Brewing Made Easy, 2nd Edition: A Step-by-Step Guide to Making Beer at Home
104
Brewing Made Easy, 2nd Edition: A Step-by-Step Guide to Making Beer at Home
104eBookSecond Edition (Second Edition)
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781603428545 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Storey Publishing, LLC |
| Publication date: | 02/18/2013 |
| Sold by: | Hachette Digital, Inc. |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 104 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
Dennis Fisher is co-author of The Homebrewer’s Garden, Great Beer from Kits, and Brewing Made Easy. He is an organic farmer and homebrewer in Maine.
Joe Fisher is a member of the American Homebrewer's Association and the Maine Organic Farmers' and Gardeners' Association. His writings have appeared in Zymurgy and Organic Gardening magazines. He is a co-author of Brewing Made Easy and The Homebrewer’s Garden.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Brewing with Malt Extracts
Malt extract brewing is the simplest way to make beer, and most people start out this way. Malt extract is the product of grain mashing, in which malt grains (barley that has been partially germinated, dried, and roasted to produce different brewing characteristics) are steeped at controlled temperatures to extract the brewing sugars. Then the resulting liquid is reduced until it is a syrup that contains only about 20 percent water.
Mashing is the trickiest stage of brewing, and using malt extracts means that you don't have to mash grain. Later, you can work up to more complex forms of brewing, such as partial mash and all grain. But for now, let's stick to the extracts.
Basic extract brewing is not complicated. Simply boil together malt extracts, either in syrup or dry form (often both are used in a recipe), water, and hops. You add hops to the brew (wort) at various stages of the boil to provide bitterness, flavor, and aroma. And finally you add yeast after the wort has cooled.
You can achieve even more simplicity by using can kits, which are cans of hopped malt extract formulated to make a particular beer. The recipe for Redemption Bitter (see page 15) is not much more complicated than a simple kit recipe, because it uses malt extract that has already been hopped by the manufacturer.
Basic Equipment
You will need a few pieces of basic equipment. If you buy a starter kit, much of what you need for basic brewing will be in it. In addition to what is shown at right, it's always handy to have a few white food-grade plastic buckets kicking around for cleaning bottles, soaking equipment, and so forth. Even the most occasional brewer will soon acquire a sizable collection of miscellaneous gear — and then he has to find room to store it! Our philosophy in writing this book has been to find the easiest method to help the beginner make good beer. To do this we will often recommend buying a desirable tool, such as a Vinator or Auto-Siphon, right away rather than waiting and using a simpler but sometimes less satisfactory method.
Sanitize Everything!
The worst enemy of beer, and the most common cause of first-time-brewing failure, is contamination by microorganisms. The most important thing you can do for your beer is keep your brewing area clean and well sanitized. The standard in commercial breweries is close to operating-room cleanliness. This is necessary because beer-loving bacteria and wild yeast colonies build up wherever beer is present. Always wipe down the brewing area with a rag soaked in sanitizing solution before and after you brew.
When we started brewing we used a bleach solution to sanitize everything. Bleach is hard on the environment (and your body) and needs to be rinsed off thoroughly; luckily, other options are now available. We like to make up a couple of gallons of Star San solution in a spare plastic bucket and soak our equipment in it while boiling the wort. It takes only a minute or so of contact with Star San to kill microorganisms, and it doesn't need to be rinsed off, which eliminates the possibility of contamination during rinsing. You can take your spoon out of the solution, stir your wort, and put it right back in without missing a beat. It's also biodegradable and odorless.
Star San is long lasting in solution form and can be reused several times. If it's not cloudy and foams up when agitated, we feel comfortable using it again. If diluted with deionized water, Star San solution can keep for 2 or 3 months. An 8-ounce bottle will make 32 gallons of solution, and it's pretty cheap. The writing on the bottle is tiny, and the bottle itself is a little tricky. Remove the left-hand cap and gently squeeze the bottle to fill the small reservoir on top to the desired level. Because Star San is an acid-based product, it can leave rings on some countertops and can be hard on rubber, so it may affect some of your equipment after a period of use.
The First Recipe
For our first batch of beer, we are going to make a simple extract bitter. Bitter is the standard English pub beer and is a favorite of ours because it has a lot of character, despite its simplicity. Your basic "ordinary" bitter is moderate in alcohol and reddish gold in color, and can express a wide range of bitterness. The emphasis in this style is on the bittering hops. It's popular with homebrewers because it's fast and easy to brew. It is not a long-keeping beer, so you can brew it, drink it up, and make some more.
RECIPE
Redemption Bitter
All of these ingredients can be purchased at any brewstore.
Initial Gravity: 1.039–1.045
Final Gravity: 1.014–1.016
INGREDIENTS
* 3.3 pounds (1.5 kg) amber hopped malt extract syrup
* 2 pounds (907 g) plain light dry malt extract
* 1 ounce (28 g) East Kent Goldings flavoring hops
* ½ ounce (14 g) East Kent Goldings aroma hops
* 1 packet Fermentis Safale S-33 ale yeast
* ½ cup (120 ml) corn sugar or ¾ cup (180 ml) dry malt extract for priming
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Sanitize your plastic fermenting bucket, lid, long-handled spoon, fermentation lock, strainer, and thermometer in a solution of Star San (¼ ounce [7.4 ml] per 1 gallon [3.8 L] water). Mix the sanitizing solution in a separate 5-gallon (19 L) food-grade plastic bucket. Pour ½ gallon (1.9 L) into the fermenter bucket, seal with the lid, and slosh it around until the sides of the bucket and bottom of the lid are coated in foam. Return any unused solution to the mixing bucket and place the rest of your equipment in it. A few minutes of immersion should sanitize it thoroughly.
2. Add 1 ½ gallons (5.7 L) cold water to the fermenting bucket. Seal with the lid and set aside.
3. Immerse the unopened can of malt extract in hot water for about 10 minutes to make it easier to work with. Trim off the top of the plastic bag of dry malt extract. This prevents steam from hydrating the extract and causing a sticky mess.
4. Heat 1 ½ gallons (5.7 L) of cold water in the brew pot to a high enough temperature to melt the malt extracts (100–120°F/38–49°C).
5. Remove the brew pot from the heat. Pour the hopped malt extract into the brew pot and scrape any remaining syrup away from the sides of the can. Add the dry malt extract and stir well to dissolve. Return the brew pot to the heat and boil for 30 minutes.
6. Add the flavoring hops. These will contribute flavor and aroma to the finished beer.
7. Remove the brew pot from the heat when the wort has boiled for 45 minutes, and add the aroma hops. Cover the pot and steep for 5 minutes. Allow the brew pot to cool until it can be safely handled.
8. Carefully pour the boiled wort through the strainer and into the fermenter.
9. Rinse the spent hops with ½ gallon (1.9 L) 180°F (82°C) water.
10. Add enough cold water to make 5 gallons (19 L). (On a standard primary fermenter bucket, the 5-gallon mark is indicated by the thick plastic collar. It is also useful to mark gallon increments on the outside of the bucket with a permanent marker.) Stir thoroughly with the sanitized spoon to mix the water with the wort.
11. Measure the temperature of the wort. It needs to cool down to around 70°F (21°C) before you can add the yeast. Be sure to rinse the thermometer and shake it down; otherwise, it will give you a false reading. Temperatures of 90°F (32°C) and up are fatal to yeast; temperatures between 60°F and 70°F (15.5–21°C) are ideal for ales (a few degrees above or below that range is fine); lower temperatures are necessary for lagers.
12. Add the yeast and stir in gently with the sanitized spoon.
13. Attach the fermenter lid and the fermentation lock. The fermentation lock must be filled with water. (The gasket in the lid is usually a pretty tight fit for the stem of the airlock. It helps to push against the gasket from the underside of the lid while twisting the airlock.)
14. Allow to ferment for 7 to 10 days in a quiet spot, out of direct light, at temperatures between 60°F and 70°F (15.5–21°C) for ale, or between 45°F and 50°F (7–10°C) for lager.
15. Prime, bottle, and cap the beer once the fermentation is complete. Priming (page 24) is a necessary step for carbonation. This chore goes a lot faster if you have two people: one to fill the bottles and one to cap. From setup to cleanup, priming and bottling usually takes only an hour or so.
Ingredients for Priming Beer
Corn sugar. Homebrew supply shops carry corn sugar for brewers. The corn sugar is used to prime the beer by giving the yeast an extra bit of food to digest while it is in the bottle.
Unflavored gelatin (optional). Gelatin is a fining or clarifying agent. Adding unboiled gelatin to the priming solution removes small particles of protein and yeast residues from the beer.
Bottling Equipment
For bottling, you will need the following equipment.
50 empty long-necked beer bottles. Use long-necked bottles that require an opener. The bottles should be brown; clear or green ones will admit too much light, giving your beer a skunky aroma.
PROJECT
Bottling Your First Batch
1. Sanitize the equipment. Mix up a 1-gallon batch of Star San in a bucket. Soak your plastic bottling bucket, plastic tubing, and filler wand in sanitizing solution for at least 30 minutes. If you are using Star San, no rinsing is necessary.
If you are using a bottling bucket, sanitize the spigot. Securely attach the filler wand and plastic tubing to the spigot.
2. Sanitize the bottles. You can't sanitize something that isn't clean, so make sure your bottles are clean before moving on to this step (see box, page 19). Add some sanitizing solution to your Vinator. Invert a bottle over the top of the Vinator and pump up and down a few times to thoroughly coat the inside of the bottle. Set the bottle down upright and do the next one. You should do only a half dozen at a time to keep them from drying out before they're filled. Just before filling, turn the bottle upside down and give it a shake to get rid of any extra sanitizer.
If you decide not to invest in a Vinator right away, you can sanitize the bottles by dunking them into a bucket of Star San, making sure that they get completely coated inside, and then emptying them out.
3. Sanitize the bottle caps. There are many different ways to do this, but this method is what we recommend. Take a pint glass of Star San solution and put all of your bottle caps in it. As you fill the bottles, you can set a bottle cap on each one to prevent anything from falling into it. When all the bottles are filled, seal them with the capper. A warning about doing this: If you are using oxygen-fixing bottle caps, they are good only for about 10 minutes after they get wet, so this method won't work with them. But the yeast remaining in the beer will remove any oxygen in the bottle as it works, so getting your caps well sanitized is really more important than their oxygen- reducing potential.
4. Siphon the fermented beer from the fermenter into the sanitized bottling bucket.
Place the fermenter higher than the empty, sanitized bucket (see diagram).
Many basic equipment kits now come with an Auto-Siphon, and we recommend that new brewers use this tool for siphoning from the fermenter to the bottling bucket, a process called "racking." They come in a number of sizes, so get one for use with a 5-gallon bucket or carboy. The Auto-Siphon is easy to use, much more so than older methods of siphoning, and is less prone to contamination because you never touch the beer.
Sanitize the unit thoroughly with Star San and attach a length (5 to 6 feet) of sanitized tubing. Lower the Auto-Siphon about halfway into the liquid (to avoid bottom sediments) and give it a couple of pumps. The siphon will start easily. If an air bubble develops or the siphon quits, just pump it a few more times. Now, holding it diagonally, carefully lower the Auto-Siphon to the bottom of the fermenter. The cap at the base will keep out sediment. The process is hands free at this point and you can do something else while the siphoning progresses. You can also remove this cap to get more beer out, holding the Auto-Siphon just above the sediments.
5. Add ¾ cup (180 ml) corn sugar to 2 cups (475 ml) water to make the priming solution. Stir to dissolve, and bring to a boil.
6. Heat ¼ ounce of unflavored gelatin in 2 cups (475 ml) water. Do not boil. Stir to dissolve.
7. Add the priming solution and gelatin solution to the beer. Stir gently with a sanitized spoon.
8. Move the now-full bottling bucket to a higher position so that gravity will help the beer to flow. Attach plastic tubing to the bottling bucket spigot. Assemble the sanitized filler wand and attach it to the plastic tubing. Open the spigot.
9. Fill the bottles. Press the filler wand against the bottom of the bottle to release beer. Lift up to shut off the flow. Leave approximately 1 inch of headspace in the bottle.
10. Place a cap on the bottle so it sits evenly. Bring the handles of the capper together, so the jaws meet around the neck of the bottle. Push the handles apart until the cap seats. Now release. The cap will attach, and the weight of the bottle will pull it away from the capper.
CHAPTER 2
The Second Batch
Now that you've experienced brewing a basic extract beer, you can try something a little more complicated. In this chapter we'll talk about adding grains to beer and discuss the use of some more advanced equipment that can make your brewing experience even easier. None of the equipment or materials we talk about here is particularly expensive or involved, especially when compared with some of the setups you see for all-grain brewing. The recipe we present here is also a bitter, like the recipe in chapter 1. Later on in the recipe section we often give two versions of the styles we cover, one simple and one a little more complicated — but still pretty easy!
Equipment
Intermediate brewing requires the addition of a few new tools to the brew kit. Some of these aren't strictly necessary, but all of them will make your brewing a bit easier. In this chapter we talk about using a carboy as a fermenter in place of the plastic bucket. Some "deluxe" kits come with glass carboys, or you can buy them separately. Unlike the plastic bucket fermenter, glass will never get scratched and is easier to get clean; most brewers end up owning a bunch of them. There is a place for bucket-type fermenters in advanced brewing, though, especially if you are adding fruit, which is difficult to stuff down through the narrow neck of a carboy, and equally hard to get out again. When brewing very hoppy beers such as the newly popular superhopped IPAs, it's common to stick with a bucket fermenter to keep from losing hop character when the krausen exits the carboy through the blow-by system (see box, page 38).
RECIPE
Diamond Jubilee Extra Special Bitter
Initial Gravity: 1.042–1.050
Final Gravity: 1.012–1.015
INGREDIENTS
* 2 ounces (56 g) Midnight Wheat or English Chocolate malt
* 10 ounces (280 g) 60° Lovibond English Crystal malt
* 4 pounds (1.8 kg) John Bull Best Bitter kit
* 2 pounds (907 g) dry extra light malt extract
* 1 ounces (42 g) Northern Brewer bittering hops
* ounce (14 g) East Kent Goldings flavoring hops
* ounce (14 g) Fuggles flavoring hops
* ounce (14 g) East Kent Goldings aroma hops
* ounce (14 g) Willamette aroma hops
* 1 packet Wyeast #1968 London ESB or Fermentis Safale S-04 ale yeast
* 2/3 cup (160 ml) corn sugar, for priming
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Sanitize your equipment as described in chapter 1 (see page 10). Pour gallon (1.9 L) of Star San solution into the carboy and seal with the stopper. Slosh it around until the inside is completely covered in foam. Return the excess sanitizer to the bucket.
2. Add 1 gallons (5.7 L) of cold water to your carboy. Secure the funnel in the neck of the carboy first. Never pour hot wort directly into an empty carboy, as heat stress can cause the carboy to shatter. The water should be cold enough to promote a good cold break even if it hasn't been chilled.
3. Put crushed grains in a grain bag. If you haven't bought them precrushed, you can crush the grains with a grain mill or a rolling pin. Put them inside a plastic freezer bag, lay the bag on a flat surface, and use a rolling pin or can to crack the grains. Grain bags are mesh bags used to contain grains while steeping, somewhat like a giant tea bag. This makes it easier to handle the grains and allows you to use just one pot for the operation. Pour the malt grains into the bag and tie off the neck.
4. Heat 1 gallons (5.7 L) of water to about 150°F (65.5°C). Bring gallon (1.9 L) rinse water to a boil. We use a 2-gallon (7.6 L) stainless steel pot. In a separate saucepan, boil gallon (1.9 L) of water for rinsing.
5. Add the grains and steep for 15 minutes. Beers with a heavier malt bill, such as Imperial stouts and barleywine-style ales, may require a longer steep for up to 30 minutes. (Do not boil the grains.) The grains will swell up in the pot. Gently squeeze as much liquid as possible from the grain bag using a spoon.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Brewing Made Easy"
by .
Copyright © 2013 Dennis Fisher and Joe Fisher.
Excerpted by permission of Storey Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
You Can Brew It!
1 Brewing with Malt Extracts
2 The Second Batch
3 Ingredients and Recipe Formulation
4 Recipes and Styles
Glossary
Appendix A: Amounts and Conversions
Appendix B: How to Use the Hydrometer
Sources for Supplies and Information
Index