Dec 18 2007
Home Brewing Instructional Video
I accidentally stumbled onto this 4-part home brewing video series on YouTube today. I quickly checked out other home brewing instructional videos, but this guy seems the most thorough. I wouldn’t do everything he does — and I can’t do everything he does because I don’t have the facilities for it — but it’s not a bad way to go about it if you don’t have a Brew House kit.
Step 1: Creating The Wort
It is possible to make good beer from cans of malt syrup as shown in this video where a can of super thick malt syrup is emptied into a large pot to create the wort by adding water and dextrose (i.e. corn sugar) and bringing it all to a boil. But if you use a Brew House kit instead, you can skip this process entirely and simply dump the big bag of wort that comes with your kit into your primary fermenting bucket and be done with it. (Note: I don’t work for Brew House. I’m just telling you how my methods differ and why.) I prefer not dealing with thick cans of malt syrup if I don’t have to because it doesn’t take much to make a mess of it. If you tend to be a little messy like me, you might want to just buy a Brew House kit.
Step 2: Sanitizing Equipment and Adding Wort to Primary Fermenter
Again, you don’t have to bother with most of the stuff in this step if you’re using a Brew House kit. I use regular no-name household bleach mixed with warm water to sterilize my equipment which at this stage is minimal: my fermenting bucket, the lid with a hole in it and the ferment lock. I soak it all in the bleach water solution for at least 20 minutes and then rinse it off thoroughly with the detachable shower head in my bathtub. I don’t have a large basement sink, nor do I have a hose that attaches to my kitchen sink or any sink. So I make due. Using a Brew House kit, I don’t need anything else anyway.
I simply sprinkle the small pouch of pH-balancing powder that comes with the kit into my fermenting bucket; I then add 8 litres of distilled water (about $1.49 for a 4-litre bottle); then I dump the big bag of wort into the bucket (no boiling malt on the stove), the force of which stirs everything so well I don’t need to use a stir stick; I sprinkle the yeast on top after the mixture has settled a bit; I seal on the lid and then plug the hole on the top with my ferment lock. And I’m done.
I don’t use a thermometer, nor do I have to add hot or cold water to the mixture to get it just the right temperature, because the Brew House wort works out fine as long as everything is done at room temperature. I don’t use tap water as shown in the video because chlorine is generally not a good thing to have in your beer, and if I did, I wouldn’t use hot water from my tap because hot water heaters can get rusty and so can the water that comes out of them. Notice in the video as well that all the equipment is lying on a table covered with what I assume is a clean towel. This is an important detail because you can’t simply lay your equipment down anywhere after you’ve sterilized it. Ensuring everything stays clean after you’ve cleaned it is tricky. Thankfully, with the Brew House kits, I don’t even need a stir stick at this stage. In fact, nothing touches the beer except the bucket, so that pretty much guarantees your brew is clean.
Step 3: Cleaning Plastic Bottles Before Bottling
NOTE: The guy in the video doesn’t transfer his brew to a secondary fermenter (i.e., a carboy). He ferments his brew in a bucket for a week and then bottles it directly from the bucket (made much easier because he has a tap on the bottom of his bucket). There is nothing wrong with that. But I’ve been told that most types of beer benefit from being transferred into a secondary fermenter because it removes most of the sediment from the brew. You have to wait a few more days for the remaining sediment to settle, but the result is a clearer beer with a less yeasty flavour.
At any rate, the third video reviews all the equipment used in bottling home brew. I’d be extremely happy to have even half the equipment this guy has. What I don’t have: anything that attaches to my faucet; a bottle sterilizer for squirting bleach into my bottles; a bucket with a tap on the bottom (that’s almost too easy if you ask me); and a big basement sink (because I don’t have a basement).
Getting the bottles ready for bottling is the biggest headache of home brewing. My advice: buy all the equipment you see in the video. It’s gotta be worth it. A bottle sterilizer or that faucet attachment that allows you to easily rinse your bottles will go a long way to simplifying the process. Here’s what I’m stuck with once I’m ready for bottling: I fill my primary fermenting bucket with plastic bottles. (Plastic bottles are essential.) I mix it all up with bleach and water and let it soak for at least an hour. I remove each bottle, drain it, fill it half way with warm water, shake it and rinse it, and then do it again to make sure it’s completely rinsed. I lightly screw on a bleach-cleaned top after rinsing to make sure the inside of the bottle stays clean between now and the time I bottle the brew. This takes a long time. It sucks. I’m not making another batch of brew until I get some better equipment for cleaning the bottles. Just watch how easily he cleans his bottles in the next video. Wow.
Part 4: Bottling The Brew
By the way, what’s referred to as “a beer and a half” in the video is what most of us refer to as A PINT.
In this last video, after cleaning the bottles, a small amount of dextrose (i.e. corn sugar) is added to each bottle to create carbonation as the beer ages. The beer is then transferred from the primary fermenter into the bottles, the tops are screwed on tight and the bottles are shaken and the beer is stored at room temperature to age for a week. Then it supposedly becomes drinkable. Generally, most of what’s done in these videos is fine. But it’s a slightly different process if your using a Brew House kit and a secondary fermenter, which is what do. Here’s the difference:
Like I said, after a week or so in the primary fermenting bucket, I transfer the brew to a carboy where the sediment settles better and the beer becomes clearer. This requires cleaning the carboy with warm water and household bleach and rinsing well. I also sterilize the ferment lock and the syphoning hose with bleach water. I shove the hose in the carboy when it’s full of bleach water. (Good luck making sure your hose doesn’t touch anything dirty afterwards.) I then carefully remove the lid from the bucket, shove the hose in the bucket to transfer the beer from by sucking on the other end of the hose, making sure I’m below the bucket so gravity can do most of the work. Once the beer is transferred to the carboy (there’s always some sludgy brew left over near the bottom of the bucket), I seal the carboy with the ferment lock and leave it for another few days, if not a week.
Once I see the beer has cleared in the carboy, I clean the primary fermenting bucket with bleach water, rinse well and then repeat the syphoning process, transferring the brew back into the original bucket (leaving some more sediment behind). I then dissolve a bag of pre-measured dextrose that comes with the Brew House kit in about 2 cups of boiling water and add it to the beer in the bucket — instead of adding the sugar to each bottle before bottling. I stir it in gently with a long sterilized spoon (sterilized with boiling water). Then I use a syphoning hose with the bottle-filling attachment on the end to transfer the beer into the bottles. Note that I’ve already cleaned the hose inside and out with bleach water and rinsed it thoroughly (not the easiest task). I cap each bottle tightly and that’s it. The extra sugar that produces carbonation has already been added to the beer.
I let the beer age at room temperature for at least a week, and then I let it age for at least another week or so before I drink it. I would give it at least a month to age because the flavour usually gets better with time.
If you’re not using a Brew House kit, the brewing methods outlined in these videos seem fairly straightforward. The guy knows what he’s doing. I think the process is made easier, though, with a Brew House kit, and who knows, the beer might be better too. One thing for sure, I’m not making another batch until I get a bottle rinser. If you can get all the equipment used in these videos, there’s no reason why homebrewing should be difficult for you.
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Tags: beer, home brew
