Next you have to pick your Recipe and buy your ingredients

There are a couple different ways to go about getting your ingredients for your home brew. One of the easiest ways is to go buy a home brewing kit. You won't really get the opportunity to pick what hopps you get, what fermentation ingredients, all that jazz. You'll get a packet of yeast, some malt and that's about it. Here we're going to give you a simple recipe for beer, but we're going to throw in a few more advanced recipes, just in case you get a wild hair to be a little daring!

Beginner Ingredients

Malt Extract. One 40oz. can of any flavor you like ( light, dark, stout), or a 1.5kg "tall" can of same. The 1.5kg can contains more malt extract so you can make a larger batch or use the same method here to make a richer beer. You can also buy 'pre-hopped' extract which will impart more of a hop flavor to your beer.
Yeast. Brewers' yeast. Note: some malt comes with little packets of yeast included.
Sugar. Yep. That's it. Corn Sugar Preferred. (preferred).
(*There are usually directions that come with your home brewing kit)

There's the easy way. Here's how to make it.

Make sure everything is clean, clean, clean!

Cleanliness is incredibly important. You must clean and sanitize all of your equipment right before you start brewing, and keep everything clean throughout the process. Bacteria and fungi are everywhere and if enough of them get into your beer they will completely ruin it. The good part is that if you do clean everything you will make an excellent first batch of beer. We really can't stres on how important this is.

Cleaning refers to the removal of any visible crud, sediment, film, dust, etc. from all of your equipment. This can be accomplished with dish soap and a cloth or brush. Or if you're lucky enough to have one, you can just use a dishwasher.

Sanitizing is a separate procedure from cleaning, and it requires the use of heat, chlorine or iodine mixed with water to kill off any remaining bacteria. If your dishwasher has a "heat dry" cycle, you're in luck. Turn it on and let the steam in the dry cycle do the work for you.

The easiest way to go about cleaning all your equipment is to take your primary fermenter or bottling bucket and mix up a bleach/water solution. Fill them up with some agua, pour some bleach in (1 cup is plenty), and then soak all your other items in there. It's that simple. All your items should be completely immersed for at leasts 30 mins. After that, and please remember this: They must be completely dry before you start brewing. Otherwise you might get some residual bleach in your ale, and well, who wants bleach in their beer right?

Now your stuff is clean. Lets start brewing!

1. Bring 2 quarts of water to 160-180F, basically steaming but not boiling. Then remove from heat.
2. Add your beer kit and additional fermentables according to the directions.
3. Stir ingredients and make sure everything is dissolved. Let stand for 10-15 minutes on the lowest heat setting.
4. Add the contents of your pot to 4 gallons of cold water already in your primary fermenter. Mix well, at least a minute or two. This helps add oxygen to your wort prior to adding your yeast. Trust us, your yeast will thank you for it later (if you know what we mean). When the side of your fermenter feels cool to the touch, it is safe to add your yeast.
5. Ferment as close to recommended temperature range as possible.
6. Primary Fermentation: You have now made wort (it's not exactly beer yet). Your wort will begin to ferment within the first day, and it will continue to do so for 3 to 5 days. You can tell that your wort is fermenting when you see little air bubbles rising up through the water in the airlock. This is basically just the gas produced during the fermentation process being forced out of the fermenter. After five days, you should begin to check on your beer every day, to see if it is still fermenting. If the water in the airlock is still bubbling, the beer is still fermenting and you must leave it alone. You can ruin your beer and cause your bottles to explode if you bottle your beer before primary fermentation has finished. When the bubbling stops or slows until there is a pause of two minutes between bubbles, primary fermentation is completed and your beer is ready to be bottled.

Bottling your brewskies!

(c/o soyouwanna.com) Secondary fermentation takes place in the bottles, so you don't get to drink your beer just yet. You can go ahead and try some, but it won't be carbonated so you might not like it very much.

First, of course, you must clean (be sure to use your bottling brush and get all the crud out of your bottles) and sanitize (see section 3) the following items: Bottling bucket, Bottles, Bottle caps, Plastic hose, Saucepan, and Mixing spoon.

Make sure you have enough bottles to contain your new brew. Five gallons of beer is equivalent to approximately 640 ounces, so you need to plan accordingly, e.g., if you have 16-ounce bottles you'll need about 40. You should also make sure you have more than enough caps, in case you screw up and have to re-cap some of the bottles.

You will also need to have some pure dextrose on hand, to make a priming solution. This is what allows the remaining yeast in your beer to carbonate the beer. Take the saucepan and put two or three cups of water in it, and dissolve 3/4 cup of dextrose in the water. Bring the solution to a boil over medium heat, then cover it and set it aside to cool for 15 to 20 minutes.

After the priming solution has cooled, place your cleaned and sanitized bottling bucket on the floor. Place the primary fermenter on a chair, table or counter directly above the bottling bucket. Try not to shake up the beer inside the fermenter too much when you move it, because you want all the sediment to stay on the bottom. Attach the plastic hose to the spigot on the primary fermenter and put the other end of the hose in the bottom of the bottling bucket. Pour the priming solution into the bottling bucket, and then open the spigot on the fermenter, allowing the beer to flow into the bucket and mix with the solution. Don't try to get the last of the beer out of the fermenter, because it contains sediment you don't want.

Close the spigot on the fermenter, take off the hose, and clean it well. Then get the fermenter out of the way and put the bottling bucket up where it was and hook up the hose to its spigot. Line up all your bottles on the floor underneath it and stick the hose into one of the bottles. Then you're ready to open up the spigot on the bottling bucket and let the beer fly. Stick the hose in all the way to the bottom, and when the beer gets really near the top, yank the hose out and stick it in the next bottle. The level in the bottle drops when you take the tube out, and you want to leave about one inch of airspace at the top of the bottle (as close to one inch as possible; much more or less than that is not good). Therefore, you should be yanking the hose out when the beer is more or less right at the top of the bottle. If you have any financial aid money left over from last semester, invest in a bottle filler. It will make bottling less messy and be the best $2.99 you ever spent.

Once all the beer has drained out of the bucket, get ready to put the caps on your bottles. You need to do this right away, because every second that your beer remains exposed to the elements is a bad second. We've warned you about the bacteria and fungi. If you are using plastic bottles with screw tops, you can just sit down on the floor with your beer and twist them on. If you're using glass bottles with metal caps, you're going to need to use a bottle capper, and it will be way easier if you move them to a table or wherever you're going to sit and work. Follow the directions of the capper you've purchased, and take your time. If you suspect that one of the caps didn't go on correctly, rip the cap off and put on a new one. Check all your bottles for leakage and re-cap any that leak.

Once you've got all your bottles capped, you need to find a cool, dark place to put them while secondary fermentation takes place. They should not go in your fridge. Refrigerators are too cold for the yeast to do its work. You might as well put your beer wherever it was you put your fermenter, like in a closet, in the basement, in the attic or wherever, so long as the location is at a steady temperature of around 60 - 70 degrees. Now comes the really hard part. You have to leave your beer there for a minimum of two weeks before you can drink any of it. We know you've already waited for like, a whole week or maybe more, but you must be patient.

You must also continue to be clean. We know you're tuckered out from all that bottling, but you have to clean out all of your equipment before you shove it into the closet. You'll be doing yourself a huge favor, as the equipment will be much easier to clean and sanitize next time you want to make beer, and, therefore, it will be easier to make your next batch.



Click here for step 3!