Making Beer at Home - A Brief Overview

When it comes to making beer at home, the first thing you need to do is to go out and purchase a very basic home brewing kit. Expect to pay anywhere from $100 to $150 for the kit. To get the brewing underway you will need a number of items. In general, this list includes a stopper, a plastic hose, a brew pot, a primary fermenter, bottle brush, bottle capper (if you choose to use glass bottles), bottles, a bottling bucket and a thermometer. You will also require a variety of household items including a small bowl, saucepan, rubber spatula, oven mitts/pot handlers, and a large mixing spoon that is made of either plastic or stainless steel.

The next thing you need to do when it comes to making beer at home is to choose the recipe you are going to make and then buy the necessary ingredients. The smartest move for the novice beer maker is to buy a prepackaged "beer kit" at the liquor store. The beer kit will consist of a large can of hopped malt concentrate as well as a package of yeast. Along with the kit, you will also need to buy what is known as "fermentables". Fermentables form the basis for the alcohol making process. These items include brewers sugar, liquid malt extract, dry malt extract, hammerer's sugar, Belgian Candi sugar, and rice syrup. Aim for at least two pounds of the fermentables.

For making beer at home you need to both clean and sanitize the equipment you use before you cook up your beer. It is necessary to do this in order to keep all of the bacteria and fungi at bay and out of your beverage. Sanitizing goes one step further and involves using iodine, chlorine or heat to get rid of any existing bacteria.

Next it is time to make your beer following the instructions on the kit closely. Once the beer has been made it needs to go through two stages of fermentation- the primary and the secondary and bottling stage. Beer is called wort when it is time fro the primary fermentation to take place and this begins on the first day and carries through to the following three to five days. Once air bubbles appear then you will know that it is fermenting properly.

The secondary fermentation stage of making beer at home is when the beer is in the appropriate bottle. You can try a little but just a small portion. Make a priming solution using pure dextrose to encourage the carbonation process to take place.

Hi, I'm Romain Levesque Author of the article and owner of the website: http://www.the-beer-meister.com

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