We regularly get asked how easy is it to make beer. When we are asked this they are usually asking how easy is it to make beer from grain, not using a kit. The answer is, it's easy, but you need some basic equipment to make it easy.
If you want to start out with some basic brewing experiments, then you'll need some basic brewing equipment. However if you have loads of spare cash you might be looking at buying a home brewery like a Grainfather or a Braumeister. Whichever you choose, the cheap or the expensive option, you can make amazing beer at home. And you can make it as simple or as complicated as you want.
In this blog, we'll go through just how easy it is to make beer from grain with whichever equipment you decide to use. Basic equipment or a all in one brewing system, it doesn't matter.
The basics of making beer are very simple.
1 - Cook the grain in water for 1 hour.
2 - Remove the grain from the water and bring the water to the boil.
3 - Boil for 1 hour, while adding some hops.
4 - Cool the beer to 20°C
5 - Pitch a yeast
6 - Allow the fermentation to finish
7 - Barrel or bottle the beer.
See brewing beer is simple right?
So what equipment are you going to need, assuming you have not gone out and bought a Grainfather...
It depends on how much beer you want to make, but making 2 gallons (9 litres) is a good starting point. If you want to make 5 gallons (23 litres), which is pretty normal quantity with homebrewers, then you just need the same equipment, just a little larger.
The basic equipment to make beer at home
Stove
Large Stockpot with lid
Stainless Steel / Plastic Spoon
Colander
Kettle
Jug
Kitchen Sink & Cold water Or a Wort Chiller
That's it for the basic equipment to get started. So what about the ingredients...
The ingredients you will need to make 4.5 litres (8 pints or 1 gallon) of beer are again very simple. To make different styles of beer, a lot of the time you can just change the ingredients slightly and you will get a different flavour beer, but for now, lets keep it simple with a simple pale ale at about 4% ABV
Water
1/8th Protofloc Tablet or 1 gram of Irish Moss
40g Hops - Fuggles
Steriliser
Priming Sugar
And those are the basic ingredients. If we wanted to add some more flavours like toffee, we could add some crystal malt, If we were making an IPA we would use more hops and more grain, if we were making a stout we would swap some of the pale malt with chocolate malt, if were were making a craft beer, we might add some oats and wheat and more hops, but these are the basic ingredients to make a simple pale ale.
And now to the process of making beer at home.
It is pretty simple, but this is science so temperatures and timings need to be as close as possible to the instructions to make sure you get a good beer. Too much heat can cause the enzyme in malted barly to be destroyed and so the starches wont be turned into sugar that the yeast will eat. Too little heat and the enzyme will turn the starch to sugars that the yeast cant eat, so it's crucial that these steps are followed closely to get a good beer.
Right, let's tell you how to make beer at home!
Pop your kettle on to boil.
Wash then sterilise your stockpot, sieve, mashing bag, spoon & thermometer.
Put the mashing bag into the stockpot & tie around the rim. You’ll need to take if off later so tie it in a bow you can easily untie.
Pour 9 pints of boiling water into the pot, then pour in 3 pints of cold water.
Take the temperature using the thermometer, then bring the temperature of the water up to 70°c and switch off the heat.
While stirring, slowly & gently empty the bag of grain into the mashing bag. This is to avoid the grains clumping together and forming dough balls. The contents of the pot is now called the ‘mash’.
Take a note of the time as we’ll be mashing for 60 minutes.
Check the current temperature of the mash, adding our grains will have cooled the water slightly.
We need to make sure the mash stays at 65°c.
Read the following very carefully... If the temperature of the mash has dropped below 65°c we’ll need to raise it back up. To do this, turn the heat on low for 30 seconds maximum at a time. Turn the heat off, give the mash a good stir and take the temperature again. Once back at 65°c pop the lid back on. It’s very important to keep the temperature as close to 65°c as possible. When adding heat to the mash, do it gently. If you need to add more heat to get to your 65°c then use the 30 second method as explained above. Remember to stir well and retake the temperature. It’s easy to add heat, but VERY hard to remove it without harming the grain. NEVER exceed 69°c during the mash.
Every 10-15 minutes stir the mash then take the temperature, add heat as explained above if needed.
At the 60 minute mark put the kettle on.
Next, it’s time to rinse our grains to capture every last bit of sugar they have to offer. This is called ‘sparging’.
Carefully untie the mashing bag and pull the cords tight to close the bag. Lift the grains out of the water (now called the ‘wort’) keeping them over the pan as wort will run out of the bottom of the bag.
Put your colander on the stockpot and lower the bag of grain onto the colander. Don’t empty the grain, leave it in the mashing bag. Arrange the top of the bag so all the loose parts are neatly layered over the grain. This will help to distribute our sparging water.
Measure a pint of water that has just boiled in the kettle into a jug and very slowly dribble the water onto the bag of grain. It should take at least 60 seconds to dribble 1 pint of boiling water over the mashing bag of grain. The slower you can go, the better! Be sure to distribute the water over the whole bag evenly.
Sparge your grains using a total of 8 pints of very hot water. Then leave the grains to drain for 5 minutes. One drained, remove the grains, they are spent and are no longer of use.
Now we move onto the ‘boil’ stage. This is where we can really add some flavour and character to our beer.
To boil the wort turn your heat up to high and bring it to a rolling boil. It’s important to make sure the wort is boiling and not simmering. Keep the heat high.
Once the wort is boiling nicely put 20 grams of hops into the boiling wort. These hops will add bitterness to the beer. Start a 60 minute timer, we’ll be boiling for 1 hour.
45 minutes into the boil add the Irish Moss to the wort. Irish Moss is used to help clear the beer. 50 minutes into the boil add the remaining 20 grams of hops, these will add slight bitterness but are mainly used to add flavour and aroma to the beer. At the 60 minute mark switch off the heat, the boil is complete.
It’s now time to cool our wort down. This needs to be done as quickly as possible to help the ‘cold break’ (a clearing process). Fill your kitchen sink with cold water and carefully lower the stockpot into the water. Keep the tap on and let water slowly flow around the stockpot (not on top) and down the sink’s overflow. If you do not have an overflow keep adding ice to your sink of water to cool the wort. You can stir the wort with your sterilised spoon to help the cooling process.
Let the wort cool to 25°c, use your sterilised thermometer to check. Then take the pot out of the sink.
Sterilise your syphon and brewing bucket.
Syphon the wort into the bucket.
Due to the boil you will have lost some water so top your wort up to the 9 litres (2 gallon) line with cold water and add an extra half a pint. Try not to disturb the sediment at the bottom of the stockpot.
We need to ‘aerate’ our wort to get oxygen into the liquid. This will aid our fermentation. Vigorously stir the wort with your sterilised spoon to aerate it for at least 1 minute.
Make sure the temperature of the wort is between 18°C and 22°C.
Sterilise your hydrometer and trail jar.
Syphon a small amount of wort into your trail jar and pop in the hydrometer. The reading should be around 1.040. This is called our ‘OG’ or Orginal Gravity. Note down your OG below along with the date. O.G. .................. Date ..................
Don’t waste the sample you just took, pour it back into the bucket.
Sprinkle the sachet of yeast onto the top of the wort and leave it, there’s no need to stir it in.
Put the bucket lid on lightly, just to stop dust from getting in.
Place your bucket in a warm place at 20°c for 4 days to allow fermentation to take place. There’s no need to stir it, just leave it alone for 7-10 days.
For now, we’re done! So it’s time to have a clean up of all the equipment we used so we can use it again for the next beer we make. Wash your equipment in warm soapy water. With a little care your equipment will keep you brewing time and time again.
After 24 hours you’ll see your beer froth up and then settle back down over the next few days.
After 7-10 days the fermentation should be complete. It’s now time to test to see if it’s ready to bottle / barrel.
Sterilise your hydrometer, trial jar and syphon.
Syphon some beer into your trial jar, pop the hydrometer in and take a reading. It should read between the 1.010 and 1.014 mark.
If it is higher than this, put the bucket back into your warm place of 20°c for another couple of days and test again.
Once it’s between this range it’s time to move to the next stage. Do not be tempted to move to the next stage until your beer is ready.
When your beer is ready evenly split 25 grams of sugar between the bottles (if you are using a barrel, put the 25g of sugar in the barrel. This is to create a secondary fermentation and will produce co2. If bottled, this will cause it to become fizzy, If barrelled, it will help protect your beer, allow it to flow well from the tap, and to give a nice head when pouring.
Syphon the beer from the bucket into the bottles / barrel. Do not to disturb the sediment at the bottom of the bucket.
Once you’ve syphoned all of the beer into the bottles / barrel swirl them to dissolve the sugar.
Put the lids on and place them in your warm place for 48-72 hours for the secondary fermentation to finish.
Now transfer to somewhere cooler around 15°c.
The beer will now begin to condition and clear.
Let the beer condition and clear for 2-4 weeks.
After 2-4 weeks it’ll be time to taste your new home made beer.
Pop open a bottle, you want it at around 12-14°C to be at it's best, so pop it in the fridge for 10 minutes, then, all there is to do is sit down, relax, put your feet up and enjoy your fantastic home made beer!
Share it with your friends, they’ll never believe you made it from scratch, at home!
Here’s to many more brews to come!
I know it looks like a long process, but the initial brewing takes around 3-4 hours, but most of this time you can leave it to do it's thing. The fermentation takes 7-10 days and it will look after itself, so it really is very little work to make a fantastic beer at home.
Have a go at this simple recipe and see how your beer turns out.
