So. You’ve made the step to decide to brew your very own beer, from the comfort of your own home. Except, you don’t know where to start. You understand the theoretical science of brewing, but have yet to dip your toes. Or maybe you’ve done a homebrew kit – like the ones from Northern Brewer. Or perhaps you have no idea what you’re doing, but it sounds like a fun hobby to undertake that could prove to be fruitful to you and your friends. Whatever the case, take out your pens, raise your glasses, and get ready to dive into the world of brewing beer, knowing that our team of brewmasters have put together this comprehensive quick-start guide just for you!
Let’s start with the basics, first, like, what is beer?
Beer, A History
Beer has a fascinating history, dating backwards even as far – and further still – as 3,000 B.C.E. A product derived from fermentation – which, short version, is a spontaneous metabolic reaction caused by the chemical breakdown of, most commonly, sugars via yeast or other microorganisms – it was, possibly, discovered by accident. Via The Importance of Traditional Fermented Foods by C.W. Hesseltine and Hwa L. Wang – a microbiologist and an agriculturalist, respectively, though both were also, at the time of the article’s publication, researchers for the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) – “…first fermentation were discovered accidentally when salt was incorporated with food material, and the salt selected certain microorganisms that fermented the product to give a nutritious and acceptable food.“
The fermented food products, as far as historians and biologists can agree, was most likely that of salt-fermented soyfoods popular in Chinese culture – miso, soy sauce, fermented tofu, et cetera – who would combine food material with various molds to produce enzymes with very particular flavor and smell profiles.
Sometime in the fifth millennium B.C.E., in the part of Mesopotamia that is now modern-day Iraq, exists the first documented record of beer – in fact, it is even beer by modern standards: the first chemically confirmed fermented beverage made from malted barley. An ancient Sumerian poem honouring Ninkasi – the patron goddess of brewing and fermentation – contains the oldest-written and longest-surviving beer recipe, using barley bread. Similarly, residue forensically recovered from 5,000 year old pottery from China indicates the use of barley and other cereal grains in brewing. As such, the age-old pseudonym for beer, liquid bread, is actually rather historically accurate: the invention of bread led to the invention of beer, ultimately begetting the rise of static civilization.
Even before the documented records of beer, archaeological evidence suggests the possibility of a beverage made from fermented cereal grains as far back as 10,000 B.C.E., made by the semi-nomadic Natufians for feasting rituals in Israel. Though unconfirmed, this would correlate with the earliest documented existence of cereal grains themselves.
Regardless of its origins or its rich history, beer is far more than the sum of its parts. Stemming from the Proto-Germanic beuzą – commonly translated as brewer’s yeast or beer dregs – and from the Latin bibere – to drink – beer very quickly became one of the most popular consumed beverages in the world. In fact, it’s among the oldest of alcoholic drinks – as established earlier – is the most widely consumed of all alcoholic beverages, and is still the third most popular beverage after water and tea.
So, how is beer made?
Brewing Process: A Brief Insight to Homebrewing
Beer is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches from cereal grains – most commonly, malted barley, though wheat, corn, rice, and oats can also be used. At its most basic, the grains are dumped in a vat and boiled at high heat for an extended amount of time, often at least an hour, to extract the starch and begin caramelizing the sugars. During this boiling process, certain strains of hops – Humulus lupulus, a member of the Cannabaceae family, a cousin of hemp – are added to the boil to produce varying aromas and flavors and add specific amounts of bitterness – henceforth, International Bitterness Units, or IBUs, used to measure how many bittering agents are added to beer; though not foolproof in telling you how bitter a beer is, generally, the higher the IBUs, the more bitter the beer might taste. Sometimes, fruits, herbs, or other additives might be included, in addition to or even instead of hops. Just before the sugars begin to caramelize, the malted grain – now called a wort – is removed from the heat and cooled to about room temperature before activated yeast is introduced. The yeast begins the fermentation process by converting the starches and sugars, converting them into ethyl alcohols and carbon dioxide, along with trace amounts of other chemicals, such as diacetyl. Fermentation can take several days, often taking up to two weeks, or even longer, depending on the style of beer, the concentration of sugars and yeast, and the temperature the beer is kept at while fermenting.
1. Ingredients For Grain Brewing
MALTS
These are the processed cereal grains with naturally high starch contents. These starches are germinated by soaking in hot water. Further germination is ceased by exposing the grains to hot air to dry, a process called “malting”. Malted grain is used to make beer, whisky, malt milk, malt vinegar, certain confectionaries, some flavored drinks, and some baked goods. When ground into a coarse meal, it is called “sweet meal”.
Though malted barley is the brewer’s preferred grain for making beer, other grains, such as corn or wheat, are often used in addition to or sometimes even instead of barley. In truth, any grain with a naturally high starch content can be used.
HOPS
Flowers of the Humulus lupulus – a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants – these are often used as bittering and flavouring agents, and to provide stability to beer for their natural preservatives. They often impart flavors of floral, fruit, or citrus and often extend those into their aromas as well. Just as there are hundreds of strains of cannabis, so, too, are there numerous strains of hop, and they are all different.
The first recorded use of hops in beer was in 802 C.E. by a Carolingian Abbot. However, it wasn’t until much later, in 1516, that William the IV, Duke of Bavaria, introduced what became known as the German Law of Purity – the Reinheitsgebot – which stated that, in order for it to be beer in Germany, it must only be made with water, hops, and malted barley. This regulation is still widely practiced in all of Germany and some of the rest of Europe into the 21st Century. Oddly enough, also in the 16th century, King Henry VIII banned the use of hops, declaring them a “…wicked and pernicious weed.“
YEAST
Saccharomyces. Brettanomyces. Debaryomyces. All of these have one thing in common: they are all genus of yeast strains in the Saccharomycetaceae family. More commonly referred to as brewer’s yeast, they are one of the most important ingredients in beer – one might say the most important, though personally, that’s the water.
Yeast is a fungi, an microorganism that is attracted to saccharides. When activated and left to fester in a vat with water and sugar, the yeast will consume the sugar to survive. Its by-product is ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide, among other things. This is what makes beer, beer.
WATER
While it’s certainly true that you couldn’t make beer without yeast, you also don’t need it. In olden times, they would simply leave vats outside to become infected, creating their own yeast. Even without adding yeast yourself, you can still make beer, albeit after years of waiting instead of weeks. Though, the environmental conditions needed to cause wild, spontaneous fermentation are limited to select areas of the world, such as Belgium and Germany. Unless you live there and are okay waiting years for your beer to ferment, it might be best to just add the yeast yourself.
The only ingredient you truly cannot do without is a source of clean and pure water. The higher the quality of water, the better your final product will be. Many impurities are removed during the boiling process, leaving your water content with only its trace mineral components. These will help to filter the beer and protect it from infection. Also, how can one make a beverage without water?
2. Equipment For Brewing
Brewing at home is way easier and less expensive than you might be thinking. Many hobby brewers get away with the simplest of equipment and the least taxing of ingredients,. Though you can certainly spend more money to get better equipment, it isn’t necessary. You’ll see homebrewers with large conical fermenters, thermal belts, cooling belts, temperature-controlled chillers, automatic racking canes, and more impressive technology, but all you really need is four things.
BREW KETTLE
Since the first and, frankly, most labor intensive step is steeping your grains, you need a large kettle capable of holding enough water to satisfy your liquid need while also accounting for volume displacement with both your solid ingredients and overflow from the boiling process creating gas – or, rather, converting liquid to gas. You need something easy to clean that is resistant to both abrasion and corrosion. Remember, the smallest amount of dirt can infect your entire batch, so having even one tiny dent or scratch in your brew kettle can compromise your beer by not being cleaned properly. Stainless steel is the most commonly used for its resistance to corrosion, its durability, and its natural ability to not leech into other compounds. Prior to the invention of stainless steel, copper was used – some places may even still use copper, but copper blends more than steel does and is much softer than steel.
As far as how big you want your kettle, most homebrewers suffice with a 6 gallon kettle, or bigger. Most recipes you find online will account for a 5 gallon batch. You can certainly get as big of a kettle as you want, so long as you are capable of using it. As long as your kettle is big, durable, and kept clean, you will never need to purchase a second one.
FERMENTER
The most critical piece of equipment. After your wort is cooled, you remove the spent grain and transfer your wort into your fermenter, where you introduce your yeast. This is the vessel where your beer will be borne. It will spend most of its life prior to bottling in this vessel, so make sure it’s equipped to suit your needs. Most homebrewers use a glass carboy – oddly enough, glass seems an interesting choice when one considers its vulnerability to sunlight penetration, a dangerous enemy to beer; that being said, being able to watch the process happen is, admittedly, pretty cool. If you can get a steel one, way better and much easier to clean. If you wish to get the right fermenter, use a steel carboy – it protects from sunlight, has better temperature regulation, and, like all carboys, has a built in airlock to allow the CO2 and O2 to escape so your beer doesn’t either go bad or cause the carboy to explode.
RACKING CANE
Contrary to what its name sounds like, a racking cane is a device used to siphon finished beer from your fermenter into your bottle or keg. Similar to a mouth siphon with a hose, it uses volume, gravity, and pressure to create a vacuum through which the beer is sucked into the cane and out the other end into your storage device. Most racking canes are made of glass and are powered manually, but there are many other types out there.
BOTTLES or CORNY KEGS
When you have finished making your beer, you need a place to store it so it can be enjoyed. Most homebrewers use bottles, but if you have a kegerator – a keg refrigerator – you could put your beer into a keg. When bottling beer, you use priming sugars to naturally create carbon dioxide in the bottle. The priming sugars reawaken the trace yeast residue left in the beer to create trace more amounts of ethanol, but also to produce CO2. However, when you keg, you simply hook the keg up to a CO2 canister and artificially induce the beer with gas. A corny keg is like a commercial keg – the common ones are Sanke and Euro – except they have a removable lid on top to allow for easy access to putting things in, dumping things out, and cleaning. Production breweries use commercial kegs, and are far more complex to fill, empty, and clean.
3. The Brew Process
SANITATION
As you may have guessed, the most important step in brewing is keeping everything purified. If at any point during the brew process you have reason to believe something was contaminated, you may as well throw out the entire batch and start over – it’s more than likely the beer was infected. Though soap and water are, generally, enough to keep your things clean, there are a few commercial cleaners available that take the guess work out of it for you. Five Star Starsan Chemical Sanitizer is probably the best thing out there for keeping your brew kettle and fermenter clean, simply mix 1 oz of the cleaner with 5 gallons of hot water, allow your vessel to soak for at least a minute but no more than ten minutes – it is still a highly corrosive caustic, you don’t want it eating through your equipment, just cleaning the surface – then let it air dry. If you have a kegerator, use Homebrewer’s Outpost Beverage Line Cleaner to keep your tap line clean – you can also use it to sanitize your corny keg! Simply fill the corny keg with hot water, add 500 mL – half a standard bottle – and hook it up to your kegerator and allow it to run through your open tap until empty. We also recommend filling your corny keg with a second batch of hot water without the BLC just to make sure it is properly rinsed.
Sanitizing may not be the most fun thing to do, but the last thing you want is to have to start over because you neglected to clean properly. Sanitize. Sanitize again. And, frankly, sanitize a third time.
MASHING
We mentioned earlier about the boil, where you germinate your grains to extract the sugars and create the wort. This was not entirely accurate – they are actually two separate steps, now explained in full.
Mashing refers to the process where you steep the grains in hot water – usually somewhere around 67°C for about an hour. This allows the enzymes in the grains to convert the starches into sugars that can be fermented. Once the mashing is complete, generally the grains are rinsed with clean, hot water just to ensure all the sugars are extracted.
BOILING
Now that you have your mash, you can begin the boiling process. This concentrates, purifies, and finalizes the complexity of your beer. The length of the boil process and how keen an eye you keep on it contribute far more to the final product than you might think. The boil is also generally when hops and other pre-fermentation adjuncts might be added. Hops, for example, are typically added in specific weights at specific intervals – such as 40 grams of Amarillo at 1 minute in, 40 grams of Cascade at 15 minutes in, 30 grams of Cascade at 30 minutes in, a half teaspoon of peat at 45 minutes in, 40 grams of Cascade at 50 minutes in, 40 grams of Cascade at 55 minutes in, and a final 30 grams of Cascade at 60 minutes and immediately removing from heat – when adding ingredients after turning off the heat and allowing the wort to settle, it is called the whirlpool – such is the boil process for an American Cascade Brown Ale, the recipe that will be used later in the article.
FERMENTATION
When the wort has cooled to about 25°C, it is ready to be transferred into your fermenter to begin fermentation. Many yeasts you will procure from your local homebrew will be dry, stored in packet designed to regulate a cooler temperature to make sure the yeast doesn’t either activate on its own and then expire or simply die. Dry packets need to be stored in your fridge, though they can last a day or two at room temperature. To activate, you agitate the packet by slapping or breaking it, similar to a glow stick, then mix it with a small amount of lukewarm water before pitching it in your beer. However, you might be using liquid yeast, which can simply be activated and added without needing to add water – since, of course, it already has its own liquid.
The yeast, once awakened, will eat the sugars and create ethanol and carbon dioxide. Throughout the brew process, you will be measuring the sugar content of your beer – a process called checking the gravity – to keep track of the alcohol volume. When either no more alcohol is being produced or you have reached your desired “final gravity”, it means fermentation has completed, which can take up to, or sometimes longer than, two weeks.
TESTING GRAVITY
Typically, you will use a hydrometer or refractometer to test the Original Gravity – the OG – of your wort. This is done by adding a small but specific amount into your hydrometer and seeing where the floating insert rests in the liquid – for example, our American Brown will have an approximate OG of 1.072 SG. During the fermentation process, you will measure how much sugar has been eaten in the same process, with the number going down until it ceases to change or until you have reached your desired Final Gravity – FG – for example, our American Brown will have an approximate FG of 1.016 SG, a difference of 0.056 SG for an estimated final Actual Alcohol by Volume of 6.8%.
Though this is an important part of homebrewing, it really only matters if you plan on making consistent beer or making the same recipe again. If the ABV doesn’t matter to you, you really could just not measure the gravity of your beer and hope for the best – that being said, testing gravity is a good way to know if your beer is actually ready. If you know what your estimated FG should be and you haven’t reached it or went way past it, you know something went really wrong with the beer and might be an indicator of a bad batch.
RACKING & BOTTLING
As mentioned before, using a racking cane, you will siphon the finished beer into either sanitized plastic or glass bottles – glass is recommended, plastic can corrode without identification, whereas glass will just break and is easier to keep clean – or into a sanitized keg. Whichever your vessel, it is really as simple as just siphoning the beer in with the cane.
With bottles, you then need to add a small amount of priming sugars – most often cane sugar – specific to each style of beer to reach the desired concentration of carbon dioxide – for our American Brown, with a desired carbonation concentration of 2.5 volumes, we would use exactly 136 grams of cane sugar to our 5 gallon batch, assuming we are using 12oz bottles. With a keg, you simply hook it up to the gas cylinder, adjust the pressure to the level it needs to be at – for our American Brown, assuming the kegerator is set to 40°F, we would set the regulator to roughly 12.4 psi – turn the keg upside down then right it, and allow it to sit cooled for at least 24 to 48 hours before trying to pour from the tap. It is worth noting that, outside of homebrew, a commercial keg you might buy from a local store, though it will already be partially carbonated, will still need to be regulated for almost the same amount of time.
TASTING, SHARING & ENJOYING
Though not truly part of the brew process, the final step in homebrewing is drinking your product. You know everything that went into it, you should know exactly what it’s gonna taste like, right?
Mock American Brown Recipe
The preceding is a recipe for an American Brown ale hopped with American Cascade. This batch size will produce 11 gallons, requiring a brew kettle of 14 gallons in volume.
Hopefully this is, at the very least, enough to get you started in homebrewing. Who knows? Maybe one day you’ll be the forefront of brewing beer writing articles like this for all to see! Good luck, and, of course, sláinte!
