Introduction to Beer

My wife and I began homebrewing last January, after being impressed by the quality of brew being produced by our friends, Jim and Sonja. A local place, the Beer Depot, carries anything the beginner to advanced homebrewer might want, and they're only a few blocks from my house. The features that recommend homebrewing are as follows: it's easy, it's a great social activity, you make about 4.5 gallons of beer for about $35 (once the initial investment in equipment is made), and you receive immense satisfaction as those bubbles pop right under your nose while you take that first sip of a new batch.

The upfront cost would be close to $150. The crucial items are these:

1. Large Stockpot, the bigger the better, but at least 4 gallons. A heavy bottom helps avoid burning.
2. Two Carboys, glass, 6 ga.
3. Two stoppers with vapor locks
4. Large 5 gallon pail
5. Two measuring pails, 4qt.
6. Funnel with screen
7. Thermometer with pot hook
8. Hydrometer
9. Plastic tubing and racking cane
10. Capper -- you can get away with no capping if you buy the Grolsch-style bottles
11. One-Step or any other sterilizing agent that you do not have to rinse.
12. Bottles
    

This is the basic setup. I included two carboys because you might want to have two batches going at once. You will also want Papazian's The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, as it will be your best friend for the first year or so. Aside from this, you simply buy the ingredients and follow the recipes.

Brewing 101
So what is beer? Beer is the fermented sugar from wheat and/or barley. Hops are usually added for flavor and aroma (and for preservative qualities, as in the IPA), but other aromatic plants like heather or spruce can be used as well. If a large amount of hops is used, a large amount of malt sugar is required to properly balance the beer. This is why Sam Adams sucks.

Malt is prepared as follows: Wheat or barley has the hell beaten out of it until the grains fall off and are collected. These grains are soaked in water in huge rooms for a while until they begin to germinate. This is called malting. The water is drained from the room and the malt is dried. Germination activates many enzymes in the grain that are then available for breaking down sugars in the malt. Hardcore homebrewers will set up a mashtun, which is a tank for soaking cracked malt at specific temperatures to extract the sugar and allow conversions, via the enzymes, to other sugars and esters. I purchase my malt in the form of a concentrated syrup that a company was kind enough to make.

The concentrated malt is added to water (usually 2.5gal), and is brought to a boil. Hops are often added for a 1h boil to make the beer more bitter. A few minutes before the end of the boil, finishing hops are added. Because they don't boil as long, the volatile oils extracted from them are retained in the beer, providing that 'green' flavor and aroma. The beer stew that we are left with here is called the wort.

When the wort cools, it is transferred to a glass carboy containing 2 gal cold water. When the temperature reaches 75-80F, the yeast is added. Yeast accomplish the fermentation. For the first week or so, the yeast eat the sugar and grow exponentially on this rich food source. They break down the sugar into simpler components, including ethanol and CO2. When the sugar is all used up, or the yeast have created a self-toxic alcohol environment, fermentation stops. All the homebrewer sees is that there is a thick head on the beer in the carboy that eventually disappears.

After a week or so, the beer is usually ready for bottling. A cup or so of corn sugar is boiled, and the fermented wort is added to it. The beer is siphoned into bottles, and the bottles are capped and put away for 10-14 days. The corn sugar is used by the yeast to carbonate the beer in the bottles.

That's all there is to it. Most of the process is cleaning...cleaning the work area before you begin, sterilizing equipment that will come into contact with the boiled wort, cleaning bottles, cleaning up afterward. But it's really worth it when you have a few batches put away, just waiting for you to have time for a nice beer.