Making beer can be very complicated, but it can very easily simplified. i hope one of those days to be able to make a very precise beer after a very complicated process that was really clear to me, but I’m not there yet. Until than, my simple process is (this will no include quantities, just the step by step for now):
1. Cooking the malt-syrup with water on just above boiling point from room temperature with the first batch of hops. This makes the wort, and it will be used as the term for this mix from now on.
1.a. At the same time as starting the wort cooking, I’m getting the yeast to start working with water at blood temperature (around 36C).
2. After 45 minutes of cooking, I’m adding the second batch of hops to the wort. This is meant to give a stronger hop finish to the beer. More about it when we’ll focus on hops.
3. Cook for another 15 minutes and filter the pot into the fermentation container. The idea is to have a wort without the hops.
4. Add Ice water to the fermentation container (need to be made in advance). The goal here is to cool the wort as fast as possible to allow proteins to combine, and so reduce the beer’s bitterness.
5. Get the beer to the lower 30c (I aim for 32-35c), and measure the OG (more about it in the coming posts)
6. Let sit in a warm place for around 10 days or until there is no condensation in the breather. The place should hold a comfortable 25-28c room temperature. I use our washing machine/boiler cupboard – great for that.
7. When the fermentation ended (around 10 days), add some dextrose to reactivate the yeast, and add more hops (my preference to make an IPA). Leave for another 3-5 days.
8. Filter the beer, measure the FG to calculate the alcohol level (ABV=(OG-FG)/7.46).
9. Add dextrose for carbonation in the bottle (called priming), bottle, and let sit ina dark warm place.
10. After 2 weeks (more about freshness of beer later), move to the fridge and drink at your own time.
All and all I find that from the cooking stage to drinking takes me 4 weeks. The quantities can vary, but the process itself stay the same.
The hops in here are optional, but I recommend using them as it really help the beer.
Happy brewing.