Beer Brewing Kit Directions

Beer brewing kits make the process of brewing beer easier than ever.

Beer brewing kits are designed to make the process of brewing quality beer at home as simple as possible. These kits generally come with all of the required ingredients as well as recipe-specific instructions. However, if the instructions are lost, there is a general procedure for making quality beer out of virtually any type of brewing kit. Before attempting to brew, make sure you have all of the needed brewing, fermenting and bottling equipment. Does this Spark an idea?

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5 gallon brew pot
5 plus gallon fermentation bucket or carboy
Airlock
Spoon
Siphon hose
Thermometer
Cleaning solution (scentless dish detergent will work)
No-rinse sanitizer
50 or so empty bottles

Instructions

- 1
  
  Clean all of the brewing equipment using a scentless dish detergent or a cleaning solution. Rinse thoroughly with warm water to remove any trace of the cleaning liquid.
- 2
  
  Sanitize all of the brewing equipment. Fill a sink or a fermenting bucket with cool water and add the desired amount of no-rinse sanitizing solution to this water. The sanitizing solution's packaging should tell you how much to add. Soak all of the small equipment in this solution for 10 minutes. Thoroughly wash the larger equipment using a rag soaked in sanitizing liquid. If your equipment is not properly sanitized, unwanted bacteria can grow in your beer, ruining its flavor.
- 3
  
  Bring 2 to 3 gallons of water to a boil in your brew pot. If your kit came with grains and a grain bag, put the grains in the grain bag and let them steep for half an hour at around 150 degrees Fahrenheit before bringing the water to a boil. The steeping process is similar to making tea.
- 4
  
  Pour all of the malt extract, both liquid and dry, into the boiling water. In order to avoid boil over, remove the brew pot from the heat source when adding any ingredients.
- 5
  
  Add the bittering hops to the boil. Most brewing kits have the hops labeled. Let the wort, the name for the concoction in your brew pot, boil for 55 minutes.
- 6
  
  Add the aroma and flavoring hops and let the wort boil for an additional 5 minutes.
- 7
  
  Remove the brew pot from the heat after a total of 60 minutes of boiling. Cool the wort down to 75 degrees Fahrenheit by placing the entire brew pot in a sink filled with cold water. This will take close to an hour.
- 8
  
  Pour 3 gallons of room temperature water and the cooled wort into the fermentation vessel. Remove the sanitizing solution first if you used the fermenter as a vessel for it.
- 9
  
  Take the temperature of the wort in the fermenter. If the temperature is between 65 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit, open the yeast packet and sprinkle the contents on top of the wort. Stir or shake the fermenter vigorously for 5 minutes to aerate the wort.
- 10
  
  Place the lid on the fermenter and place the airlock in the hole on the lid. If your lid doesn't have a hole for an airlock, just set the lid on top of the fermenter. Carbon dioxide is a byproduct of the fermentation process and must be allowed to escape your fermenter in some way. Set the fermenter in a temperature controlled area -- 65 to 75 degrees for ales and 45 to 55 degrees for lagers -- for 10 to 14 days.
- 11
  
  Wash and sanitize all of the bottling equipment you are going to use, including the bottles.
- 12
  
  Prepare the priming sugar that came with the kit by boiling it in about 2 cups of water for 5 minutes. Add this sugar to the fermenter or bottling bucket (if you are using one). If using a bottling bucket, siphon the beer into it.
- 13
  
  Siphon the beer from the fermenter or bottling bucket to the bottles. Different bottling bucket set ups have different ways of achieving this. Try not to siphon much sediment into the beer bottles.
- 14
  
  Store the beer for 2 to 4 weeks to carbonate and age.