How to make beer at your Home

My first crush with freshly brewed beer was in Wilmington at a Sports Bar, which was a part of a micro brewery. The beer was on menu in so many flavors right from raspberry to blueberry. They serve it by the pitcher,we were a group of eight friends and believe me a decently large pitcher served for US $ 20 and was sufficient for eight of us, It also had complimentary starters also.The taste was so refreshing, far better than the bottled one. Micro breweriesare very common in US and easy to find almost in all major cities. After coming back to India, I longed for fresh beer from a micro brewery, now in many cities including Gurgaon, Banglore, Pune and Mumbai, you may find a micro brewery or two. Latest addition in Mumbai is Barking Deer at Parel. During a short span, it has became a very hip place for younger crowd.

Then there is Navin Mittal in Mumbai, who started beer as a hobby, running a blog IndianBeerGeek for beer lovers from last 7 years. He had co-founded Gateway Brewing Company (GBC), which supplies craft beers to pubs and restaurants across the city . They are now making much larger batches at a facility at Dombivali.    

I thought of making beer at home, gone to internet to search recipe. It was really a great pleasure to find to many  tutorials available free of cost on YouTube and on so many blogs.

So if you really want to make your own beer, you may visit the following site :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiYE90aCHE4.

Apart from that some of the enthusiasts spread in the length and breadth of India, who are experimenting with this fine medium, there is a gentleman who have prepared a beer batch which is pan flavored ! The other one has created mango flavor ! Believe me or not someone has brewed Chai Beer, the one tasting similar to milkless chai.

We’ve decided to start with a three part guide that takes you through your first batch of beer including the equipment needed, how to brew the beer and how to ferment, bottle and age it.

Equipment Needed :

You don’t need a large set of fancy and expensive equipment to brew your first batch of beer. Many brewing supply stores sell starter kits in for $75 or less. In case you have friends in USA ask any one of them to procure and bring for you. If you are interested in pursuing the hobby long term, a deluxe brewing kit can be found for less than $150. A number of online stores will even ship the equipment and ingredients directly to your door. It can cost even less if you borrow some or all the equipment from a friend.

Here’s a quick summary of what is needed:

A Large Pot – at least 3 gallons in size, though a larger one will generally result in fewer spills

Tubing and  Clamp – to siphon and bottle the beer- A 6 foot section of 3/8″ ID food grade plastic tubing will work. Clamps are available at brew store

An Airtight Fermenting Bucket – a 5 gal plastic bucket with lid, or a glass car boy. If you can afford it, purchase a glass carboy as they are easier to keep sanitized and don’t leak. If you get a carboy you may need a large bottle brush to clean it.

An Air Lock and Stopper – sized to fit your fermenter.

A Bottle Filler – available from your home brew supplier – should be sized to fit on the end of your siphon tubing

A Thermometer – A floating thermometer with a range of 0-100 C or up from 32-220 F

Bottles – You need just over 2 cases in 12 oz bottles to bottle 5 gallons of beer. Do not use twist-off bottles – use high quality bottles that require a bottle opener.

Bottle Brush – While not absolutely required, you usually need a small brush to get your bottles clean.

A Bottle Capper – a hand driven device to cap your bottles also available from your home brew store

Bottle Caps – New bottle caps sold at your brewing supplier – you need about 50 caps for a 5 gal batch

A Sanitizing solution – Beer is prone to infection, so everything must be sanitized before use. Household bleach can be used, but it must be thoroughly rinsed to prevent contamination. Your brew store may have alternatives such as iodophor and star san.

Ingredients Needed

The list below assumes you want to brew 5 gallons of a simpleale. You can formulate your own recipe or download recipes online you arelooking for a different style.

1. 6 lbs of Unhopped Pale Malt Extract – Usually this comes in cans that are around 3 lbs each.Malt provides the sweet base that the yeast will feed on to make alcohol.Available from various manufacturers. Dry malt extract is an acceptable alternative.

2. 2.25 Oz of East Kent Goldings Hops – Hops add bitterness to your beer. Pellets are mostcommon and easy to store. Keep your unused hops in the freezer in airtight bags.

3. One Package of W yeast American Ale liquid Yeast (#1056) [ or White Labs California Ale#WLP001 ]. Liquid yeast gives very high quality beer.

4. 2/3 cup PrimingSugar – such as corn sugar. Also available from your brew storeor grocer.

Brewing Process :

Brewing consists of five simple stages.

1. Brewing the Beer – Pale malt extract and hops are boiled together with water for about an hour to sterilize the extract and release the bittering qualities of the hops. Frequently grainsare steeped in the mixture prior to the boil to add additional color and flavorcomplexity.

2. Cooling and Fermenting – The hot mixture (called wort) is cooled to room temperature and siphoned or transferred to a fermenter where it is combined with additional water to achieve the desired 5 gallon batch size. Once the mixture drops to room temperature, yeast is added to start the fermentation process. Cleanliness and sanitation are very important since the wort can be easily infected by bacteria in this state. An airlock is used to keep the fermenter sealed during fermentation. Your beer will ferment for 1-2 weeks.

3. Priming andBottling – Once the beer is fully fermented, it is siphoned to another container to prepare for bottling. Here priming sugars such as corn sugar sugar are mixed with the beer. The beer is siphoned into bottles and each bottle is capped with a bottle capping device.

4. Aging – Once the beer has been bottled it needs to age for 2-6 weeks. During aging the yeast will ferment the remaining sugar you added and create carbon dioxide. This carbon-dioxide will naturally carbonate your beer so it is nice and bubbly. In addition, undesirable sediments such as excess yeast and proteins will drop out of the beer during aging and this will enhance the flavor of your beer. In may take several months to reach peak flavor, though homemade beer usually drinkable after a month.

5. Drinking – When the beer is properly aged – just put the bottles in the fridge and enjoy! There’s nothing quite like a great beer that you made yourself.

This is the five step process for making your own beer.The brewing portion takes a few hours, and bottling and transferring take another hour+ spread out over a few weeks.

Overall, brewing a batch of extract beer involves 3-4 hours of your time and about 4 weeks to ferment and age into a drinkable brew.This makes home brewing an attractive hobby for people who lead a busy lifestyle, but enjoy making things from scratch.