Steps

Introduction | Brewing & First Fermentation | Second Fermentation | Bottling | Decanting

Introduction

These steps are intended as a basic set of instructions for malt extract brewing.  Before you begin, see the pages on Equipment and Ingredients for lists of the items you will need.  The time required for each step is as follows:

• Brewing & First Fermentation -- two hours to brew, then wait one week.
• Second Fermentation -- one hour to rack the beer, then wait three weeks
• Bottling -- two hours to bottle the beer, then wait four weeks
• Decanting -- never lasts long enough!

Using the recommended ingredients with the following steps will yield twenty litres of beer -- about three standard cases.

 

Step 1. Brew & First Fermentation

Sanitize

Keep your brewing equipment and area clean and sanitized.  You can use a small amount of unscented household bleach with water - one tablespoon bleach per four litres of cold water.  Cleaning equipment requires a little elbow room, so I sanitize the bathtub then the equipment in the bathtub.  For the brewing area, use a clean rag and small bucket of sanitizing solution to wipe down the countertop or table.  After sanitizing, rinse off any residual bleach with hot water.

The following equipment will need to be sanitized:

• Brew pot and lid
• Long spoon
• Fermentation bucket and lid
• Fermentation lock

Brew

• In the brew pot, bring five litres of water to a boil.
• While waiting, place your can of malt extract in a jug of hot water, and add five litres of cold water to the fermenting bucket.
• When the brewing water boils, turn it down to a simmer.
• Pour the malt extract into the brew pot.
• Add one-half kilogram of dry malt powder.
• Add one kilogram of dextrose.
• Add hops.
• Boil, but not more than twenty minutes to avoid burning the malt.
• Add the brew to the fermenting bucket.
• Add ten litres of cold water.

Pitch the Yeast

• The liquid in the fermenting bucket needs to cool to below 27 degrees Celsius.  Place the fermenting bucket in a bath of cold water and ice cubes.  I use the kitchen sink.  (In the winter, I open the window just above the sink to really get things cooling fast).
• When the measured temperature drops below 27 degrees, add the yeast and stir with the long spoon.

First Fermentation

• Place the fermenting bucket in a moderately cool location (my basement works fine).  Find a location that will not be disturbed so that the spent yeast and ingredients can settle.  I place the bucket on a higher platform, such as a desk, so that I will not have to move the bucket when racking to the carboy in the next step.
• Clip the lid firmly on the bucket.
• Insert the lock and fill with water.  Cap the lock.
• Clean up time!  Wash your equipment with soap and hot water.
• After about 24 hours, you will see bubbling in the lock.  This is the fermentation process beginning.
• Allow the process to continue for about a week, until the bubbling is down to about once per minute.

 

Step 2. Second Fermentation

This step involves racking the beer to your carboy and letting it sit for a second fermentation cycle.  The first time I did this step I wondered why I couldn't just let the fermentation continue for the entire duration in the original bucket.  I put the question to a home brewer's discussion list and was told that "off flavours" would develop from the "trub" at the bottom.

Sanitize

Sanitize the following equipment:

• Carboy
• Carboy brush
• Racking hose

Rack to the Carboy

• Place the carboy in a lower location than the fermenting bucket.  If you have to move the fermenting bucket, do so gently so as not to disturb the settled contents.
• Insert one end of the hose in the fermenting bucket, but not all the way to the sludge at the bottom.  Clip your hose to the bucket with a laundry pin.
• Insert the other end of the hose in the carboy.
• Siphon the beer into the carboy.  Most guides will tell you not to start the siphon with your mouth for fear of contamination.  Not having the more expensive equipment, I have always enjoyed a quick taste of the beer at this point when I start the siphon manually.  Contamination not been a problem.
• As the fermenting bucket drains, clip the hose higher up.
• Insert your lock again, filling with water.
• Wash your equipment with soap and hot water.

Second Fermentation

• Wait for three weeks.  The bubbling will be less vigorous at this stage.

 

Step 3. Bottling

Sanitize

• Wash 24 one-litre bottles (or equivalent).  The dishwasher is effective in washing and sterilizing (though I have noticed that older plastic bottles tend to warp a little).
• Sterilize the following equipment: racking hose, filler wand, bottling bucket, long spoon.

Rack to the Bottling Bucket

• Using your racking hose and siphon of choice, rack the beer back to the clean bottling bucket.
• As before, avoid racking the sludge at the bottom.

Prime

• Add 3/4 cup of dextrose to two cups of boiling water.
• Add this liquid to the bottling bucket.
• This sugar solution will allow for carbonation in the period following bottling.

Bottle

• Attach the bottling wand to the racking hose.
• Siphon the beer from the bottling bucket down the hose.
• Insert the bottling wand into a bottle.  When the wand touches the bottom of the bottle, the beer will flow in.
• Lift the wand when the bottle is nearly full (two centimetres from the top) and the beer will stop flowing.
• About twenty bottles will be filled in this way.

Carbonation

• Allow the beer to carbonate for four weeks.  This is the third and final fermentation.

 

Step 4. Decanting

• Tasting day has arrived!
• Select a bottle.  You will notice a small amount of sediment at the bottom.  This is evidence of the final fermentation.
• Keep the bottle upright, then pour it into a one litre jug in one tipping, being careful not to pour the sediment.
• Pour the beer into a glass.  Be sure to savour the aroma -- this is real beer.
• Enjoy!