Water. Yeast. Grains. Hops. Time.
Steep. Boil. Filter. Ferment. Bottle.
Beer is as simple as it is complex. All it takes is 4 simple ingredients and few steps to make this ancient and incredible beverage. While the first people to brew beer thousands of years ago did it in a somewhat crude fashion, things have gotten a little more refined since then. Today we are going to take a look at the ingredients, equipment and processes to begin making beer at home today. Let’s get started!
First, let’s do an overview of each ingredient, what it does, and why it is important:
Ingredients:
Water – H20, the building block of life and more importantly…beer. We’ll get into it a little later on in this blog but the kind of water used can be important but for the sake of starting on your homebrewing journey, sink or filtered water will be perfect for what you need.
Barley / Grain – This is what gives beer its color, body and overall consistency. If beer was a PB&J sandwich, this would be the bread and the peanut butter. The different colors you see in varying beer types is all due to the different types of grains that are used. The reason that a Guinness is much darker and thicker than say a Miller Light is mostly because of the barley / grain.
Hops – A plant that was not started to be added to beer until sometime on the 17th century. Easily the ingredient that gives you the biggest bang for your buck, hops add the different bitterness for each beer style. Almost all modern beers use various different kind of hops and depending on the style can have multiple ones incorporated into them. Beers that have a lot of hops in them are usually found in IPAs or Pale Ales that are bitter.
Yeast – There is a reason that it is called liquid bread. Just like bread wouldn’t be bread without yeast, beer wouldn’t be either. Yeast is actually the mechanism that makes beer alcoholic and like hops, there can be many different types and strains of yeast used in beer. This is probably the most important ingredient needed and conveniently, one of the easiest in the whole process.
Equipment and Hardware:
Now, let’s talk about what equipment you are going to need to brew your very first batch of beer. You might be thinking you ‘ll need a chemistry lab in order to get started, but the good news is that you don’t need much. Below is a shopping list of everything you’ll need to get started:
Two Gallon Pot – Any kind of pot can work, but you’ll need at least one that can hold up to two gallons. If you already spend time in the kitchen, you probably already have one or two that will work great. You can get by two pots, but three will make it even easier.
Sanitizing Solution – You’ll need this to sanitize everything that comes in contact with any ingredient. It’s important to sanitize everything to guarantee that your yeast will thrive.
Fermenting Jug – You might also hear this called a carboy, but it’s a giant glass jar that the beer will be stored in after it is cooked and before it gets bottled.
Fermenting jug stopper and air lock – This is essentially a cork at the top of jug to ensure no air gets into the beer. This is a critical component as any excess air that leaks in can potentially contaminate the beer and kill your yeast.
Stirrer / cooking spoon – Any kind will do as long as it is long enough to reach the bottom the pot comfortably. Being that the beer will be boiling when you’re cooking it, you’ll probably want a longer one.
Pasta Strainer – Any large pasta strainer will do.
Fine Mesh Strainer – This will be used to further filter the beer once it is transferred into jug for fermentation and again when the beer is bottled. The finer the strainer, the better.
Long stem thermometer – Just like the spoon above, you’ll need a long thermometer to help you keep the beer in the proper temperature range while on the stove.
Syphon – This will be used to syphon the beer in and out of the pot to the jug and ultimately into the bottles. There are specific syphons made for homebrewing that will make this task easier.
Bottles and bottle caps – For the bottles, the easiest thing is to just save the ones that you drink at home, just make sure they are not twist bottles as you won’t be able to cap these.
Capper – You’ll need the capper to crimp the bottle caps onto the bottles.
Once you have all of the above equipment, you can start brewing your very own batch of beer. Cheers!