How to make Beer
A great beer to get you started
So today let’s make some beer! Beer making can be a super-intensive process, so I have chosen this very simple style 1-gallon all-grain brew in a bag IPA as a recipe to make this as easy as possible. The recipe I am going to make is for a smaller quantity, something manageable if you just want to try to make beer for the first time. The total amount of time should take 6 hours to make, with an additional 2 weeks of fermentation. This beer is nice and smooth, and honestly was one of the best beers I have ever made.
If this is your first time, brewing beer is a total rabbit hole of terminology, equipment, and techniques. I am really aiming to make this process as simple as possible, showing only one method for making beer. Really this is what I wished I had when I first started making beer, something short sweet, and not overly complicated… well hopefully.
Alright! Let’s jump into it!
Equipment Check
So first let’s quickly talk about supplies.
Outside of the ingredients for beer, we are going to need a little equipment. I have provided some affiliate links in case you want to support me a little. If you are just getting into this, I recommend getting a kit that will provide most of the equipment. (click for affiliate link):
Brew Kettle (at least 12 Quarts)
Thermometer
Hydrometer or Refractometer
Sanitizer
The following items can be purchased together as a kit
Fermentation Vessel
Bung & Airlock
Tubing
Bottle Filler
Capper & bottle caps
~8-10 Beer Bottles
There are some optional things that will make your life easier, but I would classify this as the absolute minimums.
Ingredient Check
For the beer itself, we are going to need some malted barley, hops, and yeast. The full ingredient list can be found below
For this recipe, we need 2.5 lb or 1.15 kg of American 2-row malt. This malt will provide the majority of the sugar and therefore food for the yeast. However it is quite light on flavor, so for that reason, we also need to add 3 oz or 85 grams of crystal 20, and 3 oz of crystal 60. These malts have been toasted in a kiln, giving them color and a toasted flavor which we want to flavor our beer. One thing to note when buying the malt is that malt needs to be crushed before it can be used. So if you do not have a barley crusher, be sure to purchase the malt crushed.
Weigh out the malt, and store it off to the side for now.
Mashing
Now we need to extract the sugar from the barely. In reality, we aren’t extracting the sugar, so much as creating an environment for the enzymes in the skin of barely to begin breaking down the starch into fermentable sugar. (for more info on how this process works, be sure to check out my science of bread video)
So we need to start with our pot, we need to make sure it will be big enough to hold all the liquid, as well as make sure it’s large enough to handle foaming and prevent boil overs. I am using a 12-quart pot, anything larger will work, anything smaller could also work, but you risk things being difficult for you.
So fill up your brew kettle with 4.5 quarts or 4.25 liters of water. We want to heat up this water to 160F or 71C. This water is called the strike water and will heat out barely up to 150F or 65.5C quickly. This will allow the enzymes to start doing their biz. I brewed this more or less at room temperature, so if your barley is significantly colder or hotter, you may need to calculate the strike temperature of the water.
While the strike water heats up, we can pour all of our measured out barley into our straining bag. We essentially are making a giant teabag.
Once the water is up to temperature, gently lower the bag into the water, ensuring all of the grains of barley are submerged into the hot strike water. Feel free to take a spoon and mix the grains within the bag. This will make sure we have a nice even temperature throughout. We want to maintain this temperature over the course of an hour.
Because we have a nice thermal mass, thankfully the temperature will not drop too slowly, however as the pot is cooled by the surrounding air, the entire thing will drop. If it gets too cold, this will mean the enzymes will not have an ideal environment, and we will get less sugar from the barley. To raise the temperature, you can simply turn on the burner for a minute, however, be careful to raise the bag off the bottom of the pot. If the barley comes into contact with the hot burner, it will scorch and leave a nasty off-flavor. Additionally, be very careful not to overheat the liquid, or mash as it is known over 155F 68C or this will hamper the enzyme activity.
In a separate pot, we want to heat up 3.5 Quart or 3.3L of water to 170F or 76.6 C.
After an hour, we can pull the bag up and let the liquid drain from it. Slowly pour the heated water over the bag, helping rinse off the grains catching any sugar left in the bag.
Measuring the sugar concentration
If you have a hydrometer or a tool for measuring the level of sugar in the water, this is a great time to take a measurement. This will give us a sense of how much sugar there is to ferment, and therefore what we may expect to get in terms of alcohol per volume. Keep in mind, anything below an abv of 4% becomes more susceptible to infections from other bacteria.
In an ideal world, we should be looking for a brew boil gravity or sugar concentration of 1.039.
If you missed your target and got less sugar than you were hoping for, no worries, we can fix this. What you will need is something called dry malt extract, essentially it’s powdered malt sugar. Adding this won't alter the flavor of the beer, and will help you reach the right sugar concentration in case you missed it. To find out how much to add, use this calculator.
Brewing the beer
Ok now let’s get going on the fun part. We now need to heat the entire sugar mixture known as wort up to boiling. So we can begin the brew. As the wort heats up, there will become a stage where it foams up, this is known as the hot break, and if your pot isn’t large enough it will foam up over the edge and go all over your stove. If it’s looking like it is threatening to boil over, carefully remove it from the heat, and stir. Once you are past this first wave, it’s less likely to do this again.
Once you are past this stage, it should start boiling soon. It’s not a bad time to prepare the first amount of hops. The hops will add a bitter and complicated flavor to the beer, which provides a nice contrast to the sweet malt. For our first addition of hops, we need 0.1 oz or 3 grams of Cascade hop pellets.
Once the wort begins to boil, we can add in our first addition of hops and start a timer for 1 hour. We are just going to let this wort boil with the lid off and add in more hops throughout the boil. Keep an eye on it, but otherwise, there isn’t much to do during this time. It’s often recommended that this is a good time to crack open a beer, preferably a homebrewed one, and relax as it boils.
30 minutes into the boil, we need to add our second addition, which is 0.2 oz or 6 grams more of Cascade pellets. Once the 60 minutes is up, we can turn off the heat source, and add in our last addition of hops, which is 0.25 oz or 7 grams of Citra hop pellets.
Cooling and Sanitization
Alright so at this point we have our beer precursor which is called wort. All that needs to be done is that we need to add the yeast in to turn into beer, however, if we poured the yeast in right now, the high temperature of the wort would kill all of our yeast. So we need to cool this liquid down to a reasonable temperature as quickly as possible. For this, I submerge the pot into a sink full of cold water. That cold water will heat up quickly and needs to be exchanged. Without special cooling equipment, don’t be surprised if it takes you half an hour or longer to cool this down.
As this cools down it’s time to discuss the enemy. We have made a nice sugar liquid that many many bacteria, fungi, and other critters would love to eat. We only want one thing to consume this liquid, which is our yeast. Yeast will convert the sugar into alcohol, which actually begins to stave off other would-be sugar thieves. However, before we get to that point, the yeast will be competing against everything else to become the dominant organism. If any other organism takes over, it will infect the beer ruining all of the hard work we just did. For that reason, we want to make sure to sanitize all equipment coming into contact with the cooled wort, in an attempt to reduce the chance of infecting our beer.
To sanitize the equipment I use Starsan, a cheap and simple product that doesn’t require rinsing afterward. Now a quick note, when I released the mead video a year ago, a ton of people complained that sanitizing is dumb, or not natural, or not what the Vikings would use, etc. I frankly find these arguments to be completely stupid, it’s like arguing against washing your hands. You of course can not sanitize, and there is a solid chance your beer will turn out fine, but there is also a non-inconsequential chance that something will infect it. Brewing beer is a long and labor-intensive process, and for me, it’s worth the extra few dollars and minutes of work to ensure the entire process wasn't a waste of time. I have had my fair share of infected beer, and it is the most disheartening thing.
Transferring to the fermentation vessel & pitching the yeast
Using a sanitized thermometer, measure the temperature of the wort. Once it reaches 68F or 20C, it’s time to transfer this into our fermentation vessel. I am using a 2-gallon plastic jug. I am transferring using an auto-siphon into the fermentation vessel. Make sure to follow the level of the wort down with siphon, this will help reduce the amount of hop crud or trub that gets transferred into the fermenter.
Once it’s been transferred, take a measurement of the sugar concentration and record. Next, we can pitch in our yeast, I am using a Safale US-05 yeast here. Put on the lid and give it a good shake to aerate the wort, place on the airlock, add some sanitized water to that. And bam, we are going to let it go.
Fermentation & dry hopping
After a few days, it isn’t a bad idea to check in on it to see how it’s going, it probably should be bubbling every few seconds, as the yeast consumes the sugar and CO2 gas builds up. If you aren’t seeing bubbles, don’t worry, make sure the lid is on nice and tight it may be cooler and just taking a little longer.
After 7 days, the beer should be more or less done. It’s not a bad idea to check in on it at this point. Take off the lid, it should have a fresh alcohol beery smell. Also, you should see what’s known as the Krausen or little foam bits on the side. This is an indication that the beer has fermented properly.
Take a measurement of the sugar concentration and record. You can now calculate the final ABV using this calculator.
Now at this point, you have two options. One is to go straight for bottling this, or you can do an additional step known as dry-hopping that will give you that craft beer vibe. After the seven days of primary fermentation, you can toss in .5 oz or 14 grams of Citra hop pellets. Because we aren’t heating these hops, it won’t transfer any bitterness, but rather the aroma and floral character of the hops. Leaving these hops to soak for 5 days will imbue a nice floral aroma that gives your beer that craft beer aura.
Bottling Day!
So once you are ready to bottle, we can move on. Transfer your beer from the primary fermenter into a sanitized bottling bucket.
We want to add a little of what is known as priming sugar, which will essentially cause the yeast to start fermenting again and create CO2 in the bottle, which will carbonate the beer. For a gallon of beer, we need to add 21 grams or .75 oz of table sugar to our beer. It’s not a bad idea to double check the amount of priming sugar you need using this calculator.
Using the spout on the bottling bucket, fill cleaned and sanitized bottles with our beer. Place a sanitized cap onto the bottle and crimp it closed. And that’s basically it. Let this sit for another week for the carbonation process to take off and that’s it.
One week later we should have a nice homebrew. One tip here though, this beer is alive unlike what you get at the store, this means there will be some residual yeast chilling out at the bottom of your bottle. It’s perfectly safe to drink, however, if you don’t want to drink it, just pour the homebrew into a glass leaving the yeast behind at the bottom.
So that’s it. The process for making a five-gallon batch or five times the amount is practically the same, but for your first few brews, I found it personally easier and cheaper to deal with smaller quantities of liquid.
Condensed Recipe:
Ingredients:
2.5 lb (1.15 Kg) American 2-row malt - crushed
3 oz (85 g) Crystal 20 Malt - Crushed
3 oz [85 g] Crystal 60 Malt - Crushed
0.75 oz [21 g] Citra Hop Pellets
0.3 oz [8.5 g] Cascade Hop Pellets
Safrale US-05 Yeast
0.75 oz [21 g] Table Sugar
Instructions:
Weigh out the malt, and place it into the straining bag
Measure out 4.5 Quarts or 4.25 L of water into a brew kettle and heat it up to 160F or 71C.
Once the strike water is up to temperature, place the bag into the kettle and cover it with the lid. Maintain the temperature for 1 hour.
45 mins in, to the 1-hour mash, heat up 3.5 Quart or 3.3L of water to 170F or 76.6 C.
Once 1-hour mash is over pull out the straining bag, allowing it to drain into the brew kettle, pour heated sparge water over the grain bag.
Once the grains have been rinsed, measure and record the sugar concentration. It should be close to 1.039. If it is under, adjust using dry malt extract.
Turn the heat up, and bring the kettle to boiling.
Once the wort begins to boil, add 0.1 oz or 3 grams of Cascade hop pellets and start a timer for 1 hour.
30 mins into the one hour boil, add 0.2 oz or 6 grams more of Cascade hop pellets
After the brew hour is complete, turn off the heat source, and add 0.25 or 7 grams of Citra hop pellets.
Fill the sink with cool water, and carefully place the brew kettle into the cool water. Keep exchanging water until the wort is cooled to 68F or 20C.
Sanitize everything that will come into contact with the cooled wort(including the thermometer!)
Take a measurement of the sugar concentration and record the result.
Once the wort is cool, transfer to the sanitized fermentation vessel using the auto-siphon. Be sure to leave as much hop trub in the brew kettle as possible.
Toss in the yeast, and seal up the fermentation vessel. Give it a good shake, and place the airlock on.
After a few days, it should begin to bubble. After one week, fermentation should be done.
After fermentation, take a measurement of the sugar concentration and record. You can now calculate the final ABV.
Optional Step - Open the fermentation vessel, and add .5 oz or 14 grams of Citra hop pellets. This will give a nice hoppy aroma to the final beer.
After 5 days of dry hopping, we can bottle. Siphon the beer into a bottling bucket, again leaving the trub mostly behind.
Add 0.75 oz or 21 grams of table sugar to the beer.
Using the bottling bucket, fill sanitized beer bottles and cap.
After 1 week, the beer should be carbonated. Chill and enjoy!