How To Make Beer
Welcome to How to Make Beer on Mash.Sparge.Boil. This page has been setup as a resource of all the articles here, on Mash.Sparge.Boil that will give you a good grounding in the basic principles of making beer.
As more and more articles get added to the site all the ones that are probably the most useful to people looking for the basics on how to make beer will be added here. Along with this I will try to put a few more technical things here as well that are good resources.
Everything You Need to Know on How to Make Beer
If you have never made beer before and you have no equipment or experience you might just want to jump in head first, if this is you then take a look at this article:
Making Your First Home Brew Beer
If you want to read up a bit more about what going on and what different ingredients are used to make beer then, browse as you wish below and hopefully you will find something useful.
Ingredients
You want to know what you are putting in your home brew right? Below are some resources to let you know what goes into making beer. There aren’t many ingredients that go into making beer to be honest so understanding these basics is of key importance, to making good beer.
Hops
Hops are flowering part of a hop vine, these little cones look very much look like, little green pine cones and give your home brew bitterness and aroma depending on how they are used. Continue reading below to find out the how they are used to make beer.
An Introduction to Hops: Biterness & Aroma
A Useful Chart Showing Hop Varieties as well as the Aroma and Bitterness Profiles
Malt Extract
Beer is malty and this malt comes from grains, malt extract is made by processing those malted grains and generally makes making beer quicker and easier.
Malted Grains
There are a huge variety of malted grains, these can be barley, wheat, rye, oat and more. All of these can be different colors depening on how they are kilned and this leads to an infinite variety of beers. With all the varieities of malt and grains, take a look at some of these articles to help you find out what is what, and how they make your beer great
What is Malt and Malted Grains
Yeast
Yeast is what makes the alcohol in your beer, it also does more than that giving flavour and character to your home brew that cannot be achieved in any other way. There are hundred of varieites of yeast and below are some articles to help you understand how they work to make your beer.
The Purpose of Yeast in Home Brew Beer
Home Brewing Equipment
If you want to know how to make beer you are going to need some equipment to get you brewing. Depending on what type of brewing you intend to do then you may need more equipment like a mash tun tahn if you brew extract. Also like most hobbies you can spend lots of money or a little, for example you may want to invest in some stainless kegs to package your beer. Here are some relevant articles to take a look at.
Tips on Buying Your Home Brew Supplies
There are some great deals on ebay to get most of the equipment you are likely to need and at reasonable prices, take a look below to find some deals.
Product listing
Bottle Capper Home Brewing Equipment Beer Mead Cider Soda Caps Homebrew
Home brewing equipment
Vina Wine-Making Hydrometer Home-Brew Equipment Plonk Country Wine Brewing Glass
HOME BREWING EQUIPMENT - 30 LITRE FERMENTING BIN/PRESSURE BARREL/ MISC. SPARES
Job Lot of Home Brewing Equipment; Demi Johns etc
NOTE: to keep the site running smoothly, product data is only refreshed once every 10 minutes, approximately. Click on a product to see the most up-to-date data on the seller's page.
Techniques and Processes
So now you know what goes into beer below are some related articles on what needs to happen to create a beer from those ingredients and you want to make sure your equipment is clean and ready for the job.
Brewing Processes
The Brewing Process: Making Beer
Mashing is the process of turning malted grains into a sweet sugary wort (unfermented beer). Mashing uses enzymes present in the grains to turn the starches into sugar and fermentables. These fermentables then are consumed by the yeast to make alcohol.
What is Mashing and How Do You Go About it
Boiling the sweet wort with hops adds bitterness and aroma, these boils are usually 60 minutes to 90 minutes if using leaf hops.
What’s The Purpose of Boiling for so Long
Fermentation is the point where you add yeast and wait for those yeast to work, make alcohol and develop flavours in your beer. This process is fairly simple and really only requires patience and making sure you provide the best conditions for optimum fermentaition. Good fermentation is important to make beer balanced and characterful.
What is Going on During Fermentation
Sanitiation
Bottling and Packaging
How to Bottle Your Home Brew Beer
Adding Carbonation to Your Beer
Any Questions on How to Make Beer
Hopefully if you are new to making your own beer, you have picked up something useful on how to home brew from this list of articles, as I say these posts are just the the foundation but will give you good grounding on making you’re first home brew beers successful. The articles themselves are constantly updated and added to, so be sure to check out the site from time to time.
Hopefully by now you should have a good understanding on how to make beer. Feel free to browse the site and learn more or just take part in the community, your comments are always welcomed and appreciated.