Brewing Guide

If you are new to all grain brewing I will try with this guide to give you a very basic outline to what you need to do to brew a great tasting beer, in the easiest way possible.

The Secret to great home brewed beer is adhering to times, temperatures and ensuring your equipment is spotlessly clean, the rest is not rocket science, keep it simple and you will be mightily rewarded.

What you will Need

1. Something to heat water up (Usually a plastic bucket with a Kettle element fitted)
2. Something to convert the starches in the grains to fermentable sugars in, this can be a plastic bucket that sits inside a plastic bucket with small holes in the bottom, a muslin bag full of grains that is suspended in a bucket, or more commonly nowadays a picnic cool box with a strainer fitted, so the grains don't drain out with the sugary wort.
3. Something to ferment your beer in, a plastic food grade bucket with a lid is ideal.
4. Something to measure temperatures with, a simple mercury thermometer or a digital handheld thermometer.
5. A Hydrometer to measure the "gravity of the wort" (in simple terms the amount of fermentable sugar in the wort the higher the gravity the more sugar).
6. Some accurate Scales to measure your ingredients with
7. A method of cooling the Boiled wort as quickly as possible following the Boil, such as an immersion cooler (this is simply a coil of 10mm copper pipe coiled up which you run tap water through)
8. An Idea of the style of beer you want to brew, and a recipe.
9. A Plan of what you are going to do on your first brew day, stick to this plan and you won't go far wrong, I find that weighing out your ingredients into tubs and placing them on a table with a note of what it is and when to add it helps to make the brew day run smoothly.
10. Patience is a virtue you are definitely going to need, waiting for your first beer to ferment then mature, is painfully slow, Lifting the lid on your fermenter and prodding etc won't help get things done time will, so be Patient.
11. Something to store it in a Plastic, or Cornelius keg, or some Brown Bottles, green or clear bottles are not recommended as UV light will make the beer taste off.

A Simple Basic Brew

To make a simple basic brew such as a standard bitter, you only need to follow a few simple easy to follow rules,

1. Add 1/2 camp den tablet per 25L of your Strike water
2. Weigh out all your ingredients, and place on bits of paper with reminders of what they are and when to add them (this will help with hop additions especially)
3. Heat your strike water to around 75 Deg C
4. Preheat Your Mash Tun
5. Mash your grains at 66 deg C for 90 minutes
6. Sparge at 80-82 Deg C until the gravity of the Wort reaches 1020
7. Boil your Wort at a Vigorous rate for 60-90 minutes, for a first brew I would recommend 60 minutes
8. Add Protofloc or Irish Moss 12-20mins before the end of the boil, this makes the unwanted proteins in the wort coagulate and drop to the bottom of the vessel.
9. Once the 60 minute Boil is complete cool your wort to around 20 Deg C as quickly as possible.
10. When the wort is at 20 Deg C Take a gravity reading and sprinkle your chosen Yeast on top of the wort, Nottingham or SO4 are good strains of yeast and are readily available.
11. Put the lid on your Bucket fermenter, and put it in a warm place, 18-23 Deg are good fermenting temps for an Ale style, & the most important part about this stage is to ensure the temperature does not fluctuate too much.
12. After about 5 days your fermentation should be over, sterilise your hydrometer and take a reading, generally fermentation will be about done in a std beer if the reading is between 1010-1015. If you think fermentation is done wait and take a further reading 24 hours later If the reading is the same fermentation is finished.
13. Once your happy your home brew is finished, Sterilise and add priming sugar to your Keg or bottles and ensure the siphon tube caps etc, are also sterilised.
14. Place the filled keg or bottles in a warm place for 4 days (the same place you fermented your home brew would be ideal)
15. When the 4 days are up place the Keg or Bottles in a cool place to condition for 4 weeks.
16. When 4 weeks are up Enjoy your first pint of "All Grain Home Brew" this will be the best pint you ever had!
17. Remember cleanliness is next to godliness and if you want heavenly tasting beers then cleanliness must be strictly adhered to at all times.

For a Brew day in pictures Click Here

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