As promised, we are starting up our series on how to brew beer at home. Numerous people have expressed a profound interest in this subject. But where do we start? I thought some preliminaries should be put into place before we get ahead of ourselves. Before you go any further, it would behoove you to read a couple articles on our website about beer ingredients. I’m not doing this for the website hits, ladies and gentlemen; I just believe that things might become a little clearer if you check out these articles on brewing ingredients and the roles that they play.

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).