brew supplier, as they are all experienced home brewers and will be more than willing to share their knowledge with you if you have any concerns or questions.

HOW TO MAKE BEER, THE PREPARATION

1. If your home beer brew kit hasn't been assembled, fit the spigot into the bottom of the fermenting drum. Fit the grommet to the lid. Now wash all the equipment you will be using very well with the sanitizing powder that comes with the kit. Use according to instructions on packet. Pour the mixed powder solution into the drum. Add air lock and mixing spoon and screw on the lid. Tilt the drum backwards and forwards so that all beer brewing equipment comes into contact with the sanitizing solution. Open up the tap and allow some of the solution to pour through. Now empty the drum of the solution. Do not rinse. If you don't have any of the sanitizing powder, take 5 gallons of water and add 5 tablespoons of chlorine bleach. Use to sterilize, empty out and rinse with boiling water to remove bleach.

HOW TO MAKE BEER, THE METHOD

boiling wort for brewing beer

2. Take a can of wort concentrate and place unopened in a pot. Add boiling water to pot in order to make the concentrate more pourable.

3. Take a large pot and add 2 litres of water and bring to the boil. Add this to your fermenting drum. Open the warm can of wort concentrate and pour into drum. Add contents of the malt/sugar bag and stir thoroughly.

4. When fully mixed, use the empty wort can to add enough water to drum until you have 20 litres of liquid for your beer brewing.

5. Stick the self-adhesive thermometer onto the side of the drum to test the temperature. The drum should be between 22-28°C before you add the yeast. If the liquid is too cold, you may want to add warm water to the mix to raise the temperature slightly. If you add the yeast when the temperature is too high, anything over 30 degrees and your yeast will end up causing your beer to taste really bad! You are looking for an ideal temperature of 25°C (75°F). When the ideal temperature of 25°C (75°F) has been reached, add more water, bringing it up to 23 litres.

6. Sprinkle the yeast on top of the wort solution. This will start the fermentation process for your beer brewing.

beer after 1st fermentation

7. Screw lid on tightly and push air lock into place. Partly fill the air lock with clean water. The lock allows carbon-dioxide to escape while stopping bacteria and wild yeast from entering. Set aside for 5-7 days allowing the mixture to ferment. Fermentation should start in 4 to 24 hours. If the weather is cold it could take a little longer. In this case, open the fermenter, stir it with a sterilised stirrer, close it back and observe for half a day. If the airlock still hasn't started bubbling the yeast was most likely dead. Add another pack of yeast. Additional yeast packs can be bought from your home-brew supplier.

You will see activity in the air lock where bubbles appear. It is time to bottle when there are no more bubbles, or when there is less than one bubble every 2 minutes. If you are not sure, use the hydrometer which came with your home brew kit. Failing to wait until this happens will cause your beer to explode if bottled too soon.

8. Sterilize your bottles, bottle caps and filler tube. This can either be done by filling the bottles with an inch or two of water and placing them in the microwave and allowing the water to boil, or by boiling them in pots of water on the stove. Usually, however, your home brew kit will also have some sterilizing powder. Sterilise by pouring approximately 0.1 - 0.2 liters of sterilising liquid into each bottle. Shake the bottles containing the liquid so that the fluid covers the intire surface inside the bottles. Rinse your bottles with clean water. The filler tube and bottle caps can be sterilized by placing it in a bowl of boiled water.

9. Fit the filler tube onto the spigot and open the spigot. Allow the beer to enter the tube but don't allow the beer to escape from the valve at the bottom. Draw off this beer into a cup and discard.

10. Now start filling the bottles. Some people like to add some sugar before filling the bottles. If you wish to do so, you can add one heaped teaspoon of caster sugar to each bottle.

11. Fill the bottles to just below the top, leaving about a 1/2 inch gap. Lower the bottle and the valve will close. It should be easy to control.

12. Once your bottles are filled, cap them with crown seals as soon as possible. Use a hand capper and a hammer to seal the cap on the neck of the bottle. Store the beer at an even temperature, in an upright position out of direct sunlight for at least 8 weeks before drinking.

During this time the beer will clear and gasses will develop. Beer made in this way has no expiry date. The longer you store it, the better it becomes.

TIPS ON HOW TO MAKE BEER

* Every bottle of beer will have a thin layer of sediment on the bottom of the bottle. This is normal and does not alter the taste of the beer in any way.

* Adding a kilogram of caster sugar per 22.5 litres of fermentable liquid will result in around 5 % extra alcohol per volume over using an average beer kit. Using only half a kilogram of sugar will result in around 3.5 % of alcohol per volume.

* Know how to read and use your hydrometer. The specific gravity at the time of bottling is around 1006, preferably lower. You can measure the specific gravity before the yeast goes in. That will give you the orginal specific gravity, minus the specific gravity at bottling (1006), divided by 7.36, plus 0.2, will give you the alcohol content of your finished home-brew. Knowing this, you can determine the final alcohol content at the start by adding the desired amount of sugar.

Now that you have read our beer making instructions and know how to make beer, it's time to get started!

FREE VIDEOS ON BEER MAKING INSTRUCTIONS, HOW TO MAKE BEER AND HOME BREWING

BOOKS ON HOW TO MAKE BEER AND HOMEMADE BEER BREWING KITS

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