Step by Step Guide to Brewing Your Own Beer

Step by Step Guide to Brewing Your Own Beer

Beer lovers rejoice, you can actually create your own beer at home!  Brewing beer isn’t as difficult as you think and since it has become so popular the ingredients are fairly easy to get your hands on.  So here is a step by step guide to brewing your own beer.

In order to manufacture your own beer, you first need to decide on which type of beer you need to brew. The following are two types of beer that can be made at home:

  • Extract brewing
  • All Grain brewing

All Grain Brewing is probably a bit more complicated than you want to do in your own kitchen.  Extract brewing is easier and it is a shorter process and you can get beer that tastes great.

Extract Brewing

Extract brewing only requires the malt extract unlike All Grain Brewing which begins with the mashing process.  here is what the process looks like.

Ingredients required:
(i) water
(ii)grains or malt extract

Steps required to be followed in order to make your own beer:

  1. Boil the water to about 170 degrees. Boil about 5 gallons of water for the process to be worthwhile.
  2. Steep the grains. Put all the grains inside a muslin bag. Tie the top of muslin bag tightly and lower it inside the hot water like thirty minutes while stirring.  Remove it and sprinkle it with warm water. This is necessary for the extraction of the final bits of flavour.
  3. Add the malt extract
  4. Boil your extract gently or rather simmer your solution.
  5. Add the hops in a muslin bag containing the grains and tie it tightly. Then, lower it in the boiling water for about an hour.
    This will add sweetness and a pleasant smell to your extract.
  6. Make sure that the bottles are clean. It is necessary for the bottles to be clean for a good sanitation. You can clean the containers while the brew is still boiling since it will take a while for the extract to be ready.
  7. Cool the malt extract. After the malt extract has boiled in an hour, you will leave the solution to cool for a while
  8. Transfer the extract. The fermenter should be bigger so as to hold enough extract and also have some more room for carbon(iv)oxide. This is because fermentation produce excess carbon(iv) oxide which may cause ether bursting of the fermenter if small.
  9. Add the yeast in order to facilitate the fermentation process because it contains enzymes which are essential for anaerobic respiration
  10. Ferment the beer. Close the top of the fermenter to allow no oxygen into the fermenter and leave the extract for about 2 weeks. A steady temperature is essential during fermentation.
  11. Carbonate your beer you do this by adding carbonation sugar to your beer and leaving it for a week.
  12. Bottle your beer. Siphon your beer into the bottles you did clean earlier.