Lets make beer
Basic timings for the more experienced brewers -
12 Pints Strike Water @ 70°C
Mash at 65°C for 60 Minutes
8 Pint Sparge at 80°C
Boil 60 Minutes
0 minutes - 40g Goldings
45minutes Irish Moss
60 minutes - heat out - 10g Goldings
Ferment at 20° - 24°C
Full Instructions
Pop your kettle on to boil.
Wash your stockpot, sieve, mashing bag, beer paddle & thermometer in warm soapy water. Rinse in cold tap water and then sterilise in a sterilising solution then rinse.
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 of the water using the thermometer. It should be at 70°C. If not leave to cool slightly or turn on the heat to bring the temperature of the water up to 70°C and switch off the heat.
While stirring the water, slowly & gently pour the 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 for the 60 minutes.
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 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 very 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 5-10 minutes stir the mash then take the temperature, add heat as explained above if needed.
At the 60 minute mark put the kettle on as we will now need 8 pints of boiling water.
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 back into the stock pot. We want to capture all the liquid.
Put your sieve / collander on the stockpot and lower the bag of grain onto the sieve. Don’t empty the grain into the sieve, 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 boiling water 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 boiling water. Then leave the grains to drain for 5 minutes.
One drained, remove the grains, they are spent and are no longer of use, feed them to the chickens!
We now need to boil the wort.
Turn on the heat to high and bring the wort to a rolling boil.
While the wort is heating up, put 40g of Golding Hops into you straining bag and tie the top to seal the bag.
As soon as the wort comes to a vigouours boil, put in the bag of hops. These will add the bitterness to the beer.
Turn down the heat a little, but keep it at a hard rolling boil, not simmering.
45 minutes, fish out the straining bag, untie the top and add the Irish Moss into the hop bag and re-tie and put back in the boiling wort. Irish Moss is used to help clear the beer.
At the 60 minute, fish out the straining bag, untie and add in the 10g of Golding hops. Re-tie and put back in the wort. These will add some aromas to the beer.
Turn off the heat, the boil is complete.
The wort needs to be cooled to 20-24°C. 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. You can add ice to the cooling water to help cool the wort faster. If you have an immersion wort chiller, this will speed up the process.
IMPORTANT: anything that now comes into contact with our wort MUST be sterilised.
Use your sterilised thermometer to check the wort is below 24°C. Then take the pot out of the sink.
Remove the hop bag from the wort and gently squeeze it to recover wort soaked up by the hops.
Sterilise your syphon and brewing bucket.
Syphon the wort into the bucket. Try not to disturb the sediment at the bottom of the stockpot.
Due to the boil you will have lost some water. Your wort should be just over the 9 litre (2 gallon mark), if a little low top your wort up to the 2 gallon line with cooled boiled water and add an extra
half a pint.
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.
Take a sample in your trial jar and use your hydrometer to take the Specific Gravity reading and write this down and keep it safe.
Don’t waste the sample you just took, pour it back into the fermenter.
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. You can seal the lid if you are using an airlock.
Place your bucket in a warm place at 20°c for 7 days to allow fermentation to take place. There’s no need to stir it, just leave it alone for the 7 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.
If you are tempted to peek, just lift the lid slightly, then put it back down. Peek a max of once every few day, otherwise you could introduce air and the beer can be infected with bacteria.
After 24 hours you’ll see your beer froth up and then settle back down over the next few days.
After 7 days the fermentation should be complete. It’s now time to test to see if it’s ready to 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.
Remove the hop bag and squeeze it gently to recover beer soaked up by the hops.
When your beer is ready sterilise you syphon and syphon into another fermenting bucket being careful not to disturb the sediment at the bottom of the fermenter. If you do not have another fermenting bucket, you can use your stock pot.
Add the 25g of Dextrose and gently stir to dissolve. This is to create a secondary fermentation and will produce co2 in the bottles to help protect and give your beer a light fizz.
Use your syphon to transfer the beer into your bottles and seal them straight away.
Put the bottles into your warm place for 5-7 days. This allows the secondary fermentation in the bottles.
Now transfer your bottles to somewhere cooler around 15°c. The beer will now begin to condition and clear in the bottles. 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.
Put a bottle in the fridge to cool it slightly. Open the lid and pour gently into a pint glass being carful not to disturb the sediment at the bottom of the bottle.
Next, 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!
