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It took me a little more than a week, but here is my Dummies’ Guide to Home Brewing!

I know some of you may not be interested in this… which I totally get. Because brewing beer isn’t for everyone. But hopefully you’ll enjoy the pictures and learning about the overall process!

As of now, this is our first batch, and I’m still getting the details straight. If I have any readers that are also homebrewers, feel free to correct me in the comments! We’ve already gone through the primary fermentation on this first batch, and we’re in the secondary now (all this will make sense with my next blog post if you’re confused), and we’re bottling tomorrow. So I’ll have another post explaining primary vs. secondary fermentation vs. bottling, as we finish all of these stages ourselves.

And just for my knowledge – is there anyone out there interested in home brewing? Or am I just annoying you with this post?

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Pecan Brown Ale

Adapted from The Complete Joy of Home Brewing
Yields about 5 gallons of beer, or about 50 12-ounce bottles

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Gather:
2 handfuls of rice hulls
8.5 pounds pale malt
1/2 pound chocolate malt
1/4 pound black patent malt
1 pound crystal malt
1 ounce Fuggles hops (boiling hops), in a small cheesecloth bag
1 ounce East Kent Goldings hops (aroma hops)
4 cups pecans, chopped, in a large cheesecloth bag

1 10-gallon Rubbermaid water cooler
1 stainless steel false bottom
1 12-inch piece of copper pipe
1 3-inch piece of high temperature hose
1 4-foot piece of clear hose
1 large stainless steel pot (holds about 6-7 gallons)
1 wooden spoon
1 6-gallon commercial food-grade plastic bucket
1 large plastic tub (large enough to hold the stainless steel pot)
a top to a Tupperware container, about 5 inches across or larger
at least 6 bags of ice (about 60 pounds)
automatic siphon
air lock
thermometer
hydrometer
bleach

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(My Best – But Probably Not Very Good – Explanation of) How to Home Brew:
Clean your water cooler, false bottom, pipes and hose, and stainless steel pot. These just need to be clean, although you don’t have to go as far as sanitizing them with bleach, since the homebrew will start hot, and will therefore be almost impossible to harbor bacteria.

Place the false bottom in the bottom of the water cooler. Attach the piece of high-temperature hose to the valve on the top of the false bottom. Detach the push valve on the outside of the water cooler, and push the copper pipe through the hole, threading the copper pipe into the open end of the high temperature hose. On the outside of the water cooler, the copper pipe should still be sticking out – attach your piece of clear hose to the copper pipe, and wind the hose through the handle on one side of the water cooler. Essentially, the hose should wind upward, so that the brew will not flow out of the water cooler due to gravity and water pressure. (If this is the first time you are homebrewing, test your set-up by filling up the water cooler with water, to make sure the valve/pipe/hoses are watertight. Once you know your set-up is watertight, you can skip this step in further homebrew sessions.)

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The false bottom, attached to the piece of high-temp hose and the copper pipe

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Meanwhile, heat at least 3 gallons of water in your stainless steel pot. You want to bring the water up to 190 degrees and keep it at around that temperature until you’re ready to start the protein rest stage.

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Scattered rice hulls along the false bottom

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Scatter 2 handfuls of rice hulls on top of the false bottom. Slowly pour your hops on top of the rice hulls, alternating with 190 degree water. You want to add just enough water to moisten the malt, but not enough to make a soup. Stir the malt to moisten with water, using a wooden spoon or spatula, and be careful NOT to scrape the inside walls of the water cooler, and make sure NOT to touch the false bottom in the cooler, either. If you scrape the inside walls of the water cooler, bacteria can grow in the grooves between brew sessions. If you hit the false bottom in the cooler while stirring, you can jar it and cause malt to get into the hose, which can cause blockages in the hose which can ruin your whole batch. (It helps to have two people at this stage; one to pour the malt into the Rubbermaid, and one person to slowly add water and stir to moisten the malt.)

The temperature of the malt for the protein rest should hover at about 130 degrees, so add water (stirring between additions of water) until the grains are moistened, and then adjust for temperature. If your grains are above 130 degrees, add cold water and stir until the grains cool down to 130. Screw on the water cooler cover, and let sit for 15 minutes, periodically checking the temperature of the malt and adding water as necessary.

Meanwhile, boil another 4-5 gallons of water in your stainless steel pot.

Once the 15 minutes is up, proceed to the mash stage – add hot water to the malt about 1 gallon at a time, stirring continuously, and checking the temperature intermittently, until the temperature of the mash reaches 155 degrees Fahrenheit. The mash should be a soupy consistency – if you reach 155 degrees before the mash reaches a soupy consistency, add cold water until the appropriate consistency is reached. (This is another point where it helps to have two people: one person to pour water, the other to stir the mash and intermittently check temperature.) Let mash sit, covered, in the water cooler for 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, boil another 4-5 gallons of water in your stainless steel pot.

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Sparge in process

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Once the 45 minutes is up, prepare to sparge. Get a small plastic cup for tasting, and set next to your water cooler. Put the water cooler on a higher surface (such as a countertop) and set your large plastic bucket below the water cooler (such as on the floor). Unwind the hose from the side of the water cooler, and point the hose into the plastic bucket. The water that comes out of the mash will be dark brown, and it is called the wort. The wort coming out of the malt will be sweet, and the idea is to leach out all the sugar from the mash by pouring hot water through the mash until the water no longer tastes sweet. Thus, as the wort that comes down the hose begins to slow, take your tasting cup, and put it under the hose to catch a small taste of wort. Taste it to make sure it is still sweet. If it is still sweet, then have your helper pour some of the hot water into the mash (place the Tupperware top on the top of the mash, and pour hot water onto the Tupperware top – it will diffuse the water pressure and encourage water to slowly filter through the mash instead of simply falling through the middle). Continue pouring hot water, tasting more frequently as the wort tastes less sweet.

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Kristy tastes the wort

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Obviously it’s quite difficult for me to explain when to stop sparging (i.e. when to pinch the hose and stop the wort from pouring into the bucket). Both times we have brewed, we stopped when it tasted as though the wort was still a little sweet, but the aftertaste was more starchy. If you feel that you aren’t sure, I would say stop sparging. Also, if you accidentally add a little bit more wort, it’s not such a big deal – you’ll know to stop earlier next time. Your beer will still be delicious!

If you end up with less than 5 gallons of wort in your bucket (remember, stop adding wort when it stops tasting sweet) then you can add more water to your bucket. Essentially, the sugar that you extract from the mash is finite, and because sugar is converted into alcohol in the fermentation process, the amount of alcohol in the batch is finite. But, the percentage alcohol can be lowered if you dilute the wort with additional water. None of this is really something you have to worry about as long as you follow the recipe – if your recipe is supposed to yield 5 to 6 gallons of beer, then make sure you add enough water to make sure you have 5 to 6 gallons of wort. Otherwise you will end up with a much higher alcohol percentage.

Empty your stainless steel pot, and pour the hot wort into the stainless steel pot. Add the boiling hops and the pecans. Cover and bring the wort to boil, and boil for 60 minutes. (This is called the “boil” stage. I know, it’s a convenient name, right?)

You can also dispose of the used malt now. Scoop ‘em out and put them in a double-lined trash bag. (Hint: these are hot, and feel like a giant hot compress. If you use them like this. Yes, that is my backside.)

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The boil in process

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At around Minute 40, add the aroma hops to the boil. Also, pitch the yeast. Pitching yeast simply means adding the yeast to a small amount of warm water, so that the yeast can activate, a.k.a. “bloom.” At this time, also prepare your ice, i.e. run out to the store and GET ice if you need to.

After 60 minutes of boiling, spread a 5-inch layer of ice in the large plastic tub. Lift the hot stainless steel pot into the plastic tub. Add ice around the hot pot. The object is to cool down the wort to about 80 degrees, as quickly as possible. (Remove the bag of boiling hops and pecans at this point as well.

Up until now, you’ve been dealing with hot malt, hot mash, and boiling wort. With such hot temperatures, you haven’t really needed to be super sanitized with your equipment, because any bacteria that got into the mash and/or wort would have been killed during the 60-minute boil. Now, you’re dealing with a cooled wort, which means that any bacteria that gets into the cooled wort can thrive. THUS, any equipment used from now on MUST be sterilized. The best way to do this is to fill your sink with a solution of bleach and hot water, and soak/wash any equipment in the bleach solution. Rinse with hot water and allow to dry.

Get another clean (it doesn’t have to be sterilized though) plastic cup and set next to your plastic bucket. Attach your (sterilized) clear hose to your (sterilized) siphon. Use the siphon to suck the cooled wort from the stainless steel pot into your (sterilized) plastic bucket. While siphoning, take a sample of cooled wort straight from the hose. Add the cup of water and bloomed yeast. (If some yeast sticks to the bottom of the cup, add more warm water to the cup, swish to get the yeast to unstick, and add to the plastic bucket. (A little extra water won’t hurt anything.)

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Air lock

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Put the top on the food-grade bucket. Top with air lock (and fill with water as necessary).

Let sit for about 5 days. This period is called the primary fermentation.

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Gillian Welch / Revelator

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