Scotts - Home brewing: 70 top secrets & tricks to beer brewing right the first time: a guide to home brew any beer you want with recipe journal

Home Brewing

70 Top Secrets & Tricks To

Beer Brewing Right The First Time:

A Guide To Home Brew Any Beer You Want

With Recipe Journal

By: Jason Scotts

Disclaimer

This publication is intended to provide helpful and informative material. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any health problem or condition, nor is intended to replace the advice of a physician. No action should be taken solely on the contents of this book. Always consult your physician or qualified health-care professional on any matters regarding your health and before adopting any suggestions in this book or drawing inferences from it.

The author and publisher specifically disclaim all responsibility for any liability, loss or risk, personal or otherwise, which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, from the use or application of any contents of this book.

Any and all product names referenced within this book are the trademarks of their respective owners. None of these owners have sponsored, authorized, endorsed, or approved this book.

Always read all information provided by the manufacturers product labels before using their products. The author and publisher are not responsible for claims made by manufacturers.

Digital Edition 2014

Manufactured in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to avid drinkers of beer, home brewers and for those who want to start making their own beer.

Before you start making your first beer, you have to at least know what you are trying to do (apart from getting drunk, of course). Since this is your first time to make beer, home brewing is actually an art that has developed over time. At the same time, different brew masters would have different techniques and tips, but feel free to use what is in this book before you experiment on your own.

The process of brewing beer can be broken down into 5 steps, namely:

1. Release the malt sugars by soaking malted barley into hot water.

2. Boil the malt sugar solution with hops for seasoning.

3. Cool that solution and add yeast to start fermentation.

4. During fermentation, the yeast ferments the sugar. The process releases ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide.

5. Bottle the beer with a little added sugar to get a little carbonation.

Sounds simple, right? Well, it is. However, there are a lot of things that come in between these steps. Dont worry, though; you will learn them as you go by.

Before you shop, here are some terms that you need to keep in mind.

Beer any kind of beverage made by fermenting malted barley and seasoning with hops

Ale a kind of beer brewed from a yeast that is top fermenting through a warm and relatively short fermentation.

Attenuation conversion of sugar to alcohol and CO2.

Fermentation there are two parts to this process, which would be referred to as primary and secondary. Overall, these processes would convert malt sugar into beer.

Primary Fermentation it is where carbon dioxide and Krausen evolves, and where most of the attenuation happens.

Secondary Fermentation the time where the beer settles and is conditioned before bottling.

Conditioning a process during secondary fermentation during which the flavors of the final beer are refined. The process continues while the beer is in the bottle.

Hops these are available in pellets, plugs, or whole. Hop vines may be grown in areas with cool climate, and brewers like you make use of their cone-like flowers.

Wort solution made out of malt and sugar, which you boil before you ferment.

Priming the addition of adding fermentable sugar before bottling to give carbonation to the beer.

Krausen (kroy-zen) the foamy head that forms on top of the beer during fermentation. It is also known as a pro method of priming.

Trub sediments one can find at the bottom of the fermenter. It is made out of dead yeast and hot or cold break material.

Cold break these proteins break out of the solution when the wort is cooled quickly and before the yeast is pitched.

Hot break proteins that clump together and break from the solution while the wort boils

Gravity just like what you know about density, it is described as the concentration of the malt sugar in the wort.

Specific gravity of water = 1.000 at 59 F

Gravity of beer wort before fermentation= 1.035 to 1.055

Lager type of beer brewed from a bottom-fermenting yeast. You can make it by giving a longer and cooler fermentation.

Pitching addition of yeast to the fermenter.

Racking the process of siphoning the beer away from the trub, which you would want to do very carefully.

Alpha Acid Units (AAU) the homebrewing measurement of hops, which has this formula: AAU = weight (in ounces) x percent of Alpha Acids

International Bittering Units (IBU) easily the more accurate method to measure hops. The formula is: IBU = AAU x wort volume x wort gravity x factors for percent utilization

Zymurgy the science of brewing and fermentation.

Now that we have all the terms you would most probably encounter when doing home brewing, its time to hit the stores. You would know more about these terms, and what they actually mean, when you are already in the process.

This chapter would be your crash course to home brewing, which would make you get acquainted to the entire process of home brewing. Note that you may not know what you are doing exactly during this chapter, but the rest of the book would guide you. In the later parts of the book, you would find out what you have done right, and what you could have done wrong during your practice. Feel free to jump to the next chapters if you want to get explanations right away.

Tip 1: These are the minimum home brew equipment that you need to purchase:

1. Large canning pot, or a brew pot.

2. Glass jar

3. Measuring cup

4. Airlock (You can get it from any homebrew shop.)

5. Fermenter, which can be a food grade plastic bucket, or a glass carboy.

Tip 2: You would want to purchase a glass fermenter, or a stainless one if the glass type isnt available. They are much easier to clean and sterilize, and they provide protection from oxygen leaks, compared to plastic ones that would suffer from oxygen leaks when stored for long periods. Also, plastic containers are difficult to seal, and it would be difficult for you to tell if fermentation has completed.

There is no single rule about how large jars, pots, and buckets should be, but if your space would allow it, consider making long-term purchases. Ideally, you should buy jars that could accommodate 12 ounces or more, and get pots and buckets that would accommodate 5 gallons or more, since most recipes that you would get anywhere would require you to do so. However, buying bigger carboys and glassware would save you a lot of money in the long run.

6. Sanitizer, which would be chlorine bleach or anything that would do the same.

7. A large stirring spoon. It should not be wood.

8. A table spoon

9. Thermometer. Its optional but you might want to get it to control temperature.

10. Bottling bucket or a 6-gallon plastic pail with a spigot and a filling tube. Its optional to get it, but it is highly advisable to buy one to make it easier for you to fill bottles and lessen sediments.

Tip 3: Ingredients may differ, depending on the type of beer that you are going to make. If you have purchased a homebrew kit, you can use that. If you dont have any ingredients yet, go to the nearest homebrew shop and purchase the following.