To siphon a beer from vessel A to B, suction is initially needed to pull the beer from the vessel that has been placed higher than the receiving vessel.  After the beer has traveled down the tube further than the level of the starting vessel, gravity kicks in and pulls the remaining beer. To get that initial suction, a lot of homebrewers simply put the end of the tube hanging out of the higher vessel into their mouth and suck.  It does the job, but allows for bacterial infection.  *note* I forgot to take a picture of my own siphon set-up.  photo credit goes to http://bahua.com/bbs/.

Today, I transferred a freshly fermented beer into a secondary vessel where it will Lager for five weeks.  There was a bit (though not much) residual sugar in the beer, and I wanted to keep my slobber out.  Unlike a lot of homebrewers, I DO NOT have all the fancy-schmancy gadgets, like an AUTO SIPHON that utilizes a hand pump to initially suction the beer. I know…it’s only $10.  BUT, when you have five kids and student loans, ten bucks is a lot less trivial.

Just because I’m not willing to shell out $10 for an auto siphon does not mean that my beer should suffer.  Even for those willing to shell cash out on every brewing gadget imaginable, there are many who just haven’t gotten to upgrading to the auto siphon, as it does not come with most starter kits.  Besides, I love solving problems, so here’s how I siphon my beer from carboy to carboy without getting any slobber in it.  I bought a 3 inch tube that is just slightly bigger (like a sixteenth of an inch) bigger than the main tube proceeding from my upper carboy.  I slip this tube on top of the main tube and achieve a snug fit.  I put my mouth on this three inch tube and suck.  When I see the beer coming down the tube, I quickly pull it off and allow the beer to drain into the secondary fermenter.  It’s kind of like a homebrew condom, and I’ll bet it’s easier to clean and sanitize than the auto siphon.

There you have it.  Five cents, problem solved, and I get that warm and fuzzy feeling that only comes when you feel like you have beaten the system.  Enjoy the pics below!

In fact, I have spoke to several home brewers who, while familiar with the terms, have no clue what they mean, or how to properly use a hydrometer.  I know I didn’t some years ago!  So, let’s clear it up.

What is gravity when we talk about beer (and other liquids)?  Specifically, what is specific gravity?  Simply put, it is the density of water:  a measurement of the density of water.   Just like there is a scale to determine key temperatures of water (120 degrees Fahrenheit/ 100 degrees centigrade) there is a scale for density.  The specific gravity of water at a given temperature is (i.e 60 degrees)  1.000.

Obviously beer is not just water, and neither is pre-beer (or wort, un-fermented sugar water).  If a brewer is making beer, starts with water (1.000 on the scale) and adds sugar extracted from malted barley, the specific gravity of the water (now a solution) will rise.  But how does one know how dense this new solution (wort) is?  That’s where the hydrometer comes in.

I once spent half a summer in Hawaii.  I spent nearly everyday in the Pacific, surfing, swimming, snorkeling, and practicing my underwater dance routine.  After 6 weeks of bliss, I headed home.  With an overnight layover in LA, I took a dip in the hotel pool.  Unaccustomed to swimming in water that lack salt, I sank like lead.  Why?  The Pacific ocean was more dense than regular H20 and had provided my body with buoyancy.  A hydrometer is like my body, only much less sexy.  It is placed in a solution like wort, and, depending on the density of the solution it will float lower or higher.  There is a scale on the hydrometer that the brewer observes.  If the surface of the wort crosses the 1.040 mark on the hydrometer, the brewer knows that his/her beer has a potential for 5.1% alcohol after fermentation.

But a beer never ferments back to 1.000, and thank God…that would be one nasty beer.  There would be no residual sweetness left to balance out the bitter hops.  So after fermentation the brewer takes a second reading.  Why a second reading?  Well, fermentation is basically the consumption of sugar by yeast with alcohol as a byproduct.  After fermentation, the wort gets closer to density (gravity) that the water was before sugar was dissolved in it.  Let’s suppose the wort fermented down to 1.010.  The brewer can see that there is approximately 1.030 of alcohol in the brew (3.6% ABV).  A more detailed formula is used by many:  1.040 – 1.030 =.03 X 129 = 3.87% ABV?  Ive met a couple of home brewers (and one mead enthusiast) who assumed that the first reading of the hydrometer equaled the final ABV of the product.  The mead brewer (who brewed his stuff ridiculously sweet) was sorely disappointed to learn that his mead wasn’t as boozy as he’d assumed.

Make sense?  I hope so.  I tried to make this simple and easy to understand, knowing full well that I could write a chapter on measurements of alcohol in beer, scales, tools used, etc.   Cheers!

(Oh yeah…if you know anything about the first picture in this article, you will know that the brewers behind that beast must have had a really big hydrometer.  I wonder if it’s true what they say about brewers with big hydrometers….)

This is a favorite element of beer, not only making it quite drinkable (speaking here of the light and refreshing feel in one’s mouth) but enhancing the aroma and flavor.  But how is beer carbonated?  Like many things in life, consumers often take this for granted.  A few curious beer drinkers have asked me–being a home brewer–how I carbonate my beer.  Most are clueless. One individual guessed that I added carbonated water to my fermented wort.  This isn’t the case. Typically, there are two methods for carbonation:  forced and natural.

Forced carbonation inserts the CO2 into the beer.  The beer is place into a sealed (or soon to be sealed) container and carbonation is rapidly added.  Under high pressure, the CO2 is absorbed into the beer. This is actually the preferred method for most breweries, as the turn around time for a finished beer is quicker, and the bottle contains little to no sediment, as the beer has been pasteurized and yeast removed from the liquid.

Natural carbonation allows yeast to remain in the beer.  Sugar is then added to the beer in its container and then sealed. Fermentation kicks off again as the yeast eats the new sugar addition.  When yeast ferments, it releases CO2 which is then absorbed into the liquid?  So which is better?  How are they different?

For the greater part of my tenure as a home brewer I relied on natural carbonation, as I didn’t have a kegging system to force carbonate my beer; I would rather spend my money on beer ingredients than the costly upgrade to kegging equipment.  This past Christmas, my dad surprised my with kegging equipment and the opportunity for forced carbonation.  As an experiment, I brewed two nearly identical batched of beer and carbonated them differently for comparison.

There is a marked difference.

The force carbonated beer looks better.  The bottom of the bottle boasts no sediment, and the beer pours crystal clear.  It looks like it was pulled right out of a sixpack from your typical craft brewery.  It pours with a decent head and bubbles cling to the inside of the glass.  Lacing is minimal.

The beer carbonated ye old naturale method has a thin layer of yeast on the bottom.  The head is thicker and more billowy with more peaks and valleys, and it has longer retention with more lacing.  There are fewer bubbles sticking to the glass (both dishwasher cleaned) and the bubbles are tinier.  In the mouth, the beer feels smoother than the force carbonated beer, and more effervescent; perhaps more champagne like, though both feel as they have the same level of carbonation.  The beer that was carbonated induces more belching.

Flavor?  Yes, there is a difference.

The beer that was carbonated naturally has a slight yeast bite.  It is a bit more bready; an attribute many homebrewers avoid.  I myself enjoy it.  The naturally fruity (no fruit was used in the making of this beer) qualities of the Belgian yeast strain are much more prominent and there is an overall level of complexity not attained to by the beer that was carbonated by force.

Admittedly, I am just scratching the surface of this complex topic, but so far, I prefer natural carbonation (sometimes referred to as refermentation).  I intend on repeating this experiment repeatedly and am aware that there are more complex and specialized pieces of equipment for better forced carbonation, and also realize that my beer that was force carbonated had not been rid of residual yeast.

Home brewers and pro brewers, what are your thoughts?  Non brewers who just love beer, what are your thoughts?

The choices are really pretty scant.  You can buy light, amber, dark and wheat malt…which is pretty much it.  Any character that you wish to add to your beer must be done through the purchase of specialty grains, sugars, or other adjuncts.  Often these can be found via kits or fairly simple recipes.  Let me say, without equivocation, that there is nothing wrong with extract brewing.  However, you are able to maintain more control, better quality, and more creative spirit in the world of all-grain brewing. How do I know this?  I started with extract brewing.

All grain brewing is easier than you might believe.  The description of the process sounds harder than the practice, so don’t be discouraged by terminology.  Remember that if you do the process right, you don’t need to give a perfectly accurate description of enzymatic activity or VDK production to brew well. Processes will happen independent of your perfect understanding.  So, if we use technical jargon at some points, don’t feel trodden by word…we are putting words to what is happening anyway.

What you are about to do is referred to as mashing.  You are converting those starches (complex sugars) into simple sugars for yourself.  You will have more control, quality, and save money in the long run.  How are you going to do this?

Essentially, the process runs like this:  you steep your grains in pre-determined amounts of water over a pre-determined amount of time.  Then you pour another pre-determined amount of water through those grains to obtain a pre-determined amount of sugars from those grains.  Who is the pre-determiner of all this?  You are.  That sounds like comforting control over the whole process.  Let’s not get too much in the process just yet.  After all, aren’t you going to need a vessel in which to do this?  I think you will.

Since you are trying to hold grains at particular volumes and particular temperatures, you are going to need something that will hold the volume and the temperature.  But what can you use?  How about a simple gatorade or water cooler?  It is insulated and will hold five gallons of water.  My cooler will hold (maxed out) 15 pounds of grain, which is more than enough volume to get a beer of 9% ABV, depending on grain type and kettle additions.  With sugar additions, I can achieve a balanced 11% ABV beer.  Not bad for 15 pounds of grain and a few sugars…that’s a total of abuot 50-54 12-ounce bottles of beer.  So, how do you do it?

A simple Gatorade/Igloo cooler is almost all you need for the mashing process.  In this case, there is nothing to construct for making a mash tun.  After your grains are steeped and starches have become simple sugars, all you have to do is separate those sugars from the mash with water.  What do you need to make this happen?

Charlie Papazian uses what he calls the Zapap method.  Simply stated, it uses two five gallon buckets to accomplish the separation of wort.  He takes one 5 gallon bucket and puts a spigot on the very bottom. The other bucket sits inside the first.  Because of how the bucket sits within the other, there is a gap created which can be filled with the liquid that is being separated from the grain.  The only thing that you must do is drill a couple hundred 1/8 inch holes into the second bucket (which sits in the first).  This allows for the maximum liquid separation while keeping the grain out of the wort.  This is an effective and efficient method, although one I don’t actually use.

I designed my sparge setup using the Zapap conceptualization but have tried to have less buckets in the process.  I went to the hardware store and bought a piece of 1/4 inch plexiglas.  I cut it in half and made two platforms that sit at the top and bottom of cooler, respectively.  My bottom portion sits just above the spigot.  My top portion sits just above the top of the already mashed grains.  The bottom part obviously separates the liquids, while the tops allows me to pour water through the grains with a gentile barrier that causes it to sprinkle rain instead of disturbing the grain bed (the bed forms a natural filter that needs to stay stationary).  The separation of these liquids is technically called sparging.

For myself, I end up mashing in my cooler, pouring the grains into my pot, inserting my plexiglass, “floating” my grains (this simply means that I put water to a level just above the platform), pour my grains back in and put my top platform…and just start running the water through.

Okay, I’ve covered a good deal of ground with the mashing, sparging, etc.  Here are some visual stimuli that will give you an idea of what I’m talking about.  I’ll post on how to mash and types of mashing the next time around.  For now, I just want to give you some orientation toward thinking about it.  Comments? Questions?

Here is a brief outline for the series:  We will talk about constructing a mash tun and something to sparge with.  We will talk about the process of conversion and how it all works.  We will define, clarify, and spell out clearly a step by step method of how to do all this.  The series will include how to perform various types of mashing and will go from the more simple to the more complex.  We’ll even try to spell out which types of beer require (or prefer, rather) the various mashing methods.  It is our hope that this will teach people how to do this highly gratifying beer making method.  For my part, I’m going to have a friend of mine do some film work, so that some videos of me can end up on youtube.  Just kidding.  Seriously, a visual is always nicer than not having one (at least when it comes to making beer).

This series may take a little while, but I think it will be worth it.  Nate is planning on writing how to culture yeast.  So, that will be part of what we do here on the site.  Don’t worry, this is not going to become a home brewing site.  We simply want to expand our content a little bit, so that maybe we can get some more brewers out there.

Hope to write more soon.

As I mentioned in the last article, you really must keep your beer away from too much direct light, especially sunlight. It is imperative to use a dark place or box that keeps the beer away from light. A homebrew can keep for quite some time. Of course, alcohol level, hop level, and darkness of the beer are all factors that impact the storage life of a beer. Chances are that most of your beer will be gone in a fairly short amount of time. But I’ve always kept at least a couple beers in the bottle for six months to a year in order to see how it develops.

You may find that your beer has not “come together” and the the tastes are disparate for the first little bit. No need to worry, just be patient. Tasting the beers through time is actually instructive for you because you get to see your baby grow through time. It may start out immature, but it will make you proud over time. So, time and patience will come in handy when you go to drink your beers. Oh yeah! Find some people to share with–maybe you can teach someone to homebrew.

This concludes our homebrewing series. If you found this series helpful and instructive, we would love to know. By all means, subscribe, check out all our articles, and (please!) tell your friends. If you want to go a little deeper into homebrewing, get Charlie Papazian’s book, The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. He has a lot more information that can guide you into advanced brewing, kegging, and whatever else you might want to do as a homebrewer.

Cheers!  And we would love to try one of your beers.

One of the first things that you need to do is to get about a pint or so of water (or beer) and put it in a small pot. Bring it to a boil. Now take your 3/4 cup of corn sugar (a.k.a., dextrose) or 1 1/8 dry light malt extract or 1 1/4 cup dry amber extract and dissolve it in the water. Once it is dissolved and has boiled briefly, turn it off. Watch for a boil over. Let the mixture cool to about the temp of the beer. Once it has cooled, stir it in gently. You must be gentle because you don’t want too much oxygen getting into the beer.

Better Beer tip: I’m finding that using malt extract powder gives the beer more body. Of course, this is in a beer for which extra body is desirable. In my opinion, it also helps with creating a more creamy and stable head (again, this applies to beers in which this is desirable trait). I have used corn sugar, and it works well, but I now prefer malt extract powder.

Now that you’ve gotten the new sugar stirred in, get ready to bottle. By the way, this new sugar is what is going to carbonate your beer. Under normal, open circumstances you would get the conversion of sugar + yeast + oxygen = alcohol + CO2. The CO2 would normally be expelled through the airlock. However, we are now ready to trap that CO2, and this is where the bottle and the cap come in. Get your beer into the bottles as gently as possible and avoid too much splashing. You are going to want to leave a little space at the top of the bottle in order to avoid excess pressure. But you don’t want too much space because there will be too much air, creating the possibility of oxidation. Most of the time 1/2 to 1 inch or so is sufficient space. If you are in doubt, look at a closed full bottle of commercially produced beer to gauge your distance. Fill the beer to the appropriate level and cap it. Congratulations, you now have a beer that is in the process of carbonating.

Now it’s time for the waiting game again. Carbonation will take a minimum of about 2 two weeks. You have to wait at least this long until the beer gets fizzy. It may take a month or two before the beer starts developing into a really good beer. I’ve often waited two or three months until my beer really shaped into something wonderful. Six months to nine months can really show you how a beer develops. Of course, you should drink one at a week, two weeks, three weeks and so on to see how a beer changes and comes together. You may be shocked to see what a beer does over a month or two.

***Important Note*** Make sure that you are bottling your beer in brown bottles and are able to keep them in a box (or similar medium) and out of the sun. You don’t want to have beer that gets skunky because you failed to follow a couple of simple rules.

***I would be remiss not to mention that when you are bottling your beer you should draw off a pint or two in a glass. Look at the beer, smell the beer, and taste the beer. Even though it is not carbonated, you should really see what it is like at this time. A bottle or two should be no skin off your teeth. Enjoy the whole experience.

In our next article, we are going to talk about ways to age and improve your beer that are simple yet impacting.

First off, watch for signs of activity. Your airlock should be active within 12 to 24 hours. In fact, it ought to be pretty active between 12 to 36 hours. Your airlock is your signal that all is well with sugar, yeast, and oxygen: fermentation is happening. The temptation to peak in on your glass fermenter is great. Okay! Remove the towel and take a quick peak at how crazy the beer looks in the glass vessel–because it is neat to watch. Just make sure that you are not letting a ton of sunlight hit your beer. In some sense, watching the fermentation happen is almost as rewarding as drinking your beer.

Second of all, just be patient and keep your fermenter closed. You may be tempted to keep opening the beer to see if it actually smells like beer. After a while, you can actually get the aromas though your bubbling airlock, so this is not a temptation that can’t be fulfilled in a way that is actually sanitary. Once your beer has calmed down, it is important that you keep the beer closed off to prevent the introduction of new oxygen in to the vessel. Just avoid letting haste cause problems for you.

Third of all, watch your time. You don’t want to exceed two weeks for your primary fermentation cycle. Too long a time can affect how your beer tastes. Just keep track of when you put it in the fermenter and how active it is. Don’t give in to the temptation of checking every five minutes; once or twice a day will suffice.

Better beer tips: Make sure that your beer has a consistent ambient in which to sit. Let me translate: keep your beer in a place where the temperature is consistent. You probably put your yeast in at 70-75 degrees, so try to find a place where you can put your beer that will be kind of close to 70. The beer will raise in temperature because of the chemical reactions taking place, but you are going to want to keep the beer in a place where you can control the temperature. I like to keep the beer between 65-75 degrees. Whatever temp that you choose for this ambient, make sure that it stays at the chosen temperature. Fluctuations of 5 to 10 degrees in a beer can cause some off-flavors, so stay committed to keep the temperature of the area where you are fermenting at the exact temp that you choose to keep the room. Don’t flip out about one or two degree fluctuations, but be careful not to allow larger swings. Care here ought to help ensure a good fermentation and storage cycle.

Rack your beer to a secondary fermenter. Once you see your airlock inactive and level on the liquid, you can transfer the beer to a secondary fermenter (if you purchased one). Be gentle. You want to keep oxygen to a minimum at this point. You don’t want oxidation in your beer, so be easy on moving the vessel and the beer. Choose a fermenter that is 5 to 5 1/2 gallons (or whatever size is commensurate with your brew). You don’t want too much head-space for oxygen to fill.

What does putting the beer in a secondary fermenter do? First of all, it takes the beer off the trub (a.k.a., the waste by-products of fermentation). You will clearly see what I mean by trub when you look at the bottom of your beer. Beer that sits on trub for more than 2 weeks can affect the flavor and quality of a beer. Off-flavors that picked up during the fermentation can “leak” back into the beer as the trub degrades. Getting your beer off the trub helps to keep “leaking” from happening. Also, your beer will mature cleaner and faster when it is off by-product. Additionally, the beer will be filtered by the movement, leaving less sediment when you bottle the beer. At this point you can “top off” your beer. You probably won’t have a full five gallons of beer…that’s okay! What you can do is boil some water (never use tap water that hasn’t been boiled) and cool it to the temperature of your beer and gently transfer it until you get five gallons of beer.

The third “better beer tip” that I can offer regards cooling the beer. I’ve already stated that temperature fluctuations can cause problems, but it is mainly during fermentation when this happens. Do you have an area that is cooler? Do you have a beer fridge? This is a trick that I wish I knew when I started out. Here is what you do: when you have put your beer into secondary, you can inch the beer to 50 or 55 degrees; this will mature and clean the beer up. If you are able, you can gradually work the beer down to close to 32 degrees. I say gradually because you don’t want to “shock” the yeast (it is still alive and active in the beer) by changing the temperature rapidly. However, “lagering” any beer, even an ale, can be very beneficial. If you are able to do this, you should. Two to four weeks of this process will do wonders for your beer. Don’t get me wrong, it will still be good if you don’t do this. This step is optional for an ale.

***Note*** if you are making a recipe that is a lager or uses lager yeast, you are going to have to get the beer to 50-55 degrees within a short time of your primary fermentation and get it close to 32 during secondary. This is not an option if you want a good lager beer.

***Post-Note*** Anything you do in the way of moving your beer into a secondary or using a racking cane must be done in a sanitary fashion. Always put sanitation and cleanliness first.

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!

There are plenty of homebrewing recipes out there, so you can always dig something else up. We have also avoided giving instructions on how to do this because it is posted in the next articles, so these are strictly ingredients lists. Also, we’re not giving any gravity readings on these brews. These are two recipes that I made up, so enjoy and feel free to use them if you like how they come out.

Mike’s Milk Stout

• 16 ounces Chocolate Malt
• 8 ounces Roasted Barley
• 16 ounces Caramel Malt (medium to dark)
• 3.3 pounds Dark Malt Syrup (no hops added)
• 2 pounds dark powder (dried) malt extract
• 1 pound light powder (dried) malt extract
• 12 ounces lactose
• 8 ounces malto-dextrin
• 1 ounce Nugget, Target, or Chinook Hops
• 2 teaspoons of Irish Moss (last 15 min of boil for picking up larger bunches of protein)
• 1 pack of Irish Ale Yeast (drier and nuttier) or Kolsch Ale Yeast (cleaner and smoother)

Not an American Pale Ale

• 3.3 pounds of English light liquid extract
• 12 ounces of dark caramel or crystal malt
• 2 pounds light malt extract
• 4 ounces malto-dextrin
• 1 package of burton water salts (if you can get them)
• 1 pound invert sugar
• 2 teaspoons Irish moss
• 1 ounce Challenger or Cluster hops (for bittering)
• 1 ounce Kent Goldings (aroma)
• 1 package of Whitbred Ale Yeast