Ingredients

If you are a beginner, or just want to play it safe, start with a good kit. I love Coopers Kits, as you can tell. For your initial brews, choose a kit plus 500 grams of light malt.

Tip 1: Never use dextrose or cane sugar – always use malt.  Light malt (powdered or liquid) is a good start, but just remember that malt ferments less than dextrose, so you may want to work on about 25% more than the recommended sugar quantity.

Tip 2: Don’t be tempted to put in too much malt. Because it does not fully ferment, it will leave the beer sweeter. Too much and the sweetness to bitterness ratio will be out and you will need to compensate by adding more bittering hops.

Brewing Equipment

I recommend using the following brewing equipment:

1. Fermenter x 2 with bottom taps
2. Thermometer stickers x 2 on fermenter
3. Bench capper
4. large stirring spoon (plastic)
5. air lock
6. bottle filler
7. Clear hose (2 meters), diameter to tightly fit over bottom tap
8. Scales
9. Plastic 2 litre measuring jug
10. Crown seals
11. sterilizer – Sodium Metabisulfite
12. Bottle Washing Power
13. Abrasive sponge
14. Optional heat belt (if you are fermenting lower than 13 deg C., and using Ale yeast)

Preparation

Quite simply, you can’t skimp on preparation, but these are the main things you need to do to make sure your brew is successful.

Tip 3: One day before, scrub the fermenters with an abrasive spunge, using the bottle washing powder, rinse, then place 1cm water in the bottom, and sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon of the sterilizer in.  Now throw in the airlock (washed) and the stirring spoon (washed) in one and the hose in the other.

Warning: Sodium Metabisulfite can be vicious – don’t get it on your skin or breathe it in!

Starting the Wort

Are you ready to brew? Is it too hot or cold? Ales are best brewed around 15-20 degrees Celcius. Don’t be tempted to brew when hotter than 24 degrees, and use a heat belt if lower than 13 deg C.

Boil the kettle, and fill the sink with hot water. Place the beer kit into the sink to soften the malt, so it will pour easily.

If you are using dry malt, place itin the plastic jug, and put in as little hot water from the kettle as you can get away with. Stir with a steel spoon until it is de-solved.

Now, while the hot water is doing its job, you need to thoroughly rinse one of the fermenters – the bathroom with the exhaust fan running works well.

Tip 4: Leave the stirring spoon in this fermenter, as it will stay clean

Put the airlock to one side.

Now fill the fermenter to just under 20 litres with tap water.

Open the beer kit and pour into fermenter. Use the large stirring spoon to clean out the can, then add a little boiled water to get the rest out. Pour in the malt. Now stir the wort well for about 1 minute.

The temperature of the wort MUST be below 30Deg C before you add the yeast. If it is not, pu the fermenter lid on and wait! Otherwise,while the wort is still spinning, sprinkle the powdered yeast you got in the beer kit onto the surface of the wort. Don’t mix it in.

Take the spoon out, place the lid and airlock on. (airlock should ideally be filled with a little pre-boiled water.

Go to How to Make Beer – Part 2

Three days in…

By now, you should have a fermenter bubbling nicely.  You are now looking for an opportune time to rack your brew. This gets it off that initial mass of yeast, which causes “yeast taint”. You need to judge this – you  want to pick a time when the bubbling is starting to slow but has definitely not stopped.

Tip 5: Until now, the airlock is just an indicator of brewing activity. The bubbling is CO2 and this sits on the beer, as it is heavier than air, and stops the air getting to the beer and making it go off. The airlock is actually an optional extra!

You need to wash out fermenter #2, and rinse the hose. Make sure tap #2 is closed. Place fermenter 1 on a bench, and fermenter #2 on the ground. Connect the hose to the tap of fermenter 1 and remove the airlock carefully, so you can reuse it on fermenter #2.  Drop the other end of the hose into fermenter #2 (no lid for now, and open the tap on fermenter #1. Try to keep the hose under the wort surface to minimise air contact. Stop about 2cm from the bottom to avoid picking up and yeast.

Once transferred, place lid and airlock on fermenter #2.

You need to clean fermenter #1 again now as before, as well as hose, and bottle filler.  Place these items into the fermenter with sterilizer for now and put to one side, to prepare for the “Bulk Priming” stage just prior to bottling.

Tip 6: There is no rush! If you can see the fermenter #2 bubbling again, you can let it go until it stops and then some more. 2 weeks is OK. Just keep the temperature in the desired range.

Bottling

Two weeks in and the brew bubbling has slowed, and has now stopped. (If you get one bubble every 15 minutes through the airlock, you can take it as stopped)

Preparing the Bottles

I am lazy! Bottle washing and sterilizing is a really boring job, so I do my best to avoid it.  This is how you can avoid washing and sterilizing bottles:

Tip 7: Whenever you drink your homebrew, rinse your bottle well three times immediately after it is emptied.

Tip 8: If you have got well rinsed bottles, clean and sterilise your bottles by placing them in the dishwasher, with no soap, and on the hottest wash prior to bottling – cleaning and sterilizing DONE!

Bulk Priming

Priming is the placement of a little sugar in the bottles prior to bottling, to provide the bottle conditioning which makes the beer fizzy again in the bottle (too much and bottles explode, too little and you end up with flat beer). This is another boring job, especially if you are using 345ml bottles, as there are about 60 of them in your standard batch. Welcome “Bulk Priming” – not only is it easier, but it also means you don’t care about the bottle sizes, and the difference in priming sugar amounts between these bottles.

If you are making about 23 litres, you will need 180 grams of dextrose (don’t use cane sugar – ever).

Get your scales, and place your plastic measuring jug on it, then zero the scales. Now add 180 grams of Dextrose. Boil about 1/2 litre of water, and mix in to disolve well.

Rinse out fermenter #1 well including hose and bottle filler, and put  the hose and bottle filler to one side (carefully so as not to contaminate them).

Place the priming sugar from the plastic jug into this fermenter (hot is ok)

Finally, you need to again rack fermenter #2 into fermenter #1. If you place the hose at an angle at the bottom of fermenter #1 as you are racking, the brew will self mix. (Just keep splashes and air contact to a minimum). Lightly place the lid on the fermenter.

Filling and Capping

You now have fermenter #1 filled with bulk primed beer and ready to bottle.

You need a bench capper – don’t bother with a hand capper because you will break bottles. Another great thing about a bench capper is that you can use the crown seals to cap screw tops – very cool! Arrange your bottles into size so you are not constantly adjusting the bench capper.  Place the bottle filler onto the tap of fermenter #1.

Cap away – I normally fill about 10 bottles at a time then cap them.

Finally, label the brew.

Tip 9: Don’t bother with the professional label look unless you are giving your beer away – label by writing a code on the cap with a permanent marker. Labels need to be removed, as they clog up dishwashers!

Your beer needs to sit for about 2 weeks before you get fizz.  I find that beer should be drunk within about 3-4 months of bottling. I am not convinced vintage beer is a best seller…

Documentation

I like to make a quick note of the brew in a log book.  Generally I just record the dates, ingredients and the brewing temperature.