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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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

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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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A Kit: Brew supply stores almost always have ready-made kits that you can buy. This is obviously the most simple thing to do when you get stuff to brew with. Some stores will allow you to substitute glass fermenters for plastic for a fee. This and other up-grades are optional. I know that Nate has a great deal of success using a plastic bucket, but I prefer to use glass. Brew kits are usually minimalistic in approach and don’t include a spoon and other things that you will actually need. Below I have given a list of what you need (and some optional things) for brewing beer. Each item will be mentioned and explained. At the end, I will give a simple, itemized list that will be easy to write down (or copy) rather than having to skim back through the whole article. I’m warning the reader that this will be a lengthy post just because of all the stuff that has to be covered.

Brew Pot: Pots come in various sizes and types. First of all, you are going to want to use a stainless steel pot. Some people use ceramic-coated pots or maybe other metals. But stainless steel is your best bet. Don’t go crazy with this part. Don’t buy the thinnest gauge that you can find, but don’t buy the heaviest either. You want something that will be efficient with heat transfer, but if your pot is too thin it might have a tendency to scorch. A 5-gallon stainless pot will probably run from $20-40. What you are looking for is a stock pot. I use a 5-gallon pot that I keep at about 2 1/2 to 3 gallons full. Wort boils pretty violently, so if you want to do all 5 gallons of beer in one pot, you’re going to need a 7- or 8-gallon pot. This is a personal decision, but I’ve had great success with a 5-gallon pot. What I do is boil the three gallons of wort and “top it off.” More about this when we start brewing.

Utensils: Get a long-handled metal spoon. When I say long, I mean one that is 18-21 inches or so. Believe me when I tell you will get tired of using a short spoon really quickly–unless you are trying to cook your hand, but that’s another matter.

You’ll also need a thermometer that can reach at least 212 degrees (the boiling temp of water at sea level). There are a few types of thermometer that can be used. DO NOT USE A THERMOMETER WITH MERCURY in it. I have a hand-held thermometer because that is what I used when I started. A really good thermometer for brewing (because of sanitary concerns) is a floating thermometer, which works on (you guessed it) buoyancy. Make sure that your thermometer is able to read temps that are close to freezing, too.

A Kitchen Scale is a useful but not mandatory purchase. It’s nice for weighing grains and other beer ingredients. However, your homebrew store will weigh and have much of the stuff you buy pre-weighted for purchase.

You can also pick up a Hydrometer if you want to. This instrument measures the gravity of a beer before and after fermentation. It is used to measure the alcohol potential and final alcohol amount in your beer. I have one, but it’s not necessary if you are just brewing once to try it. Here is a test tube and Hydrometer picture to see what I’m talking about.

Some people mention getting an egg timer to keep track of how long your boil has been. I’ve always used the microwave timer to keep track.

You probably already have some measuring cups, which can be used as a sanitized holder for your spoon.

Fermenter Stuff: First thing’s first, you have to have a way to transfer your beer from the pot to the fermenter. The device used to do this is called a racking cane (in fermenter on the picture). This is basically a hooked cane with a rubber hose attached. These items are used to transfer wort (pronounced wert) into the fermenter where it will become beer. Racking canes also aid in the gentle transfer of beer (you must be gentle because new oxygen after fermentation can be detrimental to the beer). Racking canes also filter out some sediment.

Now to the fermenters. There are many types of fermenters. Stainless steel, copper, plastic or glass are the main options. Copper is extremely expensive, so that was never an option for me. Stainless steel is also expensive as a fermenter. Glass and plastic are the best when it comes to economy. I prefer to use glass because plastic is somewhat porous. It is the cheapest way to go, but I worry too much. Many, many people have had great success with plastic, so use it if you want. The only advantage that plastic has over glass is that it is more light resistant. That problem is easily solved with a towel or other thick cloth around the glass fermenter. This is one downside of glass that is easily remedied, and it beats the negatives of using plastic. One such negative effect of plastic is that it scratches easily, which can be a good way to harbor unwanted bacteria.

So, you are looking for a 5- to 6-gallon plastic bucket or a glass carboy. I want to stress this next part. When beer ferments, it generates a foamy head. If you are getting a 5-gallon sized vessel, you also need a blow-off hose. I use a 6 1/2-gallon fermenter for my primary fermentation cycle and transfer is to a 5-gallon fermenter (this is a means to reduce head space so that less oxygen gets into the beer), so I don’t worry about the beer foaming to the outside of the vessel (except on an exceptionally active beer). Either way you do it, you need sufficient space for your beer to grow without overflowing. I have two carboys. One is for primary fermenting and the other is for getting the beer off the waste product in order to condition it fast (and improve taste). Two fermenters is not necessary, but it is nice.

To close and create a one-way directional flow in your beer, you will need an airlock. As the name indicates, the airlock locks out air. It also lets you see whether or not the beer is still fermenting (the CO2 gas goes through the liquid filled airlock, so you see it bubble). More than anything, it keeps out unwanted stuff. The airlock has a rubber stopper (rubber stopper in picture of airlock) that fits into the hole of a carboy or plastic bucket. These are only a couple bucks, and you must have one to ensure your success. While you’re getting stuff to make your first beer, you need to pick up some sanitizing solution. This probably the most important thing you can buy for making your beer. Good sanitation is paramount for brewing good beer. I use an iodine and chlorine solution. You can also use 1 to 2 ounces of household bleach mixed with 5 gallons of cold water. This might be the cheapest way to go, and it is very effective.

Bottling your beer: Once you’ve made a batch of beer and are ready to do something with it, you’ll need some equipment. For 5 gallons you’ll need 50 or so bottles that can be capped. Twist caps will not work. If you already drink beer, you can save those recappable bottles (just give them a good rinse after the beer is gone). You can buy new, unlabeled bottles in cases of 24. USE BROWN BOTTLES unless you are trying to skunk your beer (if you’re making Mexican style beer).

You will need a way to gently transfer your beer to your bottles. I have a bottling bucket, which is a plastic bucket with a spigot. You can also get a bottle filler attachment for your racking cane. The racking cane route is cheaper, but I prefer the use of my bottling bucket. Once your beer is bottled, you are going to need some caps and a bottle capper to close the beer up. I use slightly more expensive (couple dollars total for 144 caps) oxygen barrier caps, but you can go with the slightly cheaper option, too.

Cleaning after and before fermentation: You can also purchase a long handle and hooked scrubbing brush, which will really help with cleaning.

Now, you need ingredients for brewing.

One more miscellaneous piece of equipment: When you brew beer, you are going to need to cool it as quickly as possible. How? I used an ice bath in a sink to cool my beer for a few years. Eventually, I bought a wort chiller, which is essentially a copper coil that hooks to a garden hose and transfers heat though the flow of cold water. I love using a wort chiller, but it is about $40-50 to buy. I recommend it but only once you’re sure that you are going to keep brewing. Some of this stuff can be gotten over time. This is an awesome piece of equipment to own.

Compiled list of stuff:

Brew Kettle Airlock

Long-handled spoon

Hydrometer (optional but recommended)

Thermometer

Measuring cups

Sanitizing solution

Timer (optional, microwave or stove timer works well)

Fermenter (a.k.a. carboy, if glass)

Bottling bucket or connection to racking cane

Racking Cane

Siphon hose (should come with racking cane)

Bottles Bottle Caps

Bottle Capper Blow-off hose (optional)

Kitchen Scale (optional) Wort Chiller (optional)

Love and desire to brew good beer.

Here in Indianapolis, l pick up my supplies at Great Fermentations.  I know Nate heads over to Titgemeiers in Toledo.

Brewing is also supposed to be a fun mix between science and art. You are going to have to learn not to stress out too much and learn to have fun brewing.

If you really begin to enjoy brewing, a couple of books are worth picking up. Charlie Papazian’s The Complete Joy of Home Brewing. I also really like Stephen Snyder’s The Brew-Master’s Bible, which has a ton of brewing recipes. There are some others, but I’m already getting carried away.

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For those who are interesting in brewing, we have to start by telling you that there are essentially three methods of brewing beer. The methods for brewing are, here, being listed from easiest to hardest. None of them are extraordinarily hard. However, the more you learn, it becomes clear that this statement is both true and untrue. It is true in that all three methods are accessible with varying amounts of equipment. It is hard in the sense that the more control that you want to have, the more work that goes into making your own beer. In other words, with more knowledge comes more burden to the brewer about doing everything just so. Let me re-iterate that getting started is not so hard after all.

Method One: Extract Brewing

This method of brewing is basically accomplished by making beer out of malt extracts. Grains start out their lives containing starches and must be converted into sugar and various other brewing necessities (namely, FAN [Free Amino Nitrogens], various types of protein, and multiple other things).

For the extract brewer, the sugar is the main thing to be concerned with. In other words, extract brewing utilizes steps that have already been done for the brewer. Extracts come in both liquid and powder forms. Some extracts are already hopped for the brewer. The addition of pelletized, plugged or whole leaf hops can also be done in this process. Extract brewing is really a pour-and-boil-type process, which makes it the most simple and accessible for the starting brewer. In using this method, the brewer is slightly limited in putting his or her own special signature character into the product. Don’t mistake me as saying that great beer cannot be made by using extract-only brewing; it most certainly can. Very little equipment is needed for extract brewing.

Method Two: Partial Grain (extraction) Brewing

The great thing about this second style of brewing is that very, very little extra stuff is needed to make partial grain brewing possible. The only equipment change for this method is simple muslin cloth/cheese cloth grain and hop bags. The only ingredient changes for this method will be additional grains, specialty ingredients, such as rolled oats, lactose, or Belgian candy sugar, or things like Irish moss. Additional time used for partial grain brewing is minimal (30 minutes or so).

Little changes in method can mean a lot for adding more character to the beer. The brewer might decide to add a little bit of wheat, rye, or various types of barley to the brew. The sugar from extracts (liquid or powder) are still heavily relied on, with a little residual extracted from a small of specialty grains. But the brewer makes the beer his/her own in the truest since of the word. These grains or other ingredients are steeped in 160 degree water for about 30 minutes to add character to the brew. I would call this the happy medium in the brewing process.

Method Three: All Grain Brewing

Maybe you’ve already guessed what this method entails. All sugar for fermentation is extracted from the grains by the brewer. Starch is converted to sugar by means of heat, water, and time. Some knowledge of your water table and chemistry is helpful for this type of brewing, especially the former. There are extra purchase or fabrications that must be made for this type of brewing. Separate or multifunction vessels are required. A vessel that maintains consistent heat and a filtering vessel are essentials.  The picture at the top is my homemade mash tun/sparging vessel.

In the next post, I’m going to list what you will need for each method. This article is meant to give you realistic expectations of what is involved in each. The all grain brewing method is the most time, labor, and (initially) monetary intensive method but actually ends up being the cheapest method after a few brews. There may or may not be multiple temperature adjustments in the course of utilizing this method. More calculations, knowledge, and know-how go into all grain brewing. There is nothing that says, as a starting brewer, that you can’t use this method, but most people don’t start here. Not only is it a little harder, but most people don’t know if they will stick with brewing and don’t want the extra cost. Beyond this, you will not have to rid yourself of equipment if you start more simply. And you can always add more later.

This is a very cursory explanation of the various methods. For our purposes and for your sakes, we are going to assume that most of you will find yourselves in the first two categories of brewing. The leap from the second from the first is so simple that we going to assume brewers would rather add their own “character” to the beer. However, we will account for those who want to do only extract or kit brewing by specifying not to add this or that. Hopefully, we can get many people who are going to discover both the joy and agony of brewing their own beers.

One word about the the legality of home-brewing: Legal! It was legalized in 1979 under President Carter (perhaps the only decent thing he did in his presidency). Don’t worry about the Feds (ATF) knocking at your door and branding you as a moon-shiner. It’s a good thing, too; if we had beer-shiners we might have another thing similar to NASCAR (which started by building faster cars to outrun police, then went to racing each other, then NASCAR was born).

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