Now that we have secured our equipment, and we have our ingredients, we’re going to focus on the best part – brew day! There’s nothing quite as exciting as brewing your first batch of beer, and it can seem a little intimidating, but if you read all of the instructions in advance and follow them throughout the process, you will be able to brew that first delicious batch of beer. Honestly, brewing the beer is the easy part. The hard part is waiting on the beer to finish primary and secondary fermentation so that you can get it bottled (which also has another wait period) and enjoy the fruit of your labor.
Before you get started with the business of brewing your beer, the step 1 is to take stock of all of the equipment that you need, and to get it sanitized. The brew day equipment list you have may vary slightly depending upon your kit/set-up, but the basics that everybody will be using that are needed on brew day are as follows: brew kettle (pot), brew spoon, primary fermenter (including the lid), airlock, auto-siphon, tubing, hydrometer, & thermometer. Make sure you read the instructions for your sanitizer thoroughly, and take your time with the process. Bacteria is the enemy of delicious beer, and you don’t want to go through all of the time and effort, only to have skunked beer at the end. The last advice I will give pertaining to sanitizing is quite important, as most beginner brew kits will have a plastic primary fermentation bucket. Do NOT use a scouring side of a sponge, or any other abrasive tool for cleaning/sanitizing the plastic fermenting bucket. It can scratch the surface of the bucket, and scratches are easy places for bacteria to hide. Also, make sure to use a fresh, clean sponge – don’t use the one in your kitchen that you use to clean countertops; it needs to be clean. Not only do you need a new sponge, but make sure to sanitize the sponge as well. As you use equipment during the process, make sure to put it back in your sanitizing bucket, as you will need several tools during multiple steps, and you want to make sure it remains sanitized.
Your equipment is sanitized, and you’re ready to get started with the actual business of brewing your beer, so make sure to get all of your ingredients in order. If you are using a pre-made brew kit, simply follow the instructions they provided for your specific beer. If you elected to buy your own ingredients, we can follow a similar path and achieve the same result. There will always be slight variances in the exact steps, methods, and measurements for each beer recipe, but we’ll cover the general procedure. I am again assuming that you are following an extract-based brew day, and NOT all-grain (we’ll cover all-grain in a separate blog post).
Step 2 is to steep your grains. Start by filling your brew kettle with 2.5 – 3 gallons of water (remember this is bottled, not tap), and bring the water to 150-165 degrees F – Note: if you’re using a large brew kettle with a built-in thermometer, and the water line doesn’t go at least 1 to 1.5 inches above the thermometer line, you can add additional water so that it covers it). Once the water has heated to the correct temperature range, add your crushed grains to the muslin bag, and tie a knot in the top of the bag. Steep the grains for ca. 20 minutes (while maintaining 150-165 F), then remove the grain bag from the pot/kettle. As you lift the bag out of the water, let the excess liquid drip out of the bag, but don’t squeeze the bag, you don’t need to get it all in the pot. You can now throw away the grains and grain bag. Your water is water no more, and is now wort.
Step 3 is the boil phase, and you need to bring the wort to a gentle, rolling boil. Add the liquid malt extract (LME) & dry malt extract (DME) to the kettle, and stir continuously as the water returns to a gentle rolling boil. It’s important to stir constantly, as you don’t want to malt extract to settle on the bottom of your kettle and burn. I also recommend having the LME already warmed up to make it easier to pour into the pot. About 10 minutes into step 1 where you steep the grains, run the LME container under hot tap water so that it warms up. LME is very thick and viscous, and you want to make the job of getting it into the kettle as easy as possible. I also like to take my sanitized brew spoon to get as much of the remaining LME out of the container and into the boil as possible. It will stick to the sides, and you want to get that into the kettle – the LME & DME is where the majority of your fermentable sugars come from.
Step 4 is where you add your hops to the boil. If you’re using a brew-in-a-bag kit, they will have included all of the hops that you need for this, as well as the timing of when to add the hops, which varieties, and how much of each. If you have a kit with clear instructions, simply follow what they say. If you’re going rogue and decided to do your own recipe, or don’t have a ready made kit with instructions, you can follow some general rules. For a no brew-kit IPA, or hop-centric beer, I’d add the hops in 3 phases – roughly 1/2 of them in first phase, 1/4 in second phase, and 1/4 in the third phase. As this is the boil phase, this is where the bittering effect of your beer will take place during the alpha acid extraction and conversion process under the heat of the boil. If you’re brewing a stout, or some other less bitter beer, I’d add the hops in 2 phases and boil out for a shorter amount of time. After each addition of hops to the wort, you will continue to let the beer sit at a gentle, rolling boil. The general target for the boiling phase is 1 hour, and the longer the hops are in the boil, the higher the alpha extraction. So, if you’re brewing a less bitter beer style and not using a kit, I would wait 30 minutes (halfway through the entire boil phase) before adding any hops, then boil 15 minutes after phase 1 hops added, add phase 2 hops and boil for the final 15 minutes.
Step 5 is a critical step, and it’s where we’re going to make use of the ice, as we now have to remove the brew kettle from heat, and get it cooled down as quickly as possible. Fill a sink, tub, whatever you have that is large enough to hold your brew kettle with cold water, and fill that with ice. Put the brew kettle into the ice bath. As the kettle is hot, the ice will melt quickly, so you will need to be monitoring the kettle and adding more ice as needed. The idea is to get the wort cooled down as quickly as possible, as bacteria growth occurs more easily at warmer temperatures. Once the temperature of the kettle has cooled down to 70 degrees F, we’re ready to move on to the next phase. Before moving on, a couple tips are to have the lid to your kettle (if it came with one) sanitized so that you can keep a lid on the kettle as it cools (this prevents anything from dripping/falling into your fresh wort). If you’re not using a kettle with a built-in thermometer, you’ll need to be vigilant in checking the temperature of your wort during the cooling phase. I’d check at least every 5 – 10 minutes.
Step 6 is where we transfer the wort from the brew kettle to the primary fermenter. Before you start, if you’re using a primary fermentation bucket with a spigot, be absolutely certain that the spigot is closed before you start the transfer. You don’t want to have your wort start pouring all over the floor, and lose the batch you just worked so hard to brew. Take your sanitized auto-siphon, and connect your tubing to it. Place the end of the tubing into your primary fermenter, and place the auto-siphon into the brew kettle. Don’t put the siphon all the way down to the bottom of the kettle, as we don’t want to get the trub (sediment on the bottom of the kettle) into the primary fermenter. As the wort volume drops during the transfer, it will become easy to see the bottom of the kettle and where the trub line is. I always stop the siphoning just above the trub line so as to avoid getting any large bits of sediment. There will always be some sediment that will transfer, but it will settle out during other phases of the beer making process, so don’t worry.
Step 7 is where we add water back to the wort to get it up to the level needed for our batch size (most brew kits assume a 5 gallon batch, but double-check what yours is before adding water back in). Again, this is bottled water, NOT tap water. Add the water to the wort to reach the correct volume for your batch, and make sure that the water is room temperature, or roughly in the 65-70 degree F range. If it’s slightly above or below, don’t sweat it, but it should be close to that temperature range. After the water is added, stir the wort thoroughly. Now we want to take a gravity reading of the wort so that we can calculate the ABV at the end of the fermentation process. Place your sanitized hydrometer in the wort, allow it to settle, and read the number at the wort line. That number is the original gravity (OG) reading. Make sure to keep the OG somewhere safe as a reference. I honestly recommend keeping a brew journal, or at least writing down your recipes and steps, etc. It’s great for trial and error, and let’s you tweak recipes in future. If you write it in a journal, your OG as well as FG (final gravity) and ABV will be right with that specific recipe for future use.
Step 8 is the final step of the brew day, and it’s where all of the real magic happens. We’re now going to pitch our yeast into our wort. Pitching yeast just means to toss the yeast into the wort. If you have a brew-kit, follow the instructions for your specific yeast. If it says open satchel and pitch, do exactly that. If your kit says to rehydrate the yeast first by adding to water then pitching (less common in brew kits), then do that. After the yeast is pitched, we’re going to stir again with our sanitized spoon. Now we put the lid on the fermenter, securely locking it into place, and prep the airlock. You will need to fill the airlock halfway with water (bottled water again, even for the airlock), and gently twist the airlock down into the bung in the lid. Carefully move the fermenter to where you will store it during the primary fermentation (this typically takes around 1 week for primary fermentation to conclude, but could take more or less time depending upon your specific beer and climate). The fermenter should be stored out of direct sunlight, and away from heat sources. Ideally, placing the fermenter in a dark place like a closet works best, but anywhere that the temperature is in the 65-70 degree F range (just like the water we added back to the wort in step 7).
Congratulations! You have now successfully made it through your first brew day. You will notice that typically within 24-48 hours, your airlock will be bubbling. This is your visual clue that fermentation is happening, and the yeast is doing its job and converting the sugary wort into beer. In the next blog we’ll be going over the process of the secondary fermentation, and will be 1 step closer to actually getting the beer into the bottles. For now, sit back and endure the hardest part, waiting on nature to run its course.
The Craft Beer Corner 