Now that you know what equipment you need in order to brew, you need something to actually make in it. As I’ve said before, beer can be done numerous ways. What sort of ingredients do you want to get? Like equipment, ingredients can be bought as a kit. These are pre-made styles that are intended to have no variation from package to package. These are easy to use because they include everything for the brew that you want to make. I’m also going to include some other options. But you will want to read over this article to have a little more information about what you are getting into.

Pre-made kits: These kits (pictured above) can be done a few ways. They may or may not include actual grains for brewing. The former is what I called partial-grain brewing in my previous post. The latter is pure extract brewing. At a minimum, these kits will include malt extracts (in the sprayed powder form; i.e., they will not be liquid, which is not a big deal at all). The kits also include hops, whether inside the powder or in a separate pack. Kits will also include yeast that will be “pitched” once the “wort” has been cooled. If it is a beer like a Chocolate Stout or some other specialty variety, it will also include packs of cocoa powder or other related ingredients. Another important thing that these kits will most often include are instructions, which can be important. If there are “specialty grains” included in the kit, cheesecloth or muslin cloths will also be included. Pre-made kits are a good way to go if you are looking for some experience. I’ve said before that it is not a large leap from extract to partial grain, so if you get a kit, try to get one with some grains in it.

Possible downfalls to Pre-made kits: Freshness is probably the most significant issue that comes into play with the pre-made kits. The powders will more than likely be fresh and useful for a long time, so that is not your main concern. The real issue involves any hops that might have been included, since hops can lose their freshness and, therefore, effectiveness over time; even if they are vacuum packed, they lose their alpha acid levels over time. Without good hops the bittering qualities of the beer could be compromised. So can the aroma if you have aroma hops in the kit. If grains are included in a pre-made kit, they will be cracked. These grains will stale over time. This will obviously affect flavor. Another consideration is the yeast. The packaged yeast can lose its quality and efficiency over time. Here is the key consideration: If it was stored well and is not too old, a pre-made kit is a good way to get started. But you have to know for sure that it is fresh and well cared for. Most homebrew shops have enough pride in their recipes and kits that they won’t let you get some old stale crap, but not all people are as scrupulous as you and me. My first couple brews were kits, and they turned out well, so I’m not knocking them.

Designed but not pre-made recipes (in the picture are some grains that you might buy…they have price and Lovibond, which is a measure of the grain darkness; they also have a brief description of the beer): Here we have tried and true recipes that were designed by brew shops and beer people. Often they are compiled in books like The Brew-Master’s Bible. Beers are categorized by types and styles. Recipe difficulty, parameters, and instructions are given in this context. The obvious advantage to this approach is that you have a choice to buy fresher stuff. You get the hops and yeast from the refrigerator. You can choose to get liquid rather than powder yeast. You can get fresh whole hops instead of pellets or plugs (although both are still very good for brewing; you will find that when fresh hops are not available, these are a welcome bastion). You can buy and have the grains milled right before your very eyes. Liquid extracts can be procured instead of powder. There is also a certain joy of getting the ingredients yourself, even if you didn’t design the recipe. I guess it maybe seems more authentic? Another thing that you get to do is familiarize yourself with the ingredient section and the sheer mass of inherent possibilities that are open to the brewer.

Disadvantages of designed but not pre-made: The biggest thing here is that you have to be judicious about your choice of what to brew. More than anything, the biggest problem is that your brew supply place may not have the particular specialty grain or ingredient that your recipe calls for. With a kit, you know that you are going to be able to get what you need, but with the designed option, you might not be able to find an exact match (approximate matches often work very well). With the internet and all the things that can be found, the possibilities are wide open. So, you can get some stuff on the net that you can’t get locally. I’m not a fan of buying too much stuff on the net if you have a local brew shop. One, you have to make sure that the site is a credible source for ingredients and security. Two, l like to support local businesses. This does not mean that I won’t get get on the net to get something that I couldn’t purchase otherwise. It also means that you can get something on the net instead of driving a couple of hours to your nearest brew shop (if you are in such a situation).

Self or “tweaked” beer design: These last two methods are more fun but require a little extra work. First of all, the “tweaked design” is basing one’s own recipe on a similar but not exact recipe. Here is the more novice brewer’s attempt to add a flair or variation on a trusted recipe. This requires knowing a little bit about how to interchange and which ingredients can be roughly exchanged in a recipe. One can choose to add a little more, different type, or multiple types of grain exchanges. You can choose different hops or yeasts. Extra hops could be added for aroma. I think the reader might get the point I’m making. There is room for some creativity that makes the beer feel more like your own.

Self-designed recipes require even more knowledge and work than the “tweaked” version of recipes. Don’t let that fool you, it’s still not crazily hard to do; after all, you are still not doing the extracting on your own. To use this method you need to know the basics of what you’re trying to achieve in terms of the style. For instance, there are accepted ranges for styles of beer, which make them distinctive. Let’s take a dry Irish Stout. There are ranges that the alcohol fall under. There is an accepted darkness, which is measured by grain color (according the Lovibond system) and by actual beer darkness (measured in America by SRM, or Standard Reference Method). There is an accepted gravity for a beer (a measurement of changes in various aspects of the beer before and after fermentation). There are accepted IBUs or HBUs for the brewer, IBUs being International Bitter Units and HBUs being homebrewing units.

So, you can see that this involves knowing a little bit more stuff in order to design a good recipe. But the beer is truly yours. I’m going to assume that most of the readers are not really interested in this stuff just yet. You’ve got plenty of time to do this stuff if you keep on brewing. I only mention the above points for a few reasons. One, I’m anticipating the question of “Why can’t I just make something up?” Two, I’m giving you just a taste of some of the complexities involved as you get more into this art of brewing. Three, some may want to venture this far on their first brew, and I’m arming you with enough information to look into it further.

Possible Issues with “Tweaked” or Self-designed recipes: What do you think is the number one problem? Failure! By failure I don’t not mean you won’t end up with beer at the end. What I mean is that you might have a beer that is not balanced or has some off qualities. You might find that what you expect is not what you get, especially if you are attempting to “clone” something. There is more work and thought that goes into doing this method as well (that is not a negative), and it is more work than most people want to do for their first attempt at something.

Once again, it seems to me that the middle ground is probably the best place for us to start, namely, “designed but not pre-made” kits are best for many of us to try because we get some exposure to both grains and extracts.

I know it took a while to get here, but now, armed with the knowledge that will help with informed decisions, we can get some ingredients. Next, we are going to offer a starting recipe and some brew-day instructions. The big day is coming.

In addition to the brew day ingredients and instructions, there will be one more article that will provide tips that are easy ways to make your beer much better. I’m gonna call it “things I wish I knew when I started out.” I never had articles or tips like this to help me through my first brew… I just did it. So, the number one reason that I’m writing this series is to give people something that I never had, a friend to walk me through the process. The second reason is that we want more people to enjoy good beer, whether it is brewing, trying, or sharing. Your friends will probably try your homebrew before they will a Stout that you bought. So, beer-vangelism is a reason for this series. Third, Scott from the Brew-Club encouraged us to write this series, so I want to dedicate a lot of this inspiration to write the series to him: thanks for your encouragement in this matter. Last of all, I love brewing, and I want you to love it, too.

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