This is a special series on how to start homebrewing in celebration of Learn to Homebrew Day on November 7th! Part 1 we’re discussing equipment needs and my two simple rules for brewing.
I’m super excited to show you guys basically everything you need to know to get you started. Here I’m going to show you just generally how to do everything. We’re going to start with some extract. It’s the easiest way to begin. You don’t have to worry about an all grain mash.
Homebrewing is such a fun hobby and I love sharing my passion for brewing with all of you guys. When I started I was super nervous about not knowing what to do. I was reading a bunch of message boards online trying to get actual instructions because homebrew recipes they typically don’t come with instruction manuals. It’s a whole other thing to learn all the steps that come into brewing but once you do it a few times it’s so easy. It’s just like making oatmeal. Someone who owned a homebrew shop told me that and it is actually true.
Homebrewing is easy but there’s certain things you need to know to make a successful beer. I’m going to get into all of those things with you guys today and in the video I’m going to show you everything that comes with this MoreBeer! premium homebrew starter kit and how to get ready to brew.
You can also get a $70 kit that’s more rudimentary but it will do the same job. It’s a bucket version of this fermenter basically the only difference you’re gonna get is there’s a kettle in here which is eight and a half gallons but you can also use a three gallon soup pot. That’s how I started. This premium kit just has more stuff in it that you don’t necessarily need but are nice to have like a proper fermenter.
Now that I’ve said all that I’m actually going to tell you my simple-ish rules.
1. Temperature control during fermentation
Fermentation starts after we’ve done all of our boil and we’ve added all of our things (hops, water, yeast, barley aka malt). It’s when the alcohol is created by the yeast eating the sugars in the wort and creates ethanol and CO2. Wort is the liquid that we make by mixing malt extract with water and hops or the liquid that comes out of a mash of malted barley and water. It is non-alcoholic and basically just sweet water or barley tea.
During your fermentation you want to keep a consistent temperature usually between 68 – 72 degrees Fahrenheit ( 20 – 22.2º C) or lower. If you get higher than that you can get off flavors, mainly from esters and phenols which can give medicine, bitter, or just generally gross flavors.
2. Keep everything after the wort is boiled sanitized
Once your wort is cool you need to make sure that everything that’s touching it is sanitized so that includes your hands if you think your hands might touch anything that will touch wort; the fermenter, the hydrometer and the scissors you use to cut open your yeast packet. It’s very important because there’s wild yeast all around us at all times. There’s probably five or six or a hundred different kinds of yeasts floating around so if you get those yeasts from your skin or air in the beer they can ferment your beer and make something really interesting or really disgusting.
There’s also bacteria floating around in the air and bacteria is what we really don’t want in there. You can have infections that smell like vomit and you don’t want to go anywhere near them but you can also have infections that make up some of our wild cultured beers like a brettanomyces beer or just sour beer in general. They typically have cultures of wild yeasts or bacteria such as lactic bacteria that do the souring.
Now let’s get into equipment.
Most starter kits come with at least the equipment in the bullet list below. If you’re going for one of the bucket kits they usually don’t come with a kettle so you will need to scrounge up a 3 gallon soup pot if you’re planning on doing extract batches (I suggest Goodwill for such a purchase or you can find one in the crawl space of your house like I did but that one’s probably haunted).
Typically, when you start out you’ll start using buckets to ferment. The premium homebrew kit has something called a Fermonster in it – a clear plastic fermenter. I’ve used them forever I always suggest people start out with them because you can get them for $33 and they have a spigot and you can see what’s going on inside. It also gives you kind of the feel of a fermenter more so than just having a bucket which always feels very rudimentary. You can spend thousands or you can spend $70 to make good beer. It’s not that difficult as long as you follow some simple rules.
- Food Grade Plastic Six Gallon Fermenter with spigot, stopper and airlock
- Food Grade Bottling Bucket with spigot
- Mesh bags for steeping grain and hops on Brew Day
- Thermometer
- Hydrometer for making ABV measurements
- Transfer Tubing
- Bottle Capper
- Bottle Caps
- Bottle Cleaning Brush
- Star San Sanitizer for sanitizing
You will need to get yourself a recipe kit if your starter kit doesn’t come with one. I love MoreBeer’s selection of kits, they have a ton of clone recipes and recipes developed by world renowned brewers.
I suggest adding a few of things to the purchase of your starter kit
1. A Hudson or wallpaper sprayer
This is simply a pressurized sprayer that works for any liquid. I keep my sanitizer in it to make sanitizing fermenters, bottles, random parts much easier than having to dunk them in a bucket of StarSan. It saves money in the end too because instead of having to make up a 5 gallon batch of sanitizer and throw it away after you’re done brewing you can just leave it in the sprayer and save it for next time.
2. A bottling wand
These things are so handy, they will only release the beer when you push the end on the bottom of the bottle you’re filling. This makes oxidizing your beer unlikely and it’s so much cleaner than trying to kink a hose to stop the flow. Best part? They’re all of $3. Well worth the investment.
3. A decent capper
The cappers that come in the starter kits are pretty frustrating for the most part, the last thing you want it broken bottles (bottling day is enough of a pain). I like the Ferrrari Emily capper, it’s sturdy and are generally a better quality.