What Do You Need to Make Beer?
Making beer requires, at a minimum, malt extract, as well as containers for fermentation, a siphon assembly, cleaning and sanitizing solutions, testing equipment, and bottles and caps for the finished product. Dextrose, also known as corn sugar, or another fermentable ingredient, as well as yeast, are also required for fermentation. The ingredients and the equipment are readily available from home-brewing shops or online. Does this Spark an idea?
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Ingredients
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A standard beer-making ingredients kit comes with everything a home brewer needs except the fermentable component, which can be dextrose, brewing sugar, or a combination of sugar and other ingredients designed to give the beer a specific flavor. More experienced beer-makers can also start with malt extract and use their own combination of additives to make their own customized brew. Carbonation drops can be used to give the beer bubbles.
Cleaners and Sanitizers
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Equipment should be cleaned with a sanitizing solution consisting of a blend of detergent and chlorine. Immediately before using, equipment should be sanitized with sodium or potassium metabisulphite and rinsed.
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Primary Fermentation
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For this first stage in the brewing process, brewers need an 8-gallon food-grade plastic container with a lid. This will be used to hold six gallons of water, along with the malt from the beer-making kit and 2.2 pounds of corn sugar or another fermentable ingredient. Yeast will also be added.
Other equipment needed at this stage includes an airlock with a bung (rubber seal). The airlock should be filled with a sulphite solution. A thermometer is needed to check the temperature of the wort (concentrated liquid) before adding the yeast. Beer-making also requires a hydrometer to check the specific gravity of the liquid at various stages. And you can't make beer without water.
Secondary Fermentation
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Secondary fermentation requires a siphon assembly to transfer the beer from the primary fermentation container, and a 6-gallon carboy, which is a bottle-shaped glass or plastic container. The siphon assembly should include a rigid tube as well about 5 feet of flexible plastic hose.
Bottling
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For six gallons of beer, you will need 66 clean 12-ounce bottles, the siphon assembly, a clean and sanitized primary fermenter (the plastic container used in the first step) and an additional 7 ounces of corn sugar, as well as a clean and sanitized spoon or stir stick for stirring the sugar into the beer. Sanitized bottle caps will also be needed.
Other equipment used can include a bottle capper, either an adjustable bench model or a hand model. Brewers also might wish to have a blast bottle washer or a bottle drainer to make cleaning easier.
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References
- Photo Credit big beer glass image by Goran Mulic from Fotolia.com
