Beer Making Presentation

by DIY Brewing Company

Beer Making is a fun and rewarding hobby. It is as easy as making soup and will reward you with great beer at the end. To get started you need just a few things and batches can be made right on your stovetop. Getting Started Before you begin making wine you'll need to obtain several pieces of equipment. Primary Fermenter - This is the bucket that your wine will be made in initially and where it will begin to ferment. Carboy - This is the large glass bottle you'll transfer your wine to, where it will finish fermenting. This is optional for beer making Airlock - This is the plastic piece that sits on top of the fermenter and carboy that allows it to bubble and release air. Bung - This is the rubber piece that holds your airlock in place. Siphon with tubing - This allows you to move your wine from one fermenter to the next. Bottle & Carboy Brush - These are used for cleaning your equipment. Bottle Filler - Will be used to to fill your bottles. Hydrometer - This measures the specific gravity of your wine. You'll use it to make sure that your beer is fermenting correctly. Thermometers - You'll want to make sure your wine is at the right temperature. You can purchase stick on fish tank thermometers to put on the outside of your fermenters. Capper- This allows you to put caps on your bottles. Wine Thief - This allows you to take out a sample of your wine for testing. You can also use a baster. Sanitizer - This will be used throughout the process to make sure that your equipment is sanitary so your wine won't become infected. Cleaning and Sanitizing Your first step will be to clean your brewing equipment. Cleaning can be done with water and a cleanser. In this step you're making sure your equipment is free of debris. Sanitization is the most important part of brewing. To ensure that your wine will be free of bacteria and infections, you'll need to be super vigilant in sanitizing. Absolutely everything that touches your wine needs to be sanitized. Iod0phor -Does not need to be rinsed. 2 minute contact time. StarSan - Does not need to be rinsed. Only needs a 30 second contact time Bleach - Needs to be rinsed 10 minute contact time. Should be rinsed with boiled water.

Making your Beer Take a minute to look through your kit and take stock of what is required for that particular kit. Start by adding 2.5 gallons of water to your pot. Bring water to a 170F. Add grains to a bag and insert into water. The temperature will drop from 170F to about 155F. This is fine as long as your steep is between 150-160F. Make sure your grains are well mixed into the water. Wait 15 minutes. Then remove grain bag. Allow water to drain from bag. Bring wort up to a boil. Remove lid on your pot. When wort starts to boil, usually you will add your bittering hops. Boil for 45 minutes. Stir your wort occasionally. After 45 minutes of boiling, You will add your malt extract and flavor hop addition if needed. Boil for 15 more minutes. Stir occasionally After a full 60 minutes boil. Turn stove off and add aroma hops if needed for your kit. Let sit for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, start to chill your beer by placing your beer in a sink of ice water. Add the 3 gallons of water from fridge to the fermenter and add wort to the fermenter when a wort temperature of >80 F is obtained. This can be done by placing funnel into glass carboy or directly pouring wort into fermenting pail. Vigorously shake fermenter and place airlock into hole.( fill airlock halfway with water or sanitizer) Use your wine thief or baster to collect a sample and record the specific gravity. Fill the container that the hydrometer comes in to the point where the hydrometer floats. Read the hydrometer by noting the gradient that marks the top of your liquid. Sprinkle the yeast on top and cover using the lid and airlock. Fermentation Place the fermenter into an area where a temperature of 55-70 F can be maintained. After 3-7 days of fermentation rack beer into secondary fermenter (optional). Bottling and Capping Clean and sanitize all your equipment - siphon,caps, and bottles. Bottles can be sanitized in the dishwasher by washing without soap and using the heat dry option. Heat priming sugar in a cup of boiling water for 15 minutes. Add priming sugar mixture to bottling bucket. Siphon your beer to your bottling bucket. This will mix your priming mixture into your beer. Use your bottle filler to fill each bottle tto the brim with of your bottle with the bottle filler in the bottle. When you remove the bottle filler it will be the perfect headspace in your beer. Cap your beer with your capper.

Let sit at 70F for 2-3 weeks to carbonate.

Th e Ten M os t Com m o n Be e r m a ki n g M is t ak es
( a n d ho w t o a void t h e m )
If you need help with something not covered here, call our toll-free help line 1-800-663-0954 or fax us toll-free 1-888-557-7557. You can also call Mike at DIY Brewing at 413-459-1459. 1. Using the Wrong Equipment When you start making your beer, don't just grab anything you see around the houselike your Grandma's pickle crock, peanut butter pails, garbage cans, or wooden spoons. These can't be sanitized easily and might taint your beer. Proper beer making equipment is made of food-grade plastic and is designed to give you the best results possible. Life's a lot easier when you've got the right gear. (Kind of like mountain climbingwhat if you forgot the rope that holds you to the side of the mountain?) 2. Dirty Equipment Cleaning means removing visible residue. It's really important. It's kind of like washing your dishesyou aren't likely to make dinner with dirty pots and pans. Use an unscented detergent on your equipment and rinse well. Once everything is clean, you can move onto sanitation 3. Poor Sanitation Sanitizing means treating equipment with a substance that will reduce or remove bacteria. There are several sanitizers you can use, including Star San and Iodophor. They all work a little differently. Clean and sanitize everything that touches your beerfermenters, carboys, hoses, thermometers, spoons. You get the picture. It's easy and worth it: ninety percent of beer making failures can be traced to poor cleaning or faulty sanitation. 4. Burning your malt extract Add your malt to your wort by taking the pot off of your heat source. Stir your malt extract into its solution and make sure it is all into solution. Leaving any on the bottom of your pot will cause it to burn. You can tell if you have burnt your extract by the fact your pot will have burn spots on it after you are done brewing. This will also cause your beer to be sweeter and give it what is referred to as the homebrew twang. If you use Dry Malt Extract add a little at a time and make sure to stir in the malt extract. If you add a little at a time to your wort, you will not need to remove pot from stove. 5. Using the Wrong Water Many people think they need to be concerned about the water they use in wine making In reality, this is one of those `problems` that is not a big deal. If your tap water is drinkable, chances are you can make wine with it. That said, some water can leave your wine hazy or give it off flavors. If you know your water is very high in minerals, is metallic, or has high levels of chlorine, you should think about getting a water filter or using bottled water. 6. Not Adding the Yeast Correctly Be sure to follow the kit instructions when adding your yeast. We recommend sprinkling the yeast over the surface of 18 to 25C (65 to 80F) juice and not stirring. If the temperature is wrong, the yeast won't be happy. And if you stir it in, you can suffocate it. Observant beer makers eventually notice that our kit instructions don't match the instructions printed on

our yeast packages. If you use the yeast manufacturer's rehydration instructions, you must follow them exactlysloppy rehydration will seriously harm your yeast. Simply sprinkling dry yeast over the surface of the wort is much easier and works great. 7. Poor Temperature Control Kit instructions tell you to ferment your wine within a specific temperature range. We recommend 65 to 70F. Yeast likes these temperatures and it doesn't like fluctuations. In other words, yeast is going to be happy in the same kind of environment that people find comfortable. Temperature control is important, but you don't need to get obsessive over it. Thousands of people make great wine in a closet in their apartment. Just use your common sense. 8. Boiling too hard Your wort needs to be boiled but it does not need to destroyed. You want what is called a rolling boil. A rolling boil means that you are getting movement throughout your beer but it is not boiling so hard you are getting foam forming throughout your pot. Some foam buildup is normal. Boiling too hard will cause your beer to become darker and taste sweeter then you want. It can also cause your yeast not ferment all your sugars available. 9. Using the wrong yeast Yeast is an extremely important part of your beer. It can account for up to 70% of your flavor in your beer. Some beers are fine with dry yeast since the yeast is just a background flavor. Some beers (like Belgians) the yeast might be the main flavor component. Always think of your beer in terms of whether the yeast is a main flavor you want or just a background flavor. Changing your yeast can make a huge difference. 10. Not mixing Enough You need to thoroughly mix your beer to ensure that enough air gets into your beer. If you have insufficient oxygen your yeast will not work all the way. You should mix your beer until you are not able to mix anymore. You can do this by shaking your beer or stirring it. If you are using the stirring method we recommend going both ways and mixing for at least 5 minutes.( preferably 10 minutes) Just a final note: Everyone wants to drink their beer the day it's bottled. Give it some time! Even if it tastes fine right away, it will get much better. Try to ignore it for a month or two. It's worth it.