BREWING PROCESS GUIDE
This is a guide to aid the brewer as they go through the steps and is intended to be a practical, straight forward guide. This guide assumes a 5 gallon batch is being brewed, however, these instructions can easily be adapted to smaller, or larger, batch sizes.
PREPARATION FOR BREWING DAY
Equipment
For brewing day, gather together the following equipment:
- Primary Carboy (6 or 6.5 gallon advised)
- 8 Gallon Stainless Steel Pot*
- Long-handled Spoon / Spatula
- Fermentation Airlock or Blow-off Hose
- Bung for Airlock
- Metal Mesh Strainer (optional)
- Hop Basket(s) (optional)
- Thermometer
- Cleaner (such as PBW)
- Sanitizer (such as Star San)
- Recipe Ingredients
- Funnel
- Auto-Siphon and Hose
- Wine Thief (optional)
- Hydrometer (optional)
- Wort Chiller (optional)
* Smaller pots can be used, but a full 6 gallon boil will not be possible. As a result, reduce the amount of wort boiled in the below instructions as needed in order to leave at least 1/2 to 1 gallon of head space in the pot. Minimum recommended boil pot is 3 gallons. The carboy once filled with the wort, can be topped off to 5 gallons with cool sanitized water.
Ingredients
Layout ingredients, in the order they will be added, and make sure everything is present per the recipe you are using.
Prepare liquid yeast as needed per packet instructions. Dry yeast packets do not need to be prepared and can be set aside for the time being.
If using liquid extract, place unopened container in warm water to soften the extract. This will make the liquid extract easier to pour when the time comes.
Water
If the water you want to use for your beer tastes good and smells good, your beer will probably taste good. Bottled spring water (avoid distilled) works as an alternative that doesn’t require adjustments when brewing with extracts. If using city water, be aware of Chlorine / Chloramine and make sure it is removed before brewing. Chlorine can be removed from water by boiling it or by letting it sit out overnight, covered with a clean cloth. Chloramine has to be removed with special filters or using Campden tablets. If in doubt of the quality/taste/smell of your water, start with bottled water for your first few batches so you can focus on other aspects of the brewing process.
Clean/Sanitize
Clean equipment as needed. If you did a good job cleaning when you finished last time, cleaning at this point shouldn’t be needed. Make sure there are no organic particulates in any of the equipment that will come into contact with the cooled wort/beer.
Sanitize any equipment that will come into contact with the wort after it has been chilled:
- Carboy
- Strainer
- Airlock and Bung or Blow-off Hose
- Funnel
- Auto-Siphon / Hose
- Yeast Container
- Wine Thief
- Hydrometer
- Scissors
Make an effort to keep things in the sanitize solution up until needing that item.
BOILING
- In the 8 gallon pot, add 1 gallon of water for each 1 lb of specialty grains that you plan to steep. Bring the pot of water to about 155 degrees F.
- Next, once the water has reached 155 degrees F, place specialty grain into the muslin bag, tie off the end, and carefully lower into the water. Steep the grains for 15 minutes at approximately 155 degrees, or per the recipe instructions. Do not boil the specialty grains.
- Once the steeping period is over, lift the grain bag out of the wort, place a strainer over the pot and let the grain bag drip into the pot. Do not squeeze the grain bag.
- Once satisfied the grain has dripped remaining liquids sufficiently, remove the grain bag and discard.
- Begin to bring the water, now wort, to a boil and at the same time begin to add water to bring the total water volume to 4 gallons.
- Once wort is near boiling, remove heat and add liquid malt extract and dry malt extract. Be sure to get as much of the extract out of the container as possible. Wort can be poured into the liquid malt extract container, mixed, and dumped back into the pot to help get it all.
- Stir the hot wort until all of the extract has dissolved.
- Add additional water to bring the total pre-boil volume to 6 gallons. This will get you close to 5 gallons in the fermenter due to water loss during the boil.
- Bring the wort to a boil. As the wort begins to boil it may start to aggressively foam and any amount of stirring will not knock it down. If this is the case, remove the heat and let it settle. Throw ice into the pot if you are in danger of a foam over.
- Once foam has settled back down, resume boil. Throughout the boil process stir every so often to prevent scorching.
- Eventually the hot break will occur at which point foaming will die down.
- Once a good boil can be maintained, begin adding hops and time the additions per the recipe. Add hops slowly and stir while adding them as wort may foam up. Hops can be added loose or they can be added in hop baskets or hop bags.
- 10 to 15 minutes before the end of the boil, add the immersion wort chiller to the wort (if using one) to sanitize it.
- Cover the pot as best as possible with lid or aluminum foil several seconds before end of boiling to sanitize the cover.
- Once boil has completed, turn off the burner and transport pot to where the chilling will be done. (Recommend finding a way to chill without having to move the hot pot)
- Lastly, hook up the immersion chiller to the sink and turn on the water. Cool the wort down to below 80 degrees F. Rocking the chiller back and forth will help to cool the wort faster. Remove the immersion wort chiller once target temperature is reached.
- Note: If you don’t have a wort chiller, an ice bath can be used, however this will take significantly longer.
FERMENTATION
Primary
- Sit the carboy where you want the beer to ferment. Use a location with an ambient temperature within the acceptable temperature range for the yeast that will be used.
- Use the auto-siphon and hose to transfer the wort to the carboy. To minimize trub pickup, whirlpool the wort and let sit for a minute so the sediment collects in the center of the pot, away from the auto-siphon, before starting the transfer. For partial boils, a sanitized funnel can be placed inside the carboy and the wort poured in. A strainer can be used with the funnel to strain the wort as it is poured into the carboy, but in my experience they always clog right away.
- If desired, take a wort sample for specific gravity testing using the wine thief and hydrometer.
- If using liquid yeast, place the bung into the carboy and carefully shake the carboy for 20 to 30 seconds to properly add oxygen to the wort. Remove the bung.
- Sanitize the yeast packet and the scissors that will be used to open the yeast packet.
- Pitch yeast per instructions. Dry yeast can be dumped directly into the carboy with no prep needed.
- Add airlock and bung to carboy. Fill airlock with sanitized solution.
- Alternately, use a blowoff system for really vigorous fermenting. Ensure the hose is sanitized and insert it into the carboy. Place the other end into a bucket filled with sanitized solution.
- Ferment, out of direct light, at the desired temperature. For ales, I typically ferment between 60 to 70 degrees F, for the duration specified by the recipe.
- If you started with an airlock and krausen starts to approach the bung, you can switch to a blowoff hose and switch back to the airlock later once the krausen settles back down in a couple days. You don’t want the airlock to plug up with krausen or it could potentially get blown out and spatter your ceiling with wort.
Secondary
I do not do secondary fermentation. The risk of contamination far outweighs the reward in my opinion. Ales are generally not in the fermenter long enough to warrant secondary fermentation. Lagers may be worth transferring to a secondary, however, I have so far not found a need.
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