Three Simple Steps For Home Beer Making That Anyone Can Follow
Making beer at home uses the same chemistry and principals that a micro or commercial brewery would use. Follow these simple steps with slight modifications for your beer kit, and you’ll be drinking home brew in 2 weeks! Typically home made beer is brewed in batches of 2-5 gallons at a time. You can start your fermenting process tonight, let the wort ferment for a week and then bottle this first batch. that very same night, you can brew up another wort to start fermenting. In this way, you can always have fresh new brews ready to go for bottling and drinking.
The first step is brewing the wort. This is can be done entirely from scratch on your stovetop, or you can buy a starter can of “pre-hopped” malt (more about this later) to speed the process and make it a little less messy. At the end of this step, you’ll have the foundation of your future brew. Using a sterilized scoop or spoon, pour a little into a glass and let it cool down. Take a sip…can you taste the future?
The next step is to transfer the wort into the fermenter. A fermenter has a few pieces to it that you can assemble separately, or buy as a ready to assemble kit like the Mr. Beer fermenter. The fermeter is a 2-5 gallon glass or plastic container with a vented lid preventing air borne bacteria and mold spores from entering the liquid brew, but also allowing the gasses that are produced escape from the fermenter so that it doesn’t build up gas pressure and explode
Step 3 is bottling your beer! It takes place after a week or so of fermentation during which time the sugars and yeast from the original wort have run their course, producing alcohol as a byproduct. The higher the sugar content in the wort, the more alcohol will be produced. However, at this stage, the beer is “flat” with no bubbles…remember that we had to vent the gasses from the fermenter during the previous step.
When we bottle the beer, a small amount of sugar is added to each bottle and the fermented wort is siphoned off into each bottle which is then capped and allowed to rest for another week or more. During this time the remaining yeast produces more carbon dioxide bubbles…these are the bubbles that are released when the bottle is opened producing that nice foamy head and helping a fresh cold beer feel great when it hits your lips and tongue.
Author: Casey McCoy
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Duty tariff