Extract Brewing with Steeped Grain and Hops
Extract brewing opens up a whole variety of options to the home brewer to create countless types of beer without the need to invest in too much equipment. This type of brewing is an ideal progression from making beer kits. In essence you create…
Quick-Start Guide to Our Brewday
Let's take a look at what our brew day is going to look like, in essence a quick start guide to brewing one of the beers I've listed down below.These short steps are all you need if you just want to get going right away. However, below I…
Speciality Grains
For an extract brewer there are a number of speciality grains that can be used to make a wide range of different beers providing a lot of scope to start experimenting with all sorts of combinations.
There are 2 types of malted grains,…
Using Speciality Grains
Our extract beer will be made with an unhopped malt extract and further to this we will steep grains in hot water to add further complexity to the malt extract base. The steeping of special grains, such as chocolate and black malts, will turn…
Hop Use in the Boil
There are very many varieties of hops available to the home brewer and at first it may seem overwhelming. However, they are great for adding different flavours to a beer and give the brewer scope to make something completely unique.
When…
Boiling Your Beer with Hops
To extract bitterness from the hops they need to be boiled. Alpha acids in the hops are the primary source of bitterness and aren’t very soluble, boiling for around an hour is the most effective length of time to extract the alpha acids.
As…
Dry Hopping
Previously I have talked about hops as a means of providing bitterness by boiling them to extract the alpha acids present..
So you can add hops at the beginning of the boil to provide bitterness and towards the end to give you a sense of…
Making A Yeast Starter
When making beer it is imperative to get the fermentation started as soon as possible. We want to ensure an adequate amount of yeast is pitched to get the beer fermenting straight away and also to form a protection against infection from bacteria.
The…
Cooling and Pitching Yeast
To get the beer ready for fermentation we need to start cooling the wort down. Yeast require a specific temperature range to thrive in. Ale yeasts need be kept around 16°C – 24°C any colder and the yeast will begin to hibernate and not ferment…
Primary and Secondary Fermentation
The fermentation of your beer is one of the most important parts of the brewing process. It may seem like the part where you don’t really do much but it is also the stage of the process where many things can influence the taste of…