Home Brewing Quick Course

Here is a quick and dirty homebrew how to.


To Bottle, or Keg.

If you have the money, and are certain you will keep on brewing, get a kegging system.

If you are trying it, bottle.

When bottling you have two choices.

A. Buy new bottles
B. Collect used bottles.


A.
The advantage of buying new is that you can buy flip top, Grolch style bottles that do not require caps. Or you can buy all the same type of home brewing bottles, and these kind will work with a “wing” capper. Wing cappers are cheap, and come with all most all starter kits.

The down side is that you will spend nearly $.35 for a bottle, and you will need around 52. Flip top bottle cost $2-$3 EACH. Caps are cheap, 144 for $3. I personally don’t like the 22 oz bottles. Only 12 oz’s fit in a glass, and the rest gets hot, or yeasty.

B.
Collecting bottles is pretty cheap. You CAN NOT use twist off bottles. If you buy say Warsteiner, Pilsner Urquel, Harp, Bass, or other high dollar beers, you will spend say $24 a case or $1.00 per bottle, so that would mean you are paying $.65 for the beer, over the cost of an empty, and you get to drink great beer. Your friends that you share beer with, may collect their empties for you. You are much less worried if someone keeps one of your collected bottles, where flip top, or “wing” capper specific bottles will be very hard to part with.

The down side is that you will have to buy a bench capper, but I prefer them anyway, the wing ones are scary. Wing cappers are like $11, but they use leverage off of the “collar” below the top of the bottle, so they only work with certain bottles. I got my bench capper for $15, and will cap ANY standard openning bottle. It is basically a table top press. You will also need to clean out the bottles, and remove the labels.

Bottle Prep: I would start this 1 yr to 6 mo. before brewing. What you do is when you finish a crown top (non-twist) bottle you rinse the last bit of beer out. Then place them in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket upright. You can get 16 bottles on the bottom of the bucket. Once you have a full batch of 16 take a pitcher, and add hot tap water into each bottle, and the bucket until all of the bottles are covered. I usually add soap as I add water to keep the bucket from getting funky, and to get a soap cleaning of the bottles. Let them soak for 1 hour, and then peal the labels. I took the labels and decoupaged my beer fridge with them with some paste (looks great). Once all of the labels are off rinse them out, let them stand, pour the last bit of water out, and put them in empty cases. I use Budweiser, and Bud light cases, because the expensive beers tend to come in paper 12 packs. A case of bottles box will work to, I just put four 6-pack holders in it.

Overall for bottling you will need 52 bottles per brew, caps, and a capper that is compatible.

Brewing equipment

POT: You will need a pot that can hold at least 4 gallons. It must be inert, not Aluminum, or Copper, they affect the beer. I bought mine at a hardware store. You might pony up for a thicker bottom pot to avoid scorching. I have electric burners, and get small hot spots in the bottom. Wouldn’t probably be a problem with gas. Mark the outside of the pot every half gallon. If you use cold tap water the thin pots will sweat showing exactly where the water level is.

Thermometer: I recommend an electronic roast thermometer. They make floating thermometers, but they don’t work well in low fluid levels, and are glass and hot glass is destined to break. The electronic roast thermometer I have has a 7” or so probe, a base, and a remote. You can program it with an alert. Say you are supposed to keep something at 150 degrees for 20 minutes, you can set an alert at 150, and when it crosses 150 you get an alarm. I really like this feature. The remote communicates with the base and will show you the temperature, and sound alerts. The only weakness of these thermometers is that the probe cannot be submerged all the way to the cord; I use a short string, and two clamps to suspend the probe over the wort with just the last inch in the liquid. I also use one of those small dial roast thermometers as back up, and while I cool the wort.

Spoon: to stir wort. I recommend a long stainless steel spoon.

Strainer: Muslin cloth or fine mesh strainer

Sanitizer: You can use bleach water, but it will discolor your clothes, and REALLY hurt the taste of the beer if you don’t get it all off. I recommend using one of the available powder sanitizers. They are cheap like $3 for 5 batches worth. You must clean and sanitize all equipment that will touch the wort, except the pot, and a stirring spoon, and anything else that touches the wort before it boils, they get sanitized during brewing

Scale: You can start with kits, but once you want to go free lance a scale is important. I bought a $29 one at Office max. You only need to weigh up to 5 pounds max .1 ounce at a time.

Ingredients: per recipe or kit, Malt extract, Hops, Grains, yeast. I recommend using Irish moss to clear, clarity is important, and Irish moss is cheap.

Hydrometer: These are a simple float that will show you the density of your wort/beer. These are a must. They usually come with a measuring column, you will need one.


Fermenting equipment

Fermenters: You can start with one plastic fermenter. I would recommend a plastic fermenter, and a glass carboy. Mark the plastic fermenter at 5 gallons.

Breathers: Plastic Fermenters have lids, and glass carboys have bungs, both have holes that accept a breather. Breathes work on the same principle as a pea trap in a sink. As the beer ferments it creates CO2, which builds pressure, and pushes through the water in the breather, but air has no pressure to get back into the fermenter.

Siphons: I use a siphon, they come with one straight tube about 18” long on one end, and a cane on the other end that is 32” tall with the siphon attached at the handle end of the cane. There is a sediment cap on the cane end. They also have auto siphons; they are basically a combination of siphon, and a “starter pump”. You set the siphon up, and plunge it once, which starts the siphon. I guess if the price is right, go for it, but siphoning with your mouth isn’t that hard, and the pump would be a little harder to clean.

Bottling Equipment

Bucket or siphon:

Siphon: You can use the siphon from fermenter with the sediment cap on the cane end, and a bottling valve on the straight tube end. You siphon the beer into the bottles, and lift the valve off of the bottom of the bottle to stop it.

Advantage: Cheap
Disadvantage: Kind of hard to get the bottle full enough since the filler is displacing an ounce or two of the beer.

Bucket: They work well; they are very easy to get the right level in the bottle. Disadvantage is that it’s another piece of equipment to clean, and buy.

Capper: See above use a winged with purchased or proper type bottle, bench capper for the rest, or not at all with flip top bottles.

Sanitizer: To start you can use a bucket full of sanitizing liquid, and dunk the bottles. I recently bottle a bottle sanitizing pump, and love it.


Brewing Process: For the purpose of this part I will assume you have a kit, or the proper ingredients.

1. Prepare Yeast: Yeast comes in 3 main forms, White lab tubes, Wyeast “Slap Packs”, and dried packets. I like the slap packs the best. White labs, and Wyeast have specific cultures for specific beers, and both are refrigerated. Both need to be warmed to 70 degree, so set them out when you start preparing to brew. The tubes are just a plastic test tube with yeast in it. The slap packs are a Capri Sun like Mylar pouch which have an activator surrounding a yeast packet. Once it has warmed up a little from the fridge, slap the packet to open the yeast, and get it going. The slap pack will start expanding as the yeast starts to work with the activator. This is why I prefer slap packs, they are “Guaranteed” if the pack is growing you have growing, healthy yeast, the other two are guesses, though I have not had any yeast fail.

2. Steeping grains: Place the grains in warm water (usually 150) for a period of time per recipe.

Strain method: I prefer to just put the grains in the water, in a smaller pot, and the strain the water into a brew pot, and sparge (rinse) the grains with the same temperature water, and strain that into the brew pot too. Then add water to total volume required in the recipe. I feel this gets better grain utilization. This is the method used in Clone Brews recipes.

Muslin bag method: There will be a muslin bag with most kits. It will look like a sock. I like to place the bag inside if a bowl and stretch the opening over the top of the bowl. Then you put the grains in it, and tie a knot. Then you steep the whole bag like a tea bag in the water. When the time is up you simple pull out the bag, and discard the whole thing. I think the utilization is poor, but it is very easy.

Adding malt extract (sugar), and bittering hops.

Bring the volume of water to a boil.
Remove from heat
And the bittering hops
And Malt extract, honey, corn sugar, or inverted syrup
Malt extract comes in two forms, DME “Dried Malt Extract” it is tan, and is what is added to milkshakes to make malts. DME is like malt powdered sugar. The other form is malt extract syrup. This comes in cans or jars. Malt extract syrup is very similar to molasses. The others are pretty obvious. Corn sugar is very similar to cane sugar.
Stir while bringing to a boil.

The boil

Boil for approximately 45 minutes.
Add flavoring or aroma hops.
Add Irish moss.
Boil for another 15 minutes.

fill fermenter

Cool wort to 70 degrees.
Ice bath is the simplest method, fill sink with ice water, and place the brew pot in, and stir the wort.
Pour through a strainer into the plastic fermenter.
Discard the hops that strain out.
Once all the wort is in the bucket add water.
Almost all recipes are for around 5 gallons of beer. This is why carboys and plastic Fermenters will hold 6 gallons. Stop adding water a couple of quarts short of the “full” 5 gallon level.
Check the Original Gravity with the hydrometer.
The hydrometer will float higher the denser the liquid and the converse too. The specific gravity is read at the fluid level. The recipe will tell you the expected range of OG.
If you are low, don’t ad anymore water, if high add water until you are within the range.
Pitch the yeast into the fermenter by pouring the yeast into the wort.
Put on the lid, and insert the breather half full of water.

Ferment

Ferment for a week,
Move to Carboy.
Add bung, and breather
Check for the Final Specific Gravity.
It is VERY important that fermentation has stopped, other wise there will be too much fermentation in the bottles, and you will get VERY fizzy beer. I did this, and besides beer brats they were a waste. Gravities won’t always hit dead on due to grain utilization, temperatures of the steep, how hard your water is, but if the breather in the carboy has leveled out, and the Final SG is close you are good.

Bottling

Boil 2 cups water, and bottling sugar for 10 minutes, add to bottling bucket (or plastic fermenter)
Siphon beer into bottling bucket or plastic fermenter.
Fill cleaned and sanitized bottles with beer.
(I like to run them through the dishwasher for the extra cleaning, and sanitizing heat.)
Cap with a sanitized caps.
I use a sharpie to mark the cap with a recipe abbreviation. You can also make labels.


Beer handling

To repeat Sanitation is key

Keep out of UV light, I wrap my carboy in a blanket to block out all light. Keep bottled beer in a dark closet in the basement.

Keep bottled beer cool. I have a basement closet that runs about 65 degrees. This is ideal, still warm enough to bottle condition, but cool enough to help preserve.

Don’t let the beer get hot, say over 80 degrees, home brew has no preservatives, and the flavor will be damaged.