If you want to get started making homemade beer and you don’t want to purchase a kit directly, there are a number of ways that you can get started with this process using a not so secret recipe. Making beer at home is actually incredibly simple and with some of this basic equipment and these steps, you’ll be sipping on the beer you made yourself in just a few short weeks.
The bare minimum items that you will need to get started include:
- A brewing bucket
- A large pot
- Airlock
- A water supply
- Bottles
- Piping
- Sanitizer
- Brewers yeast
- Grain steeping bag
- Malt extract
- Crushed malt
- Sugar
- Hops
- And yeast
And now the secret recipe to make homemade beer
- To get started, begin with the process of boiling the water and then steeping together all of the grains. Mixing together 6 pounds of malt extract, 8 ounces of Crystal malt, 4 ounces chocolate malt, 4 ounces of crushed black malt or a total of 7 pounds of regular malt extract that will be put aside will be your first step.
- Add 1 and 1/2 ounces of hops inside the steeping bag, you can begin steeping this mixture in 2 gallons of water within a large pot. When the temperature reaches 160°F, the bag can go into the mixture and steep for roughly 20 min. From there the goal will be to add in the malt and any extra hops you would like to include. Bring this to a low boil for roughly an hour and you will have created wort. Cool this down until it reaches 70° and add it into the fermenter or brewing bucket with the airlock. At this time you will add the active yeast. Be sure the bucket is entirely sanitized including the piping that you may use to transfer the liquid from the pot to the bucket.
- The yeast will react to the wort in the sanitized brewing bucket fermenting over a few weeks. When the bubbles in the airlock stops moving, this can be a time at which the first fermentation cycle is done. Usually, this takes around two to two and a half weeks. Wait at least 72 hours after you’ve observed the airlock finishing its bubbles.
- From here you can start the process of carbonation. Mixing up finishing sugar according to its recipe and using this in the bottles or in a second fermentation cycle will help you to carbonate your beer. Usually if you are going to do this in the bottle you have to wait approximately 2-3 weeks before drinking any of the beer.
If your goal is to brew beer the easiest way, you may want to consider picking up one of the home kits that contains everything that you need to brew beer including the ingredients. This is often one of the best ways that people get started with the process of brewing beer until they get more comfortable with their recipes.
