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beesley
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Joined: 25 Jan 2005
Posts: 111
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 Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2005 9:07 pm Post subject: How to brew |
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Can you boil water? ... you can brew excellent beer.
Brewing beer is nothing more than boiling a bunch of sugar water, cooling it, and letting yeast eat it....
It's really that easy. Boiling grain provides sugar for fermentation - the process that produces alcohol - hops add bitterness, flavor, and aroma.
We brew in a small apartment on an electric stove -- which is a bit more difficult to regulate than a gas burner, but what the hell, eh? It just goes to show that anyone can brew beer. It's easy. Before you know it, you'll have you're friends beggin' for more. If you have brothers like mine... watch out... !
Well anyway.. the following instructions are our guidelines for brewing five gallons of beer:
First and foremost, Roy and I have learned (the hard way) that sanitation is the most important part of brewing. Unwanted bacteria can ruin a brew. One batch we made smelled like a rotten egg!!! We do a strict, two-step cleaning process using B-brite as a cleanser and an iodine solution (B.E.S.T. iodophor) as a sanitizer.
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Our cleaning process follows:
1. Cleanse equipment in a solution of 1 tablespoon of B-brite cleanser per gallon, for 30 minutes.
2. Rinse with warm water followed by cold water.
3. Sanitize equipment in a solution of ½ ounce iodine per 5 gallons warm water. According to Brewmaster John Oliver at BJ's in Brea, California, the solution should be12.5 ppm.
4. Soak for 2 minutes. Do not rinse.
Be cautious in avoiding the risk of contamination from bacteria in the open air.
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The instructions that follow are based on 5-gallon recipes using extract and some specialty grain.
· In a stainless steel pot, bring 4 quarts of water to 155 degrees F. Add grain for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally (this is called steeping the grain).
· While grains are steeping, in a larger stainless steel pot, bring 1-½ gallons of water to a boil.
· Take large pot off heat, add malt extract, and stir well.
· Strain grain extract into the large pot using a stainless steel strainer. Then use hot water (apx. 150`) to rinse the grain, releasing more fermentable sugars. (this is called sparging the grain).
· Put stock pot back on heat and bring to a boil. (Use caution here, boilovers are nasty).
· When mixture (now called wort) comes to a boil, add the bittering hops. Set timer for 60 minutes.
· Monitor boil and stir occasionally.
· At 45 minutes, add flavor hops. (If recipe requires).
· At 5 minutes, add aroma hops. (If recipe requires).
· Remove wort from heat.
· Cool wort. We use a wort chiller.
· When wort is at 75-80 degrees F, transfer to sanitized fermentation container (we use food-grade plastic buckets).
· Add yeast (pitch yeast).
· Add water to bring volume to 5 gallons.
· Store in a cool place for one week. Then transfer wort to a secondary fermenter.
· Dry hop (if recipe requires).
· Allow transferred wort to sit in secondary fermenter for one week.
· Bottle or keg (we keg except for beers we plan to give away or age longer)
· Condition beer 1-2 weeks, if you can wait that long.
· Throw a home brew party!! (if you live in Southern California, email us..heh heh.)
· Go back to home brew shop for another recipe! |
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