How to Brew Beer

By CindyM, eHow Member Rating

Brew Your Own Beer

Rate: (10 Ratings)

Do you love beer? If so you may want to try brewing this golden elixer yourself. There are kits to easily get you started and once you get the hang of it you can make your own unique brew from scratch. Here are some simple steps for creating your first home brewed beer

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Beer bottles
bottle caps
bottling bucket
siphon hose
racking cane
bottle filler
1 to 2 ounces of bleach
5 gallons of water
1 cup of water
3/4 cup of corn sugar
vodka

Boiling Beer

Step 1

Soak your malt extract. Soaking your malt extract cans in hot water for 20 minutes will soften the malt extract and make it easier to pour.
Step 2

Boil your water. Bring 1 1/2 gallons of water to a boil in your kettle.
Step 3

Mix the malt extract and water. Once the water has come to a full boil, add the malt extract and stir thoroughly until all the malt extract has dissolved. This mixture is known as wort.
Step 4

Return the kettle to the stove top. Boil the wort for an additional 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Step 5

Five to 10 minutes before boiling is finished add your hop pellets to the wort.

Sanitizing

Step 1

Sanitize your primary fermentor. Use a mixture of 1 ounce of bleach to 1 gallon of water and, with a new sponge, sanitize the fermentor and its lid thoroughly.
Step 2

Fill your sanitized fermentor with 3 gallons of fresh, cold water and place the lid on.

Cooling and Fermenting Beer

Step 1

Add wort to fermentor. Carefully pour the boiled wort into the fermentor, being careful not to splash yourself. Let the wort cool to room temperature.
Step 2

Rehydrate yeast. Follow the direction on the yeast package and hydrate your yeast.
Step 3

Quickly add yeast to wort. As quickly as possible remove the lid on the fermentor and pour in your hydrated yeast. Do not stir. Replace lid and attach the fermentation lock onto the fermentor.
Step 4

Add enough water to the air lock to fill it half way up.
Step 5

Leave your beer alone. This is the fermentation stage. During this stage your beer should remain in a dark, room temperature area where it won't be disturbed. Look for rapid bubbling of carbon dioxide in the fermentation lock as a sign of good fermentation. This stage should take 14 days to complete.

Bottling Your Own Beer

Step 1

Sanitize your bottles and caps. Mix one to two ounces of bleach into five gallons of water and soak your beer bottles for a minimum of fourty-five minutes. Use either vodka or a very weak solution of bleach and water to sanitize your caps.
Step 2

Rinse your bottles and caps thoroughly. Be sure there is nothing left in the bottles before filling.
Step 3

Sanitize your tools. Use the bleach and water mixture to sanitize your bottling bucket, siphon hose, racking cane and bottle filler.
Step 4

Dissolve corn sugar into one cup of water. Place on the stove and boil for ten minutes.
Step 5

Place fermentor on your kitchen counter. Place the bottling bucket on the floor under the fermentor.
Step 6

Pour the corn sugar solution into the bottling bucket.
Step 7

Slowly siphon the beer from the fermentor into the bottling bucket. Leave some beer at the bottom of the fermentor so you don't siphon the sediment. Put the bottling bucket up on the counter when full.
Step 8

Attach the racking cane, siphon hose, and bottle filler to the bottling bucket.
Step 9

Begin filling each beer bottle. Leave some room in the neck of the beer bottle when filling. Cap each bottle as you fill it.
Step 10

Place beer bottles in a cool, dark place. Let them sit for two weeks if possible. After that you're ready to enjoy the rewards of brewing your own beer.

Comments

kohuether said

Flag This Comment

on 4/30/2009 Admittedly I have never brewed beer. But I just have to comment on some of the negative comments - aren't there several ways of doing things? With cooking anything, each person has their own way. Are these instructions necessarily wrong?

HemiPowered said

on 7/18/2007 10 minutes this only adds to the aroma. If you want a slightly bittered beer or have a bitter taste add an ounce and boil for an hour. 30 minutes till end of boil for flavor and if you want to add aroma, boil another ½ to full ounce 10-15 minutes till end of boil. Before continuing to seemly insult this article with more corrections, save yourself the headache of trial and error and read up on it first (this article doesn’t come close to being good advice), don’t pour good money down the drain along with that bad beer.

on 7/18/2007 If using only cold water to cool, make sure the water is first boiled/sanitized and as close to freezing as possible) as 80-130 degree wort is very inviting to all kinds of bad bacteria. Using ordinary tap water that has not be boiled/santized can cause an infection as many in-house water sources contain bacteria. Another vital step is to aerate your wort (at no more than 75 degree F) prior to placing the airlock on for the fermentation process. If this is not done you may not even get fermentation and if it does it maybe a slow starter which can increase the chances of an infection (bacteria, fungus) as the wort contains lots of sugar which will provide food for many other microbes if the yeast doesn't take charge. Also stating to add hops doesn’t say much. If you are looking for a Budweiser taste/bitterness add an ounce or two during the last 25-30 minutes. If you add to the last

on 7/18/2007 Wish I could give your article a better rating and I really don’t want to be a jerk but have to protect the public from following your poorly written directions that can cost them money. You need to boil your water to 212 degrees then add your extract and boil for at least an hour to allow to hit its hot break which will allow the beer to hold a healthy head (approximately ½ gallon will boil off so boil 2 ½ gallons to start). You are making a 5 gallon batch so you will then add 3 gallons (2 ½ gallons was reduced to 2 gallons over an hour and adding 3 gallons will bring to 5). Cooling wort using an ice bath or using wort chiller as getting the temperature to 75 degrees within not much longer than 25-30 minutes is a "vital" step.