Rowdy Beer Crew

Before We Start

Extract Beer Kit

You will need some supplies, first you will need a Brew Kit, and second you will need an Extract Kit.

Between both of these kits, you should everything you need with exception of water, a stove, and a Brew Kettle. If you’re on a budget, I would recommend buying, at a minimum, a 5 gallon, non aluminum kettle. If you have the money, just get an eight gallon kettle, you’ll be happy you did 6 months from now. For this lesson I will be showing you the budget way to do things, with the small 5 gallon kettle.

Now that you have all of your supplies, lets get started!

Step 1 – Sanitize

Sanitize your brew equipment

1. Fill your bucket up with 5 gallons of water, dump this water into your carboy (big glass jar), mark your carboy at the top of the water. This is how much beer you should have when we’re finished.
2. Following the instructions on your sanitizer, add the appropriate amount to your bucket and your carboy
3. Fill both with water
4. Toss the rest of your supplies in your bucket to sanitize them

Step 2 – Steeping

Filling kettle with filtered water

This process extracts flavor and sugar from the grains, think of it like making tea… for men!

1. Fill your kettle with 3 gallons of water (assuming you have a 5 gallon kettle). If you have an 8 gallon or bigger kettle, put 5.5 gallons in that bad boy!
2. Put your kettle on the stove and krank up that burner
3. Put all of your grains in a grain bag and put them in the kettle
4. Now watch it try to boil for half an hour, keep checking the temp, you don’t want it to go above 170 degrees, if it does, cut the heat and keep waiting until your 30 minutes are up.
5. After 30 minutes remove the grain bag and compost or trash your used grains and rinse out your grain bag.

Step 3 – Malt

Adding Malt Extract

1. Turn off the heat/flame/stove
2. Open up that big bag of extract and start stirring it into your kettle, go slow and keep stirring so it doesn’t stick to the bottom
3. Once it’s completely mixed in turn your heat back on and bring your wort (man tea/beer juice) back to a boil, stirring occasionally. You don’t want the malt to burn, this will darken the color of your beer and hinder it’s deliciousness.

Step 4 – The Boil

Adding Hops

At this point you will begin your “boil”. Boiling your wort for 60 minutes while adding hops at different times for different effects. Generally you add 3 sets of hops, bittering, flavoring, and aroma. If you are doing something extra special, you’ll dry hop it as well. This involves adding another set of hops directly to the carboy about a week or so after you wort has been fermenting. Reference the recipe that came with your kit for your hop schedule.

This is where I like to relax and enjoy a beer or two from the last batch or something in the style of the beer I am trying to make.

Step 5 – Cool down

Cooling wort in a sink full of water

After the 60 minute boil you will want to cool your wort as quickly as possible. Since this is the budget way to brew, we’ll do this in the sink. Set your kettle in the sink and fill the sink with ice water, once the water in the sink is hot, drain it and do it over again. Keep doing this until the wort is 90 degrees or less. It takes me around 4 times and about an hour to cool 3 gallons of wort.

Step 6 – Transfer

Racking wort to the carboy

After your wort is cooled to 90 degrees, you are ready to rack it (transfer it) to your carboy.

1. If you did a 3 gallon boil you will need to add 2 gallons of water to your carboy. I like to add a gallon and a half at first. Some people boil the water to sterilize it first, I never do.
2. Using the racking cane (siphon), rack your wort to the carboy allowing it to mix with the water you’ve already added. Don’t try to get every last drop out of your kettle. You will have about an inch and a half of sediment on the bottom. Leave it.
3. Now top off the carboy with water up to the line you drew on it earlier.
4. Plug the carboy and roll it around a bit to get everything mixed up
5. Unplug it, let some air in, plug it and roll it around again. I do this about 3 times, you want it to get a lot of oxygen so the yeast has plenty of food to eat
6. Take your pre-gravity. Do this by removing a small amount of wort from the car boy and putting it in a small container. Drop in and read your hydrometer. Take the temperature of your wort and then adjust your gravity according to the instructions that came with the hydrometer.

Step 6 – Yeast

Adding Yeast

1. Add your yeast to the wort in the carboy
2. Plug the carboy and roll it around again. This time you are mixing the yeast into it.
3. Move your carboy to a dark cool location where it won’t be disturbed for the next 2 weeks
4. Wrap the carboy with a wet towel
5. Exchange the solid plug for one with a hole in it and add an airlock to it
6. Clean up and wait, you’re done for now

Check back soon, I’ll show you how to bottle your fermented beer next…

If the gallery below doesn’t help, feel free to post questions in the comments and I’ll answer asap, thanks for reading.