Easy beginner's guide to home brewing from a beer kit

Beginner's guide to brewing beer from a kit

Well done you on deciding to brew some home brew.

This guide will help guide through making your first batch of beer using a kit, step by step. It's a 'how to' for using beer kits and not beer from 'scratch'.

There is no boiling of the wort wizardry here, just some brewing 101 tips as if they came from a brewing book!

That fancy 'brewing day' in a pot stuff will come later, probably when you've got a couple of brews under your belt and you're ready to go upgrade your methodology.

If you are genuinely interested in learning how to brew beer, then a beer kit is a great way to start as you can quickly learn the fundamentals of beer making in the comfort of your own kitchen or man shed.

The brewing of beer is actually an act of scientific exploration.

Now get to it!

Getting ready, at which point I assume you are ready to make beer

I'm going to assume you have a brand new beer kit for making beer.

Your loving partner may have given it to you for Christmas (mine did!) or maybe you got there yourself out of curiosity. Either way good on you for giving beer making a go.

You have all the ingredients and supplies:

• A can of malt extract
• Some brewing sugar, dextrose or a brew enhancer (we really recommend the use of an enhancer).
• Yeast - it may have come with the kit, look under the lid...
• You might even have bought some beer hops to add to your wort.

You will have all the equipment.

You'll have a fermenter  - possibly a 30 litre drum or 5 gallon glass carboy.

You have access to boiling water and also to cold water.

You'll have a clean working space such as a kitchen bench and you'll have enough time to not be interrupted.

When I brew from home brew kits I do it after dinner when the kids are in bed and the dishes are done. It's just easier that way.

I might even have a couple of beers while I do the job, because it seems a natural enough thing to do right?

It's time to clean and sanitize your equipment

In case you hadn't heard, your beer wort needs a warm and clean environment in which to ferment.

That means all that nasty bacteria that are on your stirring spoon and on the inside of your fermenter drum or bottle need to be thoroughly cleaned and then sanitized.

Your homebrew starter kit should have provided you with a sachet of a cleanser and also a sanitiser (people often refer to this process as sterilization, just go with it).

Leave your drum to soak for as long as possible (even though it's new, it's likely had all the equipment stored inside it if it's a drum, so heaps of opportunity for nasties to find a home in there).

If you plan on continuing to brew beers, this is the start of your habit of cleaning and sanitizing all your equipment every single time you make beer.

Every.

Single.

Time.

So once you are sure everything has had a good soak, carry on my wayward son to making a top-rated beer.

The rest is easy...

There are plenty of beer making methods.

We can do it in four steps.

Step 1 - Malt Up

If you're smart, you may have already put your opened tin of extract malt into a pot of boiling water so that it's warmed up and can be easily poured into your fermenter.

Sometimes I leave it sitting on the top of my closed fireplace, this works well too.

At this point, I like to put on some fancy surgical gloves so as to avoid the mess that's probably about to happen all over your kitchen bench.

Add your extract malt and about 3 liters of boiling water to your fermenter.

Stir with a sterilized stirring device until it's all dissolved.

Don't accidentally leave the spoon in your kit...

Your brew kit probably came with a beer enhancer, now is the time to add it and dissolve as well.

If your kit did not have an enhancer, you really should think about adding some and you will get a better mouth feel and enjoy your beer that much better.

Otherwise, you're probably going to add 1kg of dextrose or ordinary sugar (we do not recommend that as it will affect how your beer tastes).

Step 2 - Water is the essence of aqua...

It's time to add the water.

I like to use the garden hose so I carry the fermenter to the kitchen back door and go for gold.

The water in NZ where I'm from is pretty good. If the water is of poor quality where you come from, you may wish to find a better source of water, at the least boil it maybe.

I guess the basic rule is if you can handle drinking a glass of water from it, that's your source. Expert brewers like to test the pH level to ensure it will suit the beer. There are some amazing pH tester options on the market for testing home brew beer.

Fill your fermenter to 5 gallons of water or to the 23 liter mark. Stick with that, your malt kit has been designed with exactly this amount of water in mind. If you add to much water, your wort will be diluted and your beer's 'mouthfeel' will be unappealing. If you add to little, you will actually raise the 'alcohol by volume' content of your beer.

Which is fine if you like things like that but remember, in doing so you are changing the profile of your beer.

Yeast

Step 3 - Yeastie Boys

It's time to add the yeast. This is called 'pitching'.

Seasoned pros will tell you to never use the yeast that comes in your starter kit or with your can of malt as it may be old or damaged or whatever.

I'm thinking you just want to make some bloody beer so throw what came with your kit into to your fermenter and worry about that kind of issue when it actually occurs.

But wait!

Make sure the temperature of the water is close to in line with the instructions on the tin of malt - you want to give the yeast a chance to activate so don't put it in or 'pitch' it if you're out of whack. That said in my experience just pitch it in when you're ready.

There are plenty of good brewing thermometers out there but your fermenter may have a heat sensitive sticker on the side that tells the temperature.

But be warned, only pitch your yeast when you've added the extra water and chilled the wort - if you pitch your yeast into the boiled wort, you will kill the yeast which means you'll have no fermentation happening and you'll have a malty drink on your hands.

You're not making Panhead Supercharger here, you're making your first batch of home brew.

Protip - aerate your wort with a pump prior to pitching yeast to give the yeast a performance boost (but when bottling, try to avoid aeration as much as possible).

Step 4 - Hop to it

If your kit came with some hops or you were smart enough to procure some, chuck them in now, maybe half the packet. This is called dry hopping.

Some might recommend adding the hops 5 days into the fermentation process but we say just get on with it.

Close up the fermenter, make sure the drum or cap is on firmly.

Add your airlock with water inside. You'll use this to keep track of fermentation by observing the CO2 bubbles as they are released during fermentation.

A failure to see bubbles does not mean fermentation has failed!

Take a hydrometer reading

Once you've got the basics down, you might want to think about boiling the malt extract. 

Step 5 - Let fermenting beer lie

This has now become a waiting game.

Once you've put your beer in a suitable place where the temperature will be fairly consistently warm, leave her alone.

Set and forget...

Well not quite - if you have a hydrometer, take a reading and write it down. You will need it to be able to work out when fermentation is complete and also the alcohol content of your beer.

A loose guide is when the bubbles are finished, fermentation is usually complete. Once you are sure this is the case, you can think about bottling your beer.

This is an occasion where you should consider completely ignoring the instructions on the can and leave your brew in the fermenter for about 2 weeks.

While at face value fermentation is complete, the yeast will still be interacting with everything and this extra time will greatly improve the quality of your beer.

Be patient!

Let me know when you are ready to bottle!

So the short summary on how to make your home made beer:

1. Add your malt from the can to 3 litres of hot water
2. Add any brew enhancer or dextrose, as well as any hops. Stir it all up.
3. Fill fermenter to 23 litres or 6 gallons with cold.
4. Check the temperature is OK and then pitch in your yeast.
5. Add the bubble airlock, firmly seal the drum and place in a cool position.
6. Ensure fermentation is complete. You may want to use a hydrometer during this stage.
7. Bottle when ready but it's best to let your brew sit for 2 to 3 weeks.

So that's the rough guide to brewing beer from a kit.

As you can read, it's a pretty straight forward exercise and you don't need a Bachelor of Food Technology to get it right.

It's about good old home economics and it's a little bit about applying some common sense.

You might want to bear these easy to make mistakes in mind.

The absolute key things to bear in mind are having properly sanitized equipment, following this guide and its hopefully helpful beer making instructions more or less and don't stress.

Beer can be a tough mistress, but it can be pretty forgiving...

When you've become an expert on making a good beer mash, you might want to start thinking about the pH levels of your beer and testing your water quality or even try brewing with two kits at once.boiling the malt extract

5 comments brewing beer guide, dextrose, how to brew that first beer, how to brew with a beer kit, sugar

⇒ What equipment do I need to start home brewing?

What equipment do I need to start home brewing?

If you’ve decided to brew beer, you’re in great company.

Einstein, Churchill, the mighty Thor himself and every man with a shed, has at one point or another, brewed some tasty beverages.

But they all had to start somewhere, and so here’s a list of what equipment you might need to get started brewing beer.

We’re talking about brewing using a beer kit here, the kind of brewing where your ‘beer wort’ basically comes in a can.

You get to choose what hops or sugar you add (jelly beans maybe?) and the rest is simply following some good brewing instructions.

But what do you need to brew some good home made beer?

This list is just the basics, you could probably actually get away with using less but at the very least, this guide should help you decide what you need to get that golden ale flowing down your gullet. 

What equipment you might use on Brew day

Here's a handy checklist for your set up. Not everything is a 'must have' but you must have clean and sanitized gear, no matter what you do.

Ingredients

• A beer kit – source a handy starter kit brew from an online store like Amazon, or your local brew supplier. Some supermarkets stock them 
• A brew enhancer, DME or dextrose – 1Kg 
• Hops – an optional addition but good for getting some good aromatic flavours and it's easy to add hops to the beer *

Equipment for brewing

• Sanitizer - To sanitize all of your equipment. It’s a must. If you don’t your beer might die. 
• 6 gallon / 23 litre fermenter (drum or bottle). You will use this for making your beer in 
• Thermometer - To monitor the temperature of the wort – this is so you can add the yeast at the correct temperature and avoid killing it. *
• Hydrometer - Used test the original gravity of your batch *
• Paddle or spoon - Something to stir the boil with, maybe not your wife’s best spoon. A long handle is what you need. Try not to drop it in your batch....
• Gloves – making beer can get a little messy * Do not use your dad's chainsaw gloves! Nor, White Ox Gloves, use the plastic / rubber kind you use to wash dishes with. 
• Can opener – to open the beer kit 
• Water - Access to both boiling and cold water 
• Bubble Airlock – to allow the release of CO2 and to assist with the observation of fermentation
• This is totally optionally and really only for seasoned beer makers, a pH testing kit can be pretty handy.
• Ph Meter for checking the water as being suitable for use. Even if you're making kombucha, check the pH level.
• A good gas Burner for boiling water. 
• A multi key chain tool for opening up packets, and opening caps.

Bottling day - what you need

• Bottles! – cleaned and free of dirt and spiders or slugs or bird shit (trust us on this, it’s happened) 
• Sanitizer – Yes, once again you need sanitize all equipment and bottles and caps 
• Bottle caps - Make sure they are not twist-off bottles 
• Bottle capper – speaks for itself, helps you place the caps on bottles 
• Hydrometer - To measure the final gravity *
• Best oil for a chainsaw?
• Priming sugar – Sucrose which is to carbonate the beer while in the bottle (called beer conditioning) 
• Bottling wand - This allows you to easily control the flow while bottling and means less spillage will occur. *
• Patience. Just a little patience. Shit will go wrong, learn from the experience and move on. 

* denotes an optional item of equipment

Also, I'm just gonna randomly add that if you like Mortal Engines, check out the behind the scenes work that goes into the movie.

Leave a Comment beer brewing, dextrose, equipment, how to brew that first beer, sterilization, sugar

7 simple tips for the beginner beer brewer

7 handy tips for new beer brewers 

If you're sick of drinking 'dry white wine' at dinner parties and want to take the plunge and brew your first batch of home brew beer, good on you!

If you take the time to do it right, you will be rewarded with a refreshingly good beverage.

Are you with me?

A good start to your 'brewing campaign' will give you the confidence that brewing home brew is actually easy and you might continue with it as a hobby.

There's certainly a lot to learn, so if you are a first-time beer brewer, you might want to have a read of these tips and tricks.

1. That starter beer kit your wife gave you for Christmas is not enough

While the beer kit you were given for Christmas by your loving wife or partner will help you on your way to making a good homebrew beer, you can do better.

Kits that only come with a bag of sugar or dextrose alone will contribute to a beer that's weak in the sense that it will seem thin in terms of its 'mouth feel'.

Think of mouthfeel as that sense of 'full heartiness' that you get from that first mouthful of a well-deserved beer. In response to this need, the home brewer should consider adding more malt - either liquid or dry malt.

For the dry malt, a 'brew enhancer' pack is what you need.

In this writer's experience, making a homebrew beer kit without the enhancer most definitely results in a weaker feeling beer, so make sure your starter kit comes with it or at the least, head to your local brew shop and grab a packet.

It shouldn't cost more than ten bucks.

2. You'd do best to brew an ale than a lager

The truth is that the darker the beer, the more forgiving it will be in the home brewing process. It's very easy to make a brewing mistake with your first home brew so a beer style that's good to drink and is also easy to take care of is the brew you are after.

Basically, the heavier flavor of the beer will mask things such as 'off' bi-products of the fermentation process caused by things such as temperature mismanagement.

While you should feel free to start with a lager, and yes, many beer kits do come with lagers, bear in mind that lagers need to be cooled rather more quickly than an ale and they also require a bit more yeast in the fermentation process.

You can drink them sooner too!

We love brewing Nut Brown Ales for this reason!

3. In the cold cold, night

Fermentation is a process that requires just the right kind of temperatures and the right kind of times.

Different temperatures brew different kinds of beers.

A constant temperature is also very important as the yeast can react to a temperature variance in ways that are not good for tasty beer! So when doing your first brews, make sure it can be done in a warmish area and one that's going to keep that temperature.

A very rough guide is that you should aim to brew lagers between 10-14 degrees and get those ales done between 18-21 degrees.

You got that White Stripes reference right?

4. You don't need to bottle straight away, just because the fermentation bottle has stopped bubbling

If the bubbles in the airlock have stopped completely, this is not necessarily a sign that the fermentation process has completed. It's quite likely that there's still some fermentation quietly happening in the drum.

So let that play out a bit longer. It could be that you let your beer rest longer than the written instructions that came with your beer kit.

Give the yeast time to do its thing. Maybe you could add some hops.

If you are feeling brave, you could even consider cold crashing the beer just before you bottle. Basically, you just leave the drum in a fridge for a week when fermentation is complete.

Then bottle away.

5. But don't bottle too early!

Simply put, don't bottle too early.

This basically point four repeated.

If you bottle before fermentation has completed too early, you could be in for some trouble.

Did you ever see that Breaking Bad episode where Hank woke up in the night thinking he was being shot at but in reality, it was just his home brew exploding?

That's what happens if you bottle your beer too early, the primary fermentation continues, the CO2 pressure builds and then kaboom! Don't be like Hank, let your beer mellow in the fermenter just a bit longer.

Chances are it will taste better too!

6. Using a hydrometer will help you develop your home brewer's 'Sixth Sense' about how your brew is going.

A hydrometer, correctly used will help you to determine if your batch has finished fermenting. If you get the same reading twice in a row, the fermentation process has finished - but leave it just a little bit longer before you bottle.

Trust us on this one.

You can also use the hydrometer to work out the alcohol content of your beer.

7. Good things come to those who wait

Once you've managed to get your precious liquid gold into your well-sterilized bottles we can only imagine how keen you are to sample your efforts. You're going to have to wait.

The instructions in your beer kit may suggest you need to wait two or three weeks.

Believe them. Or not.

Let your beer have time to make those bubbles.

You will be rewarded with a better-tasting beer. If you can't wait, get yourself busy with a second brew and at the very least, give your equipment a good clean.

So that's plenty of things to think about. Once you've done that, get brewing!

When you've become a pro brewer, you can then start to think about ph meters and propane burners and the best conical fermenters!!

Beer image courtesy James Palinsad by way of Creative Commons licence. We have no idea if James prefers Star Trek or has even read Mortal Engines.

Leave a Comment dextrose, how to brew that first beer, hydrometer, steralisation, sugar, tips for beginners, tricks and tips

⇒ 5 mistakes EVERY beer maker should watch out for (even you, dude who brews every month)

5 mistakes EVERY beer maker should watch out for

Beer brewing can be a thankless task at times and no one will thank you if you serve them a horrible tasting home brew when you host your mates for a 'BBQ and Brews' evening.

Here are 5 mistakes that home brewers should bear in mind before they even begin to open the can of malt extract from their kit.

If you follow them well, you'll be sure to produce some delicious tasting brews.

1. Wash, wash away your sins.

We actually mean sanitize.

Sanitise the heck out of everything you use. If you're starting out as a home brewer, your equipment and kit should contain a cleansing and sterilizing agent.

You NEED to make sure that at the very least your drum is fully clean and sterilized before your start your brewery process. If brewing is going to become a hobby, sanitization needs to be a habit.

There is nothing more disappointing than going to bottle your brew and recognizing the scent of a bad brew that has been contaminated by nasty bugs.

2. Temperature 

It would be a mistake to think that homebrewing is basically a 'set and forget' process.

It's not.

Well, it can be and a key part of that is making sure that where ever you leave your beer to ferment that it's a place that has the desired temperature and that it is a constant temperature.

Don't leave your beer outside on the back porch to do its thing! Too much heat will kill the yeast so no direct sunlight. Too much cold and it will go dormant. Leave it wrapped in blankets in your garden shed if you have to, but make sure it's in a generally constantly heated place. Heating matts are pretty popular to keep beer at a constant temp.

My work colleague leaves her beer brewing in the bathtub!

3. Those bubbles...

Just because the bubbles have stopped bubbling through the airlock, it doesn't mean the fermentation process is complete.

It would be a real shame for your bottled beer to start exploding if you haven't given the beer a chance to finish the process.

Use a hydrometer to ensure the fermentation is finished before you at least consider getting that beer into glass bottles.

Hint: more experienced brewers tend to let the batch sit in the fermenter for at least a week longer than normally recommended on beer kit cans or after fermentation is complete.

In the sense that the yeast has stopped feasting on the sugars and making alcohol, fermentation has finished however there's a 'tidy up' phase where sediment falls to the bottom of the fermenter which helps clear the beer and the yeast will continue to tick things over.

3. Running before you can walk

Get the basics of beer brewing down first.

Before you run off and try and make the fanciest beer you can that features some imported yeast from England and three different kinds of hops, learn the principles of beer making.

You will enjoy your first few brewing experiences if you keep them simple. Then you can start to branch out into more complicated recipes and practices.

4. Not keeping records

If you write down what you did, what you used, when you did it and why you'll have a good basis on which to make a judgement about your beer brewing failures and successes.

If you find that you've pulled off a stunner of a beer, you might be able to figure out just exactly how that happened.

It could be the difference between remembering that you used a certain kind of hops in your brew!

5.  You drink your beer too early

Patience my young Padawan.

It is a mistake for sure to drink your beer too early.

Post-bottling, your beer needs time to carbonate. It also needs time to just chill and do its thing. The fermentation process is in a sense a simple chemical reaction but there is a complex relationship going on with the beer's ingredients that need time to sort themselves out.

The patient beer drinker who leaves his beer at least three weeks before indulging will be a better beer maker for it. If you can make it to 5 or 6 weeks before you taste, the better your beer should taste. That said, if you are keen on a hoppy beer, you can be forgiven for getting into it earlier.

6. If you use a pH meter, you absolutely must calibrate it properly and keep the electrodes clean - if you do not, you'll get incorrect readings and thus make bad decisions.

Image credit Bruno Girin as per Creative Commons Licence

1 comment how to brew that first beer, tricks and tips

Make beer in 4 easy steps

The 4 easy steps of making home brew beer

I reckon you might agree with me that making beer is actually pretty easy.

If elephants can figure out to bury watermelons underground so they ferment and then eat them to get drunk on, then humans can figure out how to easily make a genuinely good tasting home brew beer!

Here's how YOU can make home brew beer in 4 steps.

Beer brewing consists of four  simple stages, 5, if you count the drinking of your tasty beverage!

1. Brewing the beer

Quality pale malt extract and hops are boiled together with water for about an hour to sterilize the extract and release the bittering qualities of the added hops.

Often grains are steeped in the mixture prior to the boil to add additional color and flavor to the beer. 

If you're pretty series about making beer, you'll probably follow a recipe which gives you timings on when to add your choices of hops.

You will have of course used sterilized brewing equipment

2. Cooling of the wort and the commencement of  fermentation 

The wort that you have made is then is cooled to room temperature and siphoned or transferred to a fermenter where it is combined with additional water to achieve the desired batch volume. This is often 23 litres into a 30 litre drum. 

When the wort drops to room temperature, yeast is added to start the fermentation process, that is to say, to turn your mixture into beer. 

The drum is sealed airtight and an airlock is used to keep the fermenter sealed and allow for the release of carbon dioxide.

Fermentation will take one or two weeks, leave it for  longer than shorter time and make sure the wort is stored in a warm place and not in a freezing cold shed or the yeast will not ferment the sugars.

3. Priming your beer with sugar and the bottling of it 

Once your beer has completed fermentation (you can tell by checking for scum residue or by using a hydrometer) it can then be siphoned to another container to prepare for bottling.

This is when the beer is primed with sugar.

Sucrose or corn sugar may be used and the correct measurements are simply mixed with your very flat beer. Once the mixing is complete, the beer is transferred into bottles and each bottle is capped with a bottle capping device.

This is often done by siphoning or holding the clean and sterilized bottle to the tap of the drum. 

4. Time to let the bottled beer sit and age

Now the beer has been bottled, it needs to age so a secondary fermentation may occur. Given there is no way for the carbon dioxide that is produced during this fermentation to be released, the beer is carbonated. 

During this time sediments such as excess yeast and proteins will drop out of the beer and fall to the bottom of the bottle.

It is vital you let this process occur - if you drink your beer too early it's flavor will not have come to the fore and it may smell slightly.

Better to let your beer nature for a minimum of three weeks and even better six.

If you can wait that long, you will be rewarded with a delicious tasting home brew.   

5. Time to open those beers

The final step is of course the drinking. Drink cold, poor the beer carefully to avoid stirring up any of the sediment and have a great drinking experience!

Leave a Comment beer brewing, carbon dioxide, home brew, how to brew that first beer