Is retrospect, as a home brewer neophyte, this was by far the most intimidating step on the journey towards a bottle of homemade beer. The first time I put the first pot to boil, I never left the side of my stove…and for good reason. As with many other aspects of life, I agree that a dose of respectful fear goes a long way.

In the last post, we discussed ingredients. For this post , as it discusses the brewing process, I am going to employ intentional generality, for depending on your ingredients, recipe, personal preference, etc. the process may change up a bit here and there. I just want to give you a basic road map toward a finished product. After a few brews, you may go on a detour: Adjust a temperature, change a boil time, steep longer, etc.

The first thing you’ll want to do is sterilize everything. I suggest a no rinse cleanser, but there are other methods. Including rinsing with hot water, which will keep sanitary conditions.  Water from the hot water heater is very low risk.  Clean everything you will be using. This includes your thermometer, hydrometer, stainless steal sifting spoon, boil pot, air lock, fermenter, etc. Don’t use towels to dry your equipment. Just let it air-dry. Don’t mess this up, or your future beer may come out of you quicker than it went in.

Have your ingredients laid out and ready to go. I don’t open my hops until right before they go into the boil for freshness’ sake, but I have them ready. First you will want to put about two gallons of clean water into your brew pot. By clean, I mean don’t get your water from the creek in your backyard. You may want to use your tap water…boil it first. I often use clean bottled water, but I do not use distilled. It lacks necessary minerals that aid in the flavor. You can taste your water (warm) first to see if you like it.

With the water in your pot, place your specialty grains in a steeping bag or cheese cloth and tie a tight not to keep the grains in the bag. Place the grain bundle in your pot and bring the water up to around 160-170 degrees. This is steeping. Let your grains steep at this constant temperature for around 20 minutes (maybe more, depending on the recipe). While the grains are steeping, don’t allow the temperature to go down if possible, and do NOT boil these grains.  Boiling grains can make a beer husky.

After 20 minutes or so, pull out the grain bag and let it gravity drain…don’t squeeze the liquid out.  You can also have some 170 or 180 degree water ready to pour over the bag that you have full of grains.  This constitutes a gentile way to sparge your grains.  Bring your water up to a boil. When it comes to boil, add your malt extracts while stirring constantly. Continue to stir while the water comes back up to a boil. When it does, you will want to add your bittering/flavoring hops, and then set your timer for about 60 minutes. Throughout the process, you will be adding hops (given your recipe so requires) at different points during the boil. Toward the end you will be adding your finishing hops and then aroma hops. During this process, don’t let your temperature drop by more than five degrees. Look out for the dredded boil over. Just like when you boil potatos, the starches in the brew will produce a heavy foam, that given the opportunity will creep over the sides of your pot and squelch that contant temperature you are going after. My wise friend Mike suggested I keep a spray bottle with clean water and mist the offending beast to keep it in the pot when necessary…the advice has served me well!

You are done boiling. Now you have to shock your brew (called wort) down to 70 degrees. I usually throw a banana in the pot. Just kidding. I actually place my stock pot in a sink full of ice water. Since I am going to be adding water to bring the contents up to five gallons in the fermenter, at this point I usually add a gallon and a half of room temperature water (clean) to the wort. this will save you a good deal of time.  A wort chiller will help you tremendously if you have one.  Cooling the beer can take as little as 10 minutes.  Just remember to boil the wort chiller with the wort for the last 10-15 minutes to keep it sterile.

When the wort is at seventy degrees, pour it into your sanitized fermenter. Add enough clean water to bring the contents up to five gallons. Now you are going to pitch your yeast. If you can, use liquid yeast. your beer will begin to ferment faster. If you are using dry yeast, you may find it helpful to empty the package into about a cup of seventy degree water first and wait for it to start foaming a bit. When you are ready, pitch the yeast into your wort. You may want to gently stir it around, but I find this unnessecary.

Put your lid on you fermenter. So that CO2 can escape without letting bacteria in, place the recommended amout of vodka in you airlock and secure to the lid.  Again, Vodka is sterile, which is your main concern.  No one would want to ruin a beer by getting potentially contaminating water into the fermenter.  Place your ferementer in a dark place and keep at about seventy degrees. You may want to move it at times (GENTLY) if you notice the temperature (use a liquid crystal thermometer sticker on the outside of your fermenter to monitor this) rising. Fermentation produces heat because of yeast activity.

Congratulations.  Should congress ever reenact prohibition law, you will not be with out suds in your mug!