How to Make Your Own Beer at Home

An easy and simple beer brewing recipe

May 23, 2009

An amateur brewer can make different kinds of beer at home, provided that he has the basic equipment and supplies, which are available in local home brew stores.

A beginner can use a 20-liter glass jar or carboy with tight closure as a fermentor. Other materials include the tubing, spoons, and bottles.

All the materials must be sterilized prior to use in order to assure good quality of beer. The items are soaked in a solution made up of 60 ml of liquid bleach in 20 L of water for 15 minutes, rinsed lightly with hot water, and then air-dried.

The brewing process has three fundamental stages: production of wort, fermentation, and bottling and aging:

One simple recipe for making the wort uses 2.5 kg of hop-flavored malt extract and 20 L of water. The mixture is boiled for 15 minutes in an enamel or stainless steel container. The boiled wort is then poured into the fermentor containing 15 L of cold water.

The temperature is allowed to drop below 30 degrees Celcius. The yeast is then added to initiate the fermentation process.

After the addition of two packs of fresh beer yeast into the cooled wort, the fermentor is covered with a rubber stopper into which a plastic tubing or hose has been inserted. The other end of the hose is directed into a bucket containing tap water.

Large amounts of carbon dioxide will be released by the fermentation process and will exit through the hose. The tap water in the bucket prevents bacteria and wild yeasts from getting back into the fermentor.

After 3 days, the fermentable sugars are used up, resulting in reduced activity of the yeasts. The rubber stopper and hose are then replaced with an inexpensive fermentation lock available in home brew stores. The beer is allowed to ferment for 7 to 10 days at 10-15 degrees Celcius or higher.

The fermentation process must be continued for the full 7 to 10 days. At this stage, most of the yeast had settled at the bottom of the fermentor. The beer is then siphoned carefully off the yeast-rich bottom layer and allowed to flow into sterilized glass bottles.

Three-fourths teaspoon of corn syrup is added to the beer before the bottles are sealed with new and clean caps. The beer is aged upright at room temperature for at least 7 to 10 days. After this period, the beer may be stored in cooler temperatures.

Since home-made beers contain yeast sediments at the bottom of the bottles, it is recommended that the beer be aged for several weeks to improve as aging makes beer smoother.

The copyright of the article How to Make Your Own Beer at Home in Beer Brewing is owned by Lea Matanguihan. Permission to republish How to Make Your Own Beer at Home in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Jun 19, 2009 8:34 AM

Marty Nachel :

Though the equipment and procecesses discussed in this article are technically correct, they are quite out-of-date and not necessarily the best or easiest methods of brewing beer at home. Many new-and-improved methods are now in use throughout the homebrewing world.