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How to make beer can you give me some basic pointers?

Back in college a few people I knew made beer. If I knew how to make beer now, I finally live in a house that has space for the container it’d need to brew in. Can I just use one of those “home brew” kits, or is there more to it?

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Answer #1

I’ve been brewing beer for a while. I just finished my 12th 5 gallon batch. (5 gallons is about the largest batch you an make without a lot of specialized equipment).

If you have a local homebrew store you can learn a lot from just hanging around there. They can sell you an equipment kit that will have all the basics. The starter systems begin at about $50 without a brewpot. In the beginning you can use the biggest pan you have to boil the wort (pre-beer) then dillute with cold water to bring down to pitching temperature (the proper temperature for yeast). One upgrade is to get a big (6+ gal) brewpot so you can do a full wort boil; this will make your beer a bit better but a good quality pot this size isn’t cheap and an immersion chiller to quickly bring all that hot wort down to pitching temp. Another upgrade is to use two stage fermentation where you do primary fermentation in one container (usually a plastic bucket) then rack (transfer) to a secondary fermentor (usually a glass carboy) for the remaining fermentation. This will also improve the quality of your homebrew. Later you can go to all-grain brewing and if you really want to get fancy you can invest $$$$ into a fancy cylindrical-conical fermentor instead of using buckets and carboys.

Homebrewing beer is a great hobby that you take as far as you want. If you get really serious you can invest large amounts of time and money into your craft. You can legally brew up to 200 gallons/year which is a lot of beer!

I’ve had some better and worse batches of beer but every one was drinkable eventually. The key is cleanliness; you should sterilize and sanitize everything as if you were going to perform surgery. There are no human pathogens that multiply in beer but there are lots of microbes that can make your beer taste bad if you give them a chance.

Answer #2

you can just get a home brew kit but i suggest looking it up online because theres more to it! my fave recipies are german cream ale and carmel cream ale here they are:

GERMAN CREAM ALE: 3 gallons Ingredients:

3.5 lbs. Klages 2-row 1 lb. wheat malt 2 ozs. crystal 10L 1/4 lb. dextrin malt 1 oz. Hallertau (AA-4.2%) hop pellets (bittering) .25 oz. Tettnang (AA-4.7%) hop pellets (bittering) .5 oz. Tettnang (AA-4.7%) hop pellets (aroma) 3/4 cup Light DME (priming) 1 tsp. Irish Moss 2 tsp. Polyclar Wyeast 1007 German ale

Brewing Instructions: Step mash: the 2-row, wheat, crystal, and dextrine. Chart looks like this: 30 min.@125F; 20 min.@140F; 15 min.@155F; 5 min.@167. Strain the grains and sparge with 2.5 gallons of 170 degree water. Bring this to a boil. When boiling commences, add the bittering hops. Boil for one hour. With 15 minutes left, add Irish Moss per instructions on packet. With 5 minutes left, add the aroma hops. After boil, cool to about 80 degrees and pitch the yeast.

CARMEL CREAM ALE: 2 1/2 gallons Ingredients:

4 1/2 lb. 2 row 4 oz. Crystal 60 8 oz. Flaked maize 1/2 oz.Liberty(60 min) 1/3 oz.Ultras(60 min) 1/3 oz.Tettnang Tettnanger(60 min) 1/2 oz.Hallertau Mittlefue(2 min) 1/3 cup corn sugar(60 min) 1/2 tsp. Irish Moss(15 min.) 1/2 cup Light D.M.E(priming) Wyeast American Ale (1056) Wyeast American lager(2035)

Brewing Instructions: Mash all grains at 122f for 30 min. Raise to 145f for 45 min.Raise to 155f for 45 min. Raise to 178f for 5 min.Sparge 3x and accumulate 3 1/2 gallons of water.Boil this for 60 min. adding hops,Irish moss,and corn sugar at designated times. Cool to 90. Rack into fermentor and top off with cold water.Pitch both yeast and ferment at 65-70f. After fermentation is done rack to secondary and lager for three weeks.Bottle as usual

Primary for seven days. Secondary for 3 weeks at 38f. O.G.-1.060 F.G.-1.006 Alcohol-6.9% !!! hope i helped!!!

Answer #3

I’ve seen people get a home brew kit, which usually has everything you need.

Good luck & happy brewing.

Answer #4

here this is what i found: http://www.beertown.org/homebrewing/beginning.html http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/makebeer/makebeer.html hope this helps!

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