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How To Brew: Everything You Need to Know to Brew Great Beer Every Time?
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A little word of advice, I started off brewing all sorts of different styles with mixed results. Although my friends and family said my imperial browns, double IPAs, and chocolate porters were good, the fact that they sat in the kegs for 2-3 months told me otherwise. It is much harder to brew doubles, imperials, NEIPAs, and other funky beers than it is to brew pales, blondes, ambers, etc. I'd recommend starting off with something easy like an pale ale or amber. Also, a common analogy is, brewing to save money is like buying a fishing boat to save money on tuna.
That being said, you do you! That is what home brewing is all about. Before you get started I would recommend reading the book How to brew by john palmer. I read this book about 6 months into my brewing journey and the quality of my beers went up exponentially. Pay attention to water chemistry, that was the biggest game changer IMO. The brewing journey is incredibly fun but also challenging!
Now I exclusively brew crushable pale ales and sometimes lagers, always under 5%. When I tap a keg its always gone in under a month, sometimes its gone that same weekend! If I want an imperial russian stout, I'll go pick up a 4 pack at the package store. After brewing for about 2 years and 30ish batches, I've learned my my time is much better spent honing in on one or two styles and doing them very well. Having a crushable beer around seems to be what everyone prefers. While its cool to have something heavy, having 5 gallons of something no one wants to drink more than 1 of occupies a keg and tap for a long time and will eventually go bad.
Grab a copy of How to Brew. It’s considered a classic and will serve you well for years to come.
You need to mill the grains then mash. For a an hour or so.
Then you boil the wort and add your hops etc, then you cool and transfer to a fermentation vessel and add yeast.
The mash process extracts the sugar structures the yeast needs to produce alcohol. So sugar would only be needed if you intend on bottle carbonating.
Check out John Palmer's How to Brew.
It's recommended that you do full volume boils so if it's 5 gallons you'll want to boil 6.5 gallons of water or so.
For a 1 gallon kit, you'll be boiling 1.5-1.75 gallons of water.
If you can't do full volume boils, you can boil half the amount or more of the water and then top up to your final volume with Spring Water. This does affect hop utilization but I believe that most of the beginning kits that places like Northern Brewer sell accounts for this.
You should go buy How to Brew by John Palmer and give it a read!
When I said a bittering charge what I meant was I plan to add some hops earlier in the boil. Hops can be added at different times during your brewing process. The longer the hops are at high temperatures the more of their alpha acids are oxidized. Oxidized alpha acids lead to the bitterness character that is often desirable to provide a balanced beer. The general idea is that the earlier the hop is added the more bitterness you get, where as the later you add the hop the more flavor/aroma you get.
My MoMo Smash had: 2oz at 5min left in the boil, 2oz whirlpool at 175F, and 2oz dry hop. The result was a smooth easy drinking beer but personally I think a little more bitterness would have helped balance the beer. I'm not good at describing tasting notes but I think it would brighten up the beer a little. So to accomplish this I would probably move some of the 5min hop addition to earlier in the boil. Either 60min or 3min.
If you haven't already go buy a copy of How to Brew by John Palmer. This is the book that got me started earlier this year. It's really simple to start but has lots of detailed info when when you want to get deeper.
You're welcome! Hope you're able to connect with some folks to help you get started... but if you can't, watch some YouTube video tutorials, get yourself a starter kit and John Palmer's <em>How To Brew</em>, and jump right in!
I do 5 gallon batches on my glass top electric stove all the time. I boil from 6.5gal to 5.5gal. it takes a while (maybe 45 minutes?) to reach a boil but it maintains it for the boil. It's not super vigorous (more than a simmer, but less than a super rolling boil) but that isn't a problem as far as I can tell. it does produce a fair amount of steam though.
-a 10gal boil kettle will be a safe bet. 15 gal will allow you to brew up to 10 gal batches. I've brewed 5 gal batches in as small as an 8 gal kettle before but it's a bit tight.
-you don't need a HLT AND a MT. You only need a MT. Just heat the strike water in the kettle, empty it in to a MT, heat the sparge water in the kettle, lauter your first runnings in to a bucket, then add the sparge water to the MT. Then add the first runnings to the kettle and lauter the sparge water in to the kettle with the first runnings.
-you don't NEED a kegerator to start if you don't want to.
-a 6gallon fermenter is better than a 5gal fermenter for 5gal batches.
\3. how to brew. Also check out the wiki
Do yourself a favor and stick to simple kits until you become comfortable with the process. I understand the desire to jump in feet first and brew a more complex beer. Most of us went there when we started brewing, but few were happy with the results. I'd suggest extract kits from any of the larger home brewing shops. Most all of them have nice IPA recipes.
Also, you'd really benefit from this book:
The first few chapters will teach you everything you need to successfully brew your first batch. Later chapters will lead you into more advanced brewing methods and contain lots of information on a variety of brewing subjects. I've been brewing for 12+ years and still find it to be a great reference.
If $20 doesn't fit your budget, an earlier edition is available free at: Welcome to How to Brew - How to Brew . Much of the information in this edition is outdated, but the basics are similar enough to brew good beer.
You should buy John Palmer's How to Brew.
How to Brew is always at the top of my list.
You got a really nice setup there. Some awesome kit to get into the hobby. I’d suggest starting by watching several videos and getting a few books.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_5R_RP8eD0k
https://www.clawhammersupply.com/products/digital-electric-120v-homebrew-beer-system
https://homebrewacademy.com/clawhammer-supply-system-review/
https://www.amazon.com/How-Brew-Everything-Great-Every/dp/1938469356
For a real quick down and dirty, I’d recommend reading the intro here.
https://www.brewdog.com/usa/community/diy-dog
https://www.gobrew.org/brewing-resources
As an aside, I’m a home brewer with an electric setup. I use the anvil foundry and I love it.
I've collected a few books over the past few years and would have to agree with the others at this point: How to Brew. This was my first book and I'm of the opinion that it's the most helpful for beginners. Do you like reading? If so, I have a couple other mentions as you continue your journey:
Radical Brewing. I like this book, as it was a fun read and gave me some ideas that advanced my homebrewing journey.
Historical Brewing Techniques. Not really for beginners, but its a fun read and led to some more ideas for advancing my homebrewing journey. The author, Lars, is also the guy responsible for blessing us with kviek, which has its own fan club / haters club. Not Lars, but the obsession of Kviek, I mean. What Lars did to compile that book is respectable, in my opinion. (I love the stuff, but don't discount other yeast strains: they all have their purpose. Also maybe worth mentioning: the first two books I mentioned were written before the kviek craze started. You'll see no mention of it, except for a small paragraph in "Radical Brewing".)
This book should be required reading for new brewers. It starts at the most basic and goes all the way to many advanced brewing techniques. Not too technical, but full of all the information you need. Pretty much the Bible of home brewing,
One other tip- How to Brew is an excellent read, covering all kinds of topics relevant to homebrewing in a lot of detail. You can read it cover to cover or just read the chapters that interest you]. The first edition is also available free online.
Suggest this, over Papazian.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Brew-Everything-Great-Every/dp/1938469356/
Palmer's How To Brew
The new brewer wiki is great. Also recommend How to Brew and a real live copy of Palmer’s newest edition is even better.
You want to make beer, get this book. It starts at the most basic and progresses to the advanced. Pretty much the home brewer's Bible.
First, I recommend you stop trying to put the alcohol back into near-bear. IMO, beer is the most labor intensive and trickiest to get right of all the homebrews, but it is the quickest to taste good, so pro/con. That being said, you can turn basically any grain into alcohol like beer. Perhaps the easiest way to brew beer is a method called Beer in a Bag. There are numerous websites that detail this procedure, I would recommend you find and read several. Barley is the basic grain ingredient of all real beer.
If real beer is what you really want to do, then you need to google the shit out of "all grain brewing" or read 1 of these books:
How To Brew: Everything You Need to Know to Brew Great Beer Every Time
The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Fourth Edition: Fully Revised and Updated
If you want to make your life easier, than learn to make spiced, sweet or low alcohol wines. Unless you can bottle, cork and store for 6-12 months, or more, high alcohol and straight up wines and meads should be avoided. This is due to the need to age out bad flavors from fermentation in higher strength brews, though even low strength brews benefit from aging. Here are some tried and true recipes that are both easy and relatively quick to age (sorry, you'll have to convert to the appropriate units and size, a 5 gallon recipe can be converted to 1 gallon by dividing all the ingredients by 5, and similar ratio for the metric conversion):
JAOM 'Joe's Ancient Orange Mead'
Danger Dave's Dragon Blood Wine
Ginger Beer. (not real beer)
Check out r/prisonhooch for inspiration. It's mostly closet alcoholics and under age kids, but there are some rather interesting recipes being shared there.
Here is my basic recommended list of equipment that you can buy online. 1. Glass carboy or fermenter w/extra airlocks because they break - This is for secondary fermentation 2. Bucket that is about 4 liters larger than your glass secondary w/airlock and lid - this is where all primary fermentation occurs. The goal here is to brew to about 110% of your secondary vessel to account for unavoidable loss when racking to secondary, also add all the extra solids like fruit on top of the 110% volume . ( you want the secondary to have as little air as possible) 3. Racking cane or sanitary siphon. This is how you get the good stuff from primary to secondary and from secondary to bottle without introducing too much flavor destroying oxygen. 4. A clean bucket or plastic tote just for your sanitizer solution and keeping your equipment clean is very handy. 5. Hydrometer - sounds like you might have one already 6. Bottles. And more bottles... If you can get wine bottles and corks or beer bottles and crown caps, your life will be easier. But you can most glass bottles that are not painted on the inside or toxic somehow. 7. Capper for your chosen bottles 8. Bottle brush and carboy brush, because you need to keep everything clean
Those are the basics, you'll probably find you need more equipment especially if you do all grain beer or distillation. You'll definitely need ingredients, yeast is the most important other thing. If you can, get ale yeast or wine yeast, whatever is cheaper at first. To a beginner, the difference is to what abv they keep making alcohol. To an experienced brewer, different yeast strains make different subtle flavors. Only use bread yeast if you must. Always re-hydrate dry yeast in warm water, about body temp warm. As your progress, learn to make yeast starters, with a stir plate, to really improve your brewing. Think thats about it, I drank a whole cup of coffee writing this. Have fun!
A lot of people have recommended How to Brew, and I cannot recommend that enough. Click this link to start reading the free version of the book. This was my single best resource when I started last year. Here is a link to the book on Amazon. The book is less than $17 and worth MORE than every penny if this is a passion for you. I hope you enjoy, and feel free to message with any questions at all that you may have.
Can't recommend this book enough: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1938469356/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_XzzABbD437334
I wouldn't have started brewing without it.
Sure, tons! In no particular order:
1) Pick up a book. The two best intros are <em>How to Brew</em> and <em>The Complete Joy of Homebrewing</em>. My girlfriend and I started with How to Brew. It can be a little science-y, but it was a great beginner's book that starts with the basics and gets more complicated as it goes. Basically the first chapter is enough to brew a beer, but the next few chapters help you learn how brewing works, and so on. I've never read The Joy of Homebrewing, but I've heard it's just as good, only a little less science based and more "fun and accessible." Really, either one is probably great.
Also, How to Brew is based off a blog, and a lot of the book is on there. If you don't know which book you'd prefer start with A Crash Course in Brewing and decide if it's for you or if you'd like something a little more readable.
2) Google around and see if you have a local homebrew shop. Lots of them offer classes, and sometimes local breweries will have homebrew classes on groupon or living social. Often times the beer you drink is work the price of the class, and it's super helpful to see brewing done first hand. This is actually how I got into it: I used buy beer at my LHBS in Ft Lauterdale, and saw that classes were only $30 and came with beer and food. I signed up with my girlfriend - no intention to start brewing, just thought it'd be a fun Saturday - and wound up totally hooked.
3) Use the community, people love talking about brewing. If you're not sure how to make something work for you, someone's probably been there. Ask folks in your LHBS if you have one, post in /r/homebrewing, heck even just come back some time and reply to this post and I'll be more than happy to tell you what I know. I was worried because when I moved to DC I lost the outdoor space I used to brew in Florida, and couldn't get 5 gallons of beer boiling on a regular stove. I mentioned it casually to another brewer and he walked me through adapting recipes for smaller, more concentrated boils to be topped up to 5 gallons afterwards. Now I can brew on my electric apartment stove and haven't seen any loss of quality.
Sorry if that's a total data dump, I just love chatting about and getting new people into brewing. If you ever give it a try, let me know how it goes!
BOOKS
- "How to Brew"
- "New Brewing Lager Beer"
- "Malt", "Water", "Hops", "Yeast", (This would be incredible as one book, but never used due to its depth...)
FWIW, these are the books that made me look at my process with an 'enlighten eye' during my journey. YMMV.
BLOGS
PODCAST
U WOT M8?
FORUMS
- /r/Homebrewing
- AHA Forum
- Homebrewtalk
edit: frmting s hrd, wrds 2
> I bought a Brewer's Best Coffee Porter kit and want to make some adjustments to it so I can more honestly call the beer my own when it is finished.
Do you feel the same way when you make cake from a box if instant mix? Or how about make one of those meals that require you to add chicken to the sauce? Do you feel the need to measure out tsp and tbsp of individual spices when making taco meat?
This is what you're proposing, only you already have more variables in boil and fermentation than any of those other examples. Don't give the gate keepers more people in the queue.
> I was toying with the idea of adding an additional 2 lbs of Briess 2-row chocolate crushed malt
And this is why we say stick to the recipe as written until you have a few ideas on what a good one looks like. 2lbs is a lot of chocolate malt and I wouldn't suggest it considering there's already some in the LME (liquid malt extract) you have in the kit.
If you really want to design recipes, make some by the book and read How To Brew, Complete Joy, or a recipe design book before going hog wild. It will save you from a lot of mediocre beer.
Check to see if there are any local home-brew shops or brewing clubs in your area, pop in and start picking their brains, I've found the brewers in my area to be very open and welcoming to people interested in picking up the hobby. Other than that John Palmers book ( https://www.amazon.com/How-Brew-Everything-Great-Every/dp/1938469356/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519527151&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+brew ) is a great read and you'll learn a lot from it.
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