Experimental Kitchen - How To Brew Beer at Home

[svemirac]

Greetings fellow steemians!

If you had a chance to talk with me, you probably know that I like beer. During one night I wondered why don't I try to make my own beer, how would I call it and what would it taste like - well idea was born! I did my research about homebrewing. There are lots of guides and information about it, gotta love google. :)

Photo taken by flickr user LenDog64.

Why would you make your own beer?

It is easy to make, you have fun trying something new and as a reward you get to drink quality BEER! It is made of natural ingredients without pasteurization and preservatives. Main ingredients are malt, hops and yeast.

This will be step by step how to brew your beer. After talk with my local beer dealer he recommended me to go with one of the beer starting kit for the first brew since it contains extract of malt and hops in perfect proportion, and when I get some experience I should start brewing my own mix of hops and malt and experiment with taste.

Ingredients:

• Coopers Irish Stout beer kit, my favourite kind of beer! 
• 1 kg of dextrose (+ 100gr for bottling)
• Yeast
• High quality Water

Equipment:

Stir spoon in fermentater

Airlock tap

Airlock bubbler

Professional fish thermometer

Bottles

Bottle caps and bottle capper

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Preparation

Step 1: Wash, sanitize, clean and sanitize some more: Your success will depend on how clean your equipment is.

Step 2: Prepare everything before you start a process it is much easier that way. Measure all ingredients and we can start our adventure!

Fermentation

When we have prepared everything we will need two pots, in one we will submerge our beer kit into water and heat it up in order to soften the malt and hops extract. In the other pot put about 3 liters of water and heat it to the boiling point. From time to time, turn over the malt and hops can to warm both sides equally.

After 10 minutes of heating it up, remove it from the pot and open it carefully, there have been cases of cuts and burns on crafter's hands.

Now we pour boiling water into fermentation vessel add the extract of malt and hops and 1kg of dextrose, and stir.

At this point we add remaining 17 liters of water (this water amount depends on your beer kit mixture 20l (3 + 17) for mine) and stir, stir hard, like there is no tomorrow - just kidding :) stir as you like and have some fun with fancy moves.

Now we measure the temperature of the water in the fermentation vessel, it needs to be 21-25°C (70-77°F).

Tip: Usually you need to wait for mixture to cool to this temperature, but just in case before adding final two-three liters measure the temperature and heat the water if it is below if not keep pouring the cold one. When we reach this 21-25°C we are adding 7gr of yeast (it was included in starter kit) this will start fermentation process. Stir some more and seal the lid.

Put the bubbler airlock, and leaving it in the dark(or cover it with a blanket), on room temperature (18-20°C) until the fermentation is finished. It usually lasts from 7-10 day. Fermentation is finished when the bubbler is not bubbling anymore. First part of brewing is finished.

When the fermentation is finished (no more bubbles in the bubbler) we need to bottle and store our beer. At this point beer has nice taste but without any bitterness and bubbles.

We need to sanitize bottles and caps, again. When it comes to bottle cleaning you want to use bottle brush to keep it as clean as possible. Let them dry, and in the small pot boil the caps.

When bottles dry up we can proceed to the next step. To get that bubbles and recognizible beer taste we will put dextrose into the bottles (more dextrose - more bubbles). We used this dextrose measurement spoon, and separated 3 groups of beer.

After putting dextrose, we pour beer from the fermentation vessel into the bottles. You want to pour it slowly, so all the sludge stays in the fermenter and also to keep minimal froth in the bottles, so you can cap them immediately.

Make sure to make a pause every now and then to take a sip and keep enjoying the process. :)

Capping might be tricky with some bottles. One sort of bottles had really high neck collar, so the capper couldn't grip it. We managed to do it applying extra force to push the capper down.

That's it... The final result: 39.5 bottles - we couldn't stop tasting it :) We put away the beer bottles for another 10 days in the dark on room temperature (18-20°C) covering bottles will also do the trick.

Cheers!

Comments

[taqi]

I. :)

[svemirac]

?

[yu-stem]

Odradi i prevod obavezno, predobro je!

[svemirac]

Hvala! Ajde videću do srede da uradim i to :) pa na mini odmor. :)

[wolfhart]

When you decide to export , I'll take a bottle or 2 . Nice 1st picture . great choice .
Here is to swimming with bowlegged woman . Cheers

[svemirac]

Sorry Quint, haven't recognized you. :)
You will be the first on the list when I hit the export line.
Cheers!

[steemsausage]

@svemirac Wow, i feel like making beer now! Ohhh and i got to see your beautifulul face! You are very handsome! I hope the beer works out well. If it does i will send you my favourite australian beer in brewing form, Coopers, its amazing! My dad used to brew his own beer when i was a kid! Mum only let him in the kitchen twice a year, and she would leave the house all day. She hated the smell! Good luck with it! Nice to put a face to the name! Love your work! @steemsausage

[svemirac]

The one we brew was coopers Irish stout! :D
hahaha my next step would be brewing with malt pellets and hops :)
I see lots of steemians love beer, that the way to do it! :D
Cheers! :D

[ajkapss]

This is awesome , i've never tried brewing but i had a few mates in university that used to brew.

[calumam]

Very nice explanation of the process mate. The GIFs fit in really well and split up the post at nice points.

Looks like a very rewarding hobby indeed! Great job with the pictures too, you really went for it with this post :D

PS. You must be a badass owning a professional fish thermometer like that!

[svemirac]

Thanks! :)
haha, fish thermometer for the win! :)

[divisionbell]

i want some beer :)

[svemirac]

We can all try it on our next steemit meetup :D

[three-d]

Great post man!! That malt and hops can looks crazy ...in a good way.

It looks fun and successful. I have never tried to homebrew, but I did contribute empty bottles to a friend. Look forward to the updates! --73

3D

[svemirac]

Thanks!
Yeah It was so surprising :) as I was also looking the cooking malt process, never expected it to look like crude oil :) but I think next brewing will be with cooking malt and hops, it requires some skill and stress cooling the boiled malt/hops. Now when I know what to expect going all the way for it! :)
Guess I will gather some steemit team and friends and interview them all and make into a post :D
Cheers!

[rubencress]

I think I recapped a moment when you were hammered in chat... was that because of this process? Are you going to bring some to NL?! (if it doesn't taste like Guinness, i'd like to try it).

[svemirac]

hahaha :) No! :D was hammered but outside of chat. that was in between fermenting and bottling had to keep up with fermentation process. :)
Ah... I'm traveling light, no liquids allowed in plane cabin... :) but I will buy you a Guinness :D

[penningtonlens]

Nice. This makes me nostalgic for the days of my homebrewing. Upvoted and followed!

[ablaire]

This looks fun! My husband would have loved this but we don't have brewing kits here. :)

[svemirac]

it can be easily made at home :) fermentation vessel is just a bucket with opening for airlock tap. :)

[eonwarped]

You remind me of my old roommate making this beer. Gotta forward this to him :)

Unrelated, he also has a bike. I helped cap a bunch of bottles as well, that was fun. Very nicely documented.

[svemirac]

The most frequent comment is that someones roommate made beer :D
Thanks :) yeah bottling is fun, you need some patience and concentration to do it but really fun times

[ulqu3]

This is lit! Nice....

[wisdomdavid]

Not again buddy....you dont want to listen😃

[svemirac]

:)))) Beeer! I will brew it again! :D more, more mooooar! :D

[wisdomdavid]

we gonna make the ambulance available..just make sure you press the button when you want to pass out