| Home Brewing Tips |
| Home Brewing Recipes Brooks Brewery Associate Brewer Arny Lands |
| Beer Nexus the crossroads of the beer world |
| A quick reminder to my readers I'm still here brewing for the Brooks Brewery in the Northside Lounge in Manville, NJ. As you know the bar is temporarily closed but you should call about take out and growler fills during these pandemic times. Hopefully we'll be back to normal soon.. Although we don't do it for the general public if you writeme here at BeerNexus I'll be happy to answer any of your brewing questions along with our head brewer Art Hanneman. Again this month I received quite a few e-mails that many readers are brewing at home for the first time during the shutdown. The vast majority of you first timers are using extract kits. Because of that this month I'll give you some rules every beginner should follow to make great beer from extract.. Extract brewing is viewed by some as a streamlined process compared to all-grain brewing. It omits one major step of all-grain brewing (the mash) and the brewday is shorter. However, the differences between extract and all-grain brewing are more extensive than the presence or absence of the mash. In fact, extract brewing has its own set of challenges not faced by all-grain brewers but just follow these tips and all will be fine. And please stay calm while brewing, it just beer. 1. Thoroughly clean and sanitize everything you’ll be using to make your own beer. Consider this to be the most important step! 2. Heat your clean, chlorine-free water. If you can smell chlorine in your tap water,you’ll want to boil it\for 30 minutes first or just use bottled spring water. The exact amount of water you use isn’t critical for extract brewing process; shoot for 3 gallons or so. Give yourself at least a couple inches from the top of your brew kettle. 3. Meanwhile, if using liquid malt extract, soak your canisters of malt extract in a large bowl or pot of hot water. This will make it easier to pour out the extract in the next step. 4. When your brew kettle of water is hot (not boiling), turn off the burner (for gas stoves) or remove the kettle from the heating element. 5. Slowly stir in your malt extract until completely dissolved, taking care that it doesn’t stick to the bottom of your brew kettle. Your water is now wort and you are brewing! 6. Heat your wort to a strong boil. Watch carefully to avoid a boil over! 7. From the start of the boil, add hops depending on your extract brewing recipe. (If you’re using hopped extract, you may not to do this) 8. At the end of the boil, turn off the heat, give the wort a good stir, and move your kettle to a nearby sink for an ice bath. Fill the sink with cold water and replace as needed. The idea here is to cool your wort so that you can add the beer yeast. Yeast is a living organism (and responsible for creating alcohol!), so you don’t want to kill it by pitching it into wort that is too hot. 9. When your wort is at about 90°F or so, pour the wort into a sanitized fermenter. If using a carboy, you may want to siphon it. It’s important from here on that everything that touches your wort is thoroughly sanitized. 10. Top off your wort with water to make 5 gallons. Fermenting buckets usually have lines on the side that show you your volume. 11. Aerate the wort by stirring vigorously. This is to provide oxygen for the yeast to feed on. 12. Take a hydrometer reading,This will help you measure alcohol content after your beer has fermented. 13. Add the beer yeast according to the packaging instructions. Give it a good stir with your spoon. 14. Put the fermenter in a closet or other dark, temperature constant room. Close the lid with air-lock attached (if using a bucket) or close with a rubber stopper and air-lock (if using a carboy).Fill your air-lock about halfway with clean water and place it firmly in the drilled hole of the rubber stopper. Of course pre-packaged kits are like training wheels, they keep you on track until you're ready to grow.. Take small steps first; try improvising with the kit. Add additional extract and hops or fruits or whatever.. As you learn, you’ll get more confident in changing and creating. ------------------------ That's it for this month. Hope to see you next time! Good Brewing and Cheers! Arny Lands |
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