Basic Overview of Home Beer Brewing

Cheers

Home beer brewing as complex as it may seem, is not as complicated as you may think. Does that make sense? We will take a look today at the use of grain (instead of malt) when making your own beer. This process is basically broken down in a minimal amount of steps, in contrast to the seemingly intimidating steps that many advanced home brewers prefer to take. We are using the keep it simple method.

The basic process of beer brewing at home can be broken down into to steps starting with getting your ingredients, which consist of water, grains, yeast and hops. Note that the type of grain and hops will radically change the taste of your homemade beer. Ok... after the grains are crushed, the steeping of them begins. The steeping process is sorta like making tea, the only difference is that the starches in the grains need to be converted into sugars that can be used, or fermented by yeast. Contrast that to using malt when making your own beer, where the malt and added sugars do essentially the same thing. The entire home brewing process is converting sugars from barley or other grain malt then fermenting those sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide through the beer fermentation process. That’s it in a nutshell.

Now, back to the “steeping” process. There are a few specifics I would like to not about the conversion process of the sugars. These sugars actually start out as starches in the grains. It all happens at a temperature of around 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Chemistry tells us that there are actual enzymes inside the grain which, when activated at the right temperature, will go after the starches and convert them into sugars. This process is all made possible through the “malting” process of grains for home brewing beer where the grains are soaked until they are about to sprout or germinate. This is the moment the “maltsters” quickly dry the grains in order to freeze the process in its tracks. Now, left “frozen” in the grain, are the enzymes and starches. These will not become active again until you, the home brewer, begin the “sugar rest” or steeping of the grains part of the beer home beer brewing process.

After the grains are steeped, they are rinsed of all the sweet fermentable sugars. The remaining sweet liquid is called “wort”. Soon this home brew wort will be transferred to the stainless steel pot and brought to a boil. The home beer brewing process will be under way. The boiling process of homebrewing has a lot to do with releasing oils from the hops in order to provide proper bitterness, flavor and aroma to your home brewed beer. In addition, the boiling process will help sanitize the wort.

Once the boiling of the home brew wort is completed, the wort is quickly cooled to around 70 degrees. I either fill a sink with ice and water or use a wort chiller. We then transfer the wort to a homebrew fermenter and the yeast is added. It takes about 5 days for the yeast to complete the task of “primary fermentation”, producing the alcohol and carbon dioxide. However, I've fermented my beer in a primary and then put in a secondary... totaling 3 weeks but we are here to keep things simple in our home beer brewing process.

Next, I boil 2 cups of water and add priming sugar for a period of 5 minutes. Then, I immediately put everything into brown bottles that can be capped. 2-3 weeks to allow for carbonation and our home beer brewing is a success. Enjoy your beer.