If you are among the millions of beer lovers in the world, you probably have tasted more than one brew variety. Different commercial beer brands have distinct tastes and you might be familiar with some of them.
You may even have found a brew variety that best appeals to your taste buds. Some beef aficionados want to take their love for this good stuff by brewing it at home.
Thanks to technology and innovative equipment, making homemade beer is easy to do. If you want to give your beer a personal touch, read on to learn how to make it at home.
Prepare Your Brewing Equipment
Depending on how much available space you have at home, you can select the type of brewing equipment you can gather. If you do not have enough space in your garage, you can purchase a compact home brew kit to make a few bottles at a time.
A starter kit is an excellent option, especially if you are starting with making homemade beer.
A compact set of brewing equipment allows you to control and monitor the ingredients and the brewing environment and create a satisfactory product for the first time.
As you get more familiar with the process of brewing, you can upgrade your equipment by having individual pieces of brewing kettle, fermenter with airlock, auto-siphon, stir spoon, funnel (optional), and sanitiser.
Speaking of sanitiser, make it a point to sanitise everything the beer touches, especially after the boiling process.
You don’t want to pick up unwanted flavours in your finished product.
Prepare and Brew the Ingredients
For starters, the basic ingredients are malt extract, brewer’s yeast (1 teaspoon), and white sugar (6-7 cups) or corn sugar (8-9 cups).
To start brewing, boil seven litres of water in your large brewing pot and add one can of malt extract. Stir and let steep uncovered for 20 minutes.
Add sugar and stir to dissolve. Prepare a 10-gallon plastic pail (carboy) and fill it with 10 litres of fresh, cold water. It will be used in the fermenting process, which comes right after.
Ferment the Mixture
As soon as the sugar is fully dissolved, pour the pot’s contents into the fermenter (carboy). Pour the contents quickly or “splash” it around the carboy to add air to the mixture. Yeast rapidly grows when more air is added to the mixture.
Next, add purified water to cool down the mixture. Sprinkle the yeast into the mixture and stir thoroughly. Seal the carboy and store it in a cool, dark place for 6-10 days.
Bottle the Beer
Test the fermented mixture by tasting a sample. It should not taste sweet and there should be little to no bubbling action in the beer.
If it is ready, place the carboy on a table and prepare the bottles below the table for transferring the beer.
Make sure the bottles are thoroughly cleaned and put two level teaspoons of sugar into each bottle. Siphon the beer into the bottles and leave a small air space in the filled bottle.
Cap the bottles and store them for about two weeks to carbonate.
Making beer at home can be simple with the right equipment and ingredients. Now, you can enjoy the beer that you made at home. It can be an enjoyable hobby, and you can experiment with new flavors to add to your beer. If you are interested, get started with making your homemade beer now.
