Brewing beer yourself – How to make your own favorite drink with a hop flavor

Brewing beer yourself – How to make your own favorite drink with a hop flavor

If you want to brew your own beer yourself, this should be both a part of science and an art. The process requires a precise and calculated aspect, but at the same time the rules and possible limits can be blurry. This can be the reason for a personal interpretation and the creation of a really unique beer. However, that may sound like brewing might be difficult, doesn’t it? Well, it is not. Brewing beer is based on a simple process, the roots of which go back 12000 years. Essentially, all you have to do is heat water and barley, boil and cool the mixture with hops, and then ferment and carbonate with yeast. If this looks easy enough for you, we’ll go a little deeper every step in this post.

How can you brew your own beer?

So you decided to make your own beer drink at home. Now you are about to take on a miraculous and rewarding task that is almost as old as humanity itself. However, there is no reason to be intimidated by it. Although people have been brewing beer for millennia, the basic process has largely remained the same over the centuries. So in this article we will try to explain what equipment you need for the brew to get started. We’ll also walk you through the basic steps to brewing a pilsner. First of all, we can divide homebrewing into two types: brewing barley or extract. Beer is made from the sugar of malted, partially sprouted grains. During the entire brewing process, the master brewer extracts this sugar from ground grains in a series of steps.

If you use extracts in the brew, these can be pre-made malt extracts. You can also skip the sugar extraction process entirely. Brewing the extract is a good place to start for most new home brewers because the process requires minimal beer equipment and procedures while still producing quality beer. However, it is the type of brewing that we will focus on here. You may know someone who has turned their entire basement or garage into a professional brewery. This can be full of shiny tanks and barrels, welded pipelines, washing stations and refrigerators with taps and always spouts nice, foamy beer. But rest assured that you don’t have to invest a fortune if you want to brew your own beer. The easiest way is to buy a simple set. You can add fancier brewers anytime after brewing for a while and deciding that this is something you want to do.

Ingredients and equipment for beer production

After you take care of the equipment, we’ll go over the main ingredients of the beer. There are only four: hops, barley (and / or malt extract), yeast and water. First, collect your brewing equipment. You need a brew kettle, fermentation tub + airlock, funnel (optional), disinfectant, suction tube, spoon to stir or brew your own set. Once you have all the necessary equipment and ingredients, the first step will be cleaning and disinfecting.

First of all you have to bring all devices into the appropriate state. This step is crucial. Absolutely everything that comes into contact with your beer during the brewing process should be properly cleaned with a cleaning agent and then disinfected with a solution approved for hygiene. We recommend varieties without rinsing, as they simplify the process and remain effective at the same time. Once you’ve properly cleaned and disinfected your equipment, it’s time to start brewing.

Brew your own recipe

So you’ve looked at the equipment and key ingredients you need for the home brewery. Now you can discover a classic recipe for a Bock beer below. You are probably also wondering what kind of beer it is. We have selected an alternative variant that involves a hybrid variety. You can choose the barley or the extract as well as the hops yourself as you like.

If you use the beer brewing set yourself, it should at least contain liquid malt, grains in a grain sack and hops. With 5.5% volume of alcohol, the alcohol content does not overwhelm the malty taste, while the aroma of the hops comes into its own. This special recipe is perfect for beginners, hobby brewers and is also suitable for experienced brewers due to its balance.

Brew your own instructions

• Always read all instructions before you start brewing, so you can be sure you have everything on hand (equipment, ingredients) and fully understand the process.
• Start by heating 600 ml of water in your brew kettle.
• Then put the crushed special grains in the grain bag.
• Tie a knot at one end of the grain sack and leave room for the grains to loosen in the sack.
• Place the grain sack in the water.
• Then slowly increase the temperature to 60 ° C to 80 ° C.
• Let the grains steep at this temperature for 20 minutes.
• Take the grain sack out of the pot.
• Do not squeeze the bag. Just let the liquid drain from the bag into the pot.
• You now officially have the flavor for an unfermented beer. However, there are a few other steps to fully prepare your wort for fermentation.

Start cooking

• Bring the wort to a boil first, making sure that it doesn’t boil over. Once you have reached a boil, remove the pot from the heat source.
• Stir the wort until the malt extract has completely dissolved. Any undissolved extract that remains on the bottom of the pot can burn.
• For this reason, make sure that you have stirred thoroughly before bringing the wort back to the boil.
• Let your wort boil for 55 minutes and then add the aromatic hops. Since you only cook it for five minutes, hops do not add bitterness, but contribute to the aroma and fragrance of the finished beer.
• First cool the wort. After boiling for almost 60 minutes, you must bring the wort to below 37 ° C as soon as possible. There are many ways to do this, and one of them is the ice bath. To do this, fill half of your sink with cold tap water and then with ice and place the pot in it.
• If you haven’t already done so, now is a good time to disinfect the airlock, hose, and hydrometer. Your seasoning is susceptible to microbes at this point. Everything that can come into contact with it should be hygienized.

fermentation

• Now the cooled beer wort is siphoned into your primary vessel for fermentation.
• Then fill it with enough cold water so that you have about 1.4 liters. You should also aerate the wort by either using a diffusion stone or simply rocking the fermenter back and forth once the lid is in place.
• Now you can use your hydrometer to measure the original gravity of the wort, which essentially indicates a number of fermentable sugars present. You should record the number as you will use it later with your final gravity measurement to calculate the volume alcohol of your beer.
• It’s time to put your yeast in the wort. During fermentation, the yeast consumes the malt sugar and produces alcohol with CO2. The temperature of the wort should be around 30 ° C before the yeast is opened. However, it is best to follow the instructions on the package.
• After you have opened the yeast, close the fermentation tank tightly, attach the renovated airlock and fill it with water.
• First place the fermentation tank in a remote, temperature-stable place. You should see activity within 24-48 hours when CO2 begins to escape from the airlock. It takes a week or two for the fermentation to complete. During this time, you should not do anything to avoid disrupting the process.
• Some brewers go through a secondary fermentation step after about a week. The beer is sucked off into a secondary fermentation tank like a glass balloon and conditioned for one or two more weeks. This step is optional. However, the advantages include that the beer becomes more clear, which leads to less sediment once you have bottled.

Determine alcohol content and fill beer

Use your hydrometer to read the final gravity of the beer. You can calculate the approximate alcohol content of the beer using the following formula: alcohol content = (OG-FG) × 131.25 So if you use your goals for this bock beer you will get: (1.057-1.014) x 131.25 = 5.64 % Alcohol content. However, keep in mind that this calculation is only an approximation, but is the simplest method and is generally good enough if you brew your beer yourself.

Now scoop the finished beer into the filling bin. If the recipe requires bottling additives, such as base sugar, to be added to the bin, add them now, so those are the basic steps you can follow to make your own beer. After you’ve conditioned the whole thing, it’s time to share it with friends and family and brag about how you made it yourself.

Now you know the basic process for brewing your own beer at home. If you gain experience and confidence, you can work with several types of beer to improve your brewing skills. You can even add Irish moss to your drink to improve the clarity of the beer. However, homebrewing has many other aspects that you can master over time.

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