Home Beer Brewing Part I
10 Steps To Perfect Brews – Part I – Equipment and Preparation
As with any home project, preparation is half the key to success in home brewing. Everything should be clean and well organized so you can carry out the steps with confidence in the final result in your home brew. Home beer brewing equipment, and preparation include water, capper, and beer bottles to name a few below is a list of items, and steps to get you started.
But what is ‘everything’?
Water is a very important ingredient in the home beer brewing operation. You wouldn’t think water could vary so much, but this may well be the most varied chemical substance on earth. Of course, water is nothing but H2O, but the elements dissolved in it make a huge difference to the final product. 22-30 liters (six-eight gallons) of spring water is a good start, but you’ll want to experiment.
You can make beer without some kind of grain in the home beer brewing operation we call this Malt. This is the basic material that gets transformed into beer. Usually it’s some kind of barley grain. Obtain online or from a local store.
Home beer brewing would take forever, or just not happen with yeast. These live organisms turn the sugars into carbon dioxide (the bubbles) and alcohol. Thank them for their fine efforts.
Everyone has seen the giant brew kettles the breweries use, now you need one more your size for your home beer brewing operation. This container will store unfermented liquid (‘wort’) to be boiled. Often a five-gallon glass carboy (like a large water bottle) is used. Hops and other ingredients are added through the spout at the top.
Fermenter is a fancy name for a 5 gallon bucket with a lid in the home brewing operation. A container with a lid, it will be used to hold the cooled wort. Yeast will be added to carry-out the fermenting process. Two are required if secondary fermentation is part of the recipe.
Another word for a bottling tank in a home beer brewing operation is another clean 5 gallon bucket. You’ll siphon the fermented beer into a container before bottling. Like all the equipment, it’s essential that this be completely clean.
What is the point of brewing beer if you can’t bottle it? Every home brewing operations requires beer bottles. You’ll need clean beer bottles for storing the final product (assuming you and your friends don’t drink five gallons of beer right out of the tank). Dark brown bottles are best, to keep beer from being spoiled by light during storage.
Home brewing requires a Bottle filler: A spring-loaded device used to fill the bottle when the end is pressed. Available, as is the other equipment, from any of dozens of home brew kit sales sites online.
You might want to think about purchasing a Capper for your home beer brewing operation. Optional, but helpful, to put caps onto the bottles. Corks or screw tops are alternatives, but each has drawbacks. Cork can splinter or introduce moldinto the brew. Screw tops need to be seated properly in order to ensure a tight seal to avoid oxygen spoilage.
Miscellaneous items you might require when you are home brewing. A thermometer is essential to check the temperature at various stages. A hydrometer is helpful, to measure something called ‘specific gravity’. SG is a measure of the density of some material relative to water. Not critical but extremely helpful. Various siphon tubes, copper and/or glass and/or hard plastic. A timer with a loud bell or buzzer, so you don’t forget those time critical moments.
Sometimes the copper tubing is formed into a wort chiller. Formed in a spiral around the tank, cold water flows through to draw heat away from the boiled wort. Helpful, not essential for many recipes.
Heat source: You’ll need a method for boiling and cooling. Air will often takecare of the cooling need. Heating can be carried out by a dozen different methods, usually some kind of Bunsen burners or electric heating coils.
The equipment should be cleaned, and many recommend sterilization with a dilute bleach followed by rinsing in boiling water. At least part of the environment should be able to be kept cool, below 13°C (55°F) for part of the time.
Be prepared to spend a few hours on two different days, with activity off and on. Two people are often helpful to carry out certain steps.
What steps…? We discuss that in Part II.