MT Home Brewing Helpful home brewing tips and stories from Michael Tangen

A minimalist’s guide to brewing your own beer — making beer with extract kits

So you want to brew your own beer --- you either have a friend who is an avid brewer and have had his or her awesome home brews, or perhaps you have read about it and have been interested in making your own. While most of my blog is going to generally talk about what's called "all-grain brewing" --- brewing beer with basically just water, hops, and crushed grains --- this segment I'm going to give you the minimalist guide to brewing your own beer using malt extract kits.

The same thing applies here as with all other methods of brewing --- it can be as expensive or complicated as you want it to be, but in the end it's you who has to clean up the gear, wash the bottles, and handle the brewing. Your wife (or husband) is probably not going to volunteer their services to clean up after you. So whatever method you want to use, keep it relatively simple (especially in the clean-up department).

The fundamentals

Beer is basically fermented "tea water", only instead of using spices and herbs, you're steeping malted grains in water within a specific temperature range for 60 minutes, then taking that water (i.e. "wort") and boiling it with hops for another 60 minutes, chilling, then fermenting with yeast (the type will vary and is specific to the recipe you're making), and then bottling up the end result. That's basically the fundamentals of making beer --- grain water that's been boiled, chilled to room temp, fermented for a few weeks, then bottled and served. Simple as you want it to be.

With extract kits, you're essentially saving yourself the process of mashing (or steeping) the grains and moving right on to the boiling process. It's a great way to start out in the awesomeness that is brewing your own beer. I've brewed quite a few extract kits as have some of my friends --- it's relatively easy, painless, and still produces delicious results. And what essentially can make brewing with extract kits better for some, is that there is generally less clean-up involved, it takes less time, requires less equipment, and still produces great results in the end.

But if you are the adventurous type and wish to have more control in the brewing process, all-grain might be for you --- no plastic containers or cans to throw away (reduced waste), good compost for your garden (the spent grains), you can easily customize your own recipes with the types of grains you use, and it also can become an art form...crafting your own unique beers.

Regardless of whatever method you choose, the following considerations are universal:

• Always, always, always clean and sanitize your equipment (this includes your bottles, bottle caps, containers, utensils). At the end of the brewing process, you don't want your yeast to have unwanted competition when it comes to the consumption of your fermentable sugars --- that is, you don't want bacteria and foreign yeast "fermenting" your beer for you.
• Be prepared and relatively organized. Plan out your brew day, including a checklist with your equipment, the process, and have a place for everything. It just helps you in the long run, preventing occasions when you're desperately searching for that one thing you needed like five minutes ago.
• Your beer is only as good as your water. I used to work at Caribou Coffee as a supervisor, and one of the things we were indoctrinated on, was that your coffee is only good as your water. Since both coffee and beer are at least 90% water (for coffee it's about 96%), you will want good-tasting water to brew your beer with. If your tap water is gross, why would you use it in your beer? Go get some big five-gallon jugs of water from your grocery store and use that instead.
• Have fun. It seems trivial or perhaps obvious to put that there, but sometimes brewing beer can become more work than you like and it can reach a point where it's no longer fun. That happened to me, and it directly related to the work involved with bottling beer. So I took a break...a long one. And now that I'll be brewing with my brother and will likely have refrigeration space, we're going to do more kegging and filling growlers instead of bottles. If brewing becomes less like fun and more like work, step back, take a breather, and evaluate what you can do differently to bring the fun back into it.

So keep those things in mind as I start to talk about brewing your first extract kits and the base-level equipment that will be involved.

Extract kits and the base level equipment needed

If both cost and space is an issue, this guide will most certainly be for you, containing only the information you need to know and the equipment that is a must-have for brewing your own beer from extract kits. The instructions that follow assume that you're brewing a five-gallon batch, the normal base level quantity that most kits start at. You can brew with less (and most certainly more), but for the sake of simplicity, I'm assuming you're starting out with your first five-gallon batch.

Must have equipment for brewing day

• An extract beer kit (with extract, hops, and yeast...don't forget the yeast!). Northern Brewer has a ton of great extract kits to choose from.
• A 12-quart stockpot or other pot that is able to safely boil 2.5 to 3 gallons of water
• Large wooden spoon for stirring
• Stove or heating element for heating up water
• Large enough sink that you can fit your boil pot in (cooling) and perhaps a bag of ice
• Five gallon bucket with lid (this will be your fermenter)
• One-way fermentation air lock attached to the lid of the aforementioned bucket
• A boil-safe thermometer
• (Optional) Hydrometer with testing jar. I say optional simply because you generally can get by without one if you follow the kit instructions. That said, you can collect some helpful information to troubleshoot your brew should something not seem right.
• Packet of Priming Sugar used on bottling day at 5 oz. per 5-gallon batch
• Small pot for boiling water
• Enough growlers for a five gallon batch (roughly 9 to 10 growlers depending upon your efficiency). If you wish to use bottles instead of growlers, you will need (and can all be found here):
  • Between 45-55 bottles (depends upon your efficiency)
  • bottle caps
  • a bottle capper
  • a bottle filler
• And lastly, but perhaps most importantly some equipment sanitizer. I recommend One Step powder-based sanitizer, but there are plenty of other sanitizing options available. Refer to the instructions on the packaging for proper usage.

That's about all you need to get started in the brewing process.

Getting started

Well first thing's first...let's open up your kit and see what's inside! Because each recipe will be unique, instructions may slightly vary from recipe to recipe. Some kits have just the extract bottles, some have specialty grains that you will steep like tea at about 160°F, and sometimes special boil additives like coriander and bitter orange peels. For instructions on how to add/use those special ingredients, please do read the instructions that come with the kit or ask someone at the store you're buying from.

As a rule of thumb, specialty grains (with accompanying grain sock) will be steeped like tea for about 20–30 minutes at 160°F before the boil, and other additives like dried orange peels, coriander seeds, and hops will be added during the boil. Some kits even come with extract flavoring or fruit purees. Purees are generally added in your fermenter and extract flavorings are added at bottling time. But again, refer to the instructions.

1. Prepare your yeast pack

By far the easiest yeast to work with (from my experience) has been the Wyeast and White Labs pitchable yeast. A couple hours before you start your brewing, bring your yeast pack up to room temperature and then pop the nutrient bubble pack inside the yeast pack (without opening the yeast pack itself). Refer to the specific instructions on the packaging for best results.

In the photo to the right, the Wyeast pack is the blue bag in the bottom right corner. When you've activated the yeast packet (by popping the nutrient pack), you will start to hear a fizz-like sound inside the bag. That clues you in that the yeast has begun digesting the sweet nutrients and have begun reproducing. While a full, tightly-filled bag (of gas and air) is generally a sign of sufficient yeast production, you will occasionally have a bag that only feels partially blown up. If you hear no activity at all, either you didn't split the nutrient pack or you might have a bad batch of yeast.

Important: when storing your yeast before brewing, keep it refrigerated to prolong the life of the yeast cells. You should not store your yeast pack at room temperature for more than six to twelve hours unless you intend to use it within that next 12 to 24 hour period.

You can activate your yeast up to 24 hours before you are ready to pitch it.

2. Prepare your boil pot

Fill your boil pot with two and a half gallons of good drinking water and begin to heat it up.

If you have specialty grains: bring the temperature up to about 156–160°F and hold that temperature. Once you've reached that temperature, steep the specialty grains in a grain sock for about 20 – 30 minutes. The grain sock is basically cheesecloth with one end sealed up and the other end open for putting your grains in. Make a tight knot on the grain sock so the grains don't spill out.

If you don't have specialty grains, and/or have finished steeping them: bring your water up to a solid boil, then pour in your bottled extract. Make sure that you stir it in well and that you don't let any extract stick to the bottom of your pot. So stir it up good, scrape the bottom of your pot (hence why using a wood spoon is suggested), and make sure your water turns a nice golden-brown (or a dark coffee color if you're using a dark beer kit).

3. The boil

When you've mixed in your extract and finally brought your pot up to a boil, begin a timer or watch for when the boil started (to note when your 60 minutes will be up). I suggest a regular kitchen timer with an alarm on it --- chances are you'll be off doing something like drinking beer, talking with a friend, or off watching tv during the boil. It's nice to be notified when the boiling is done.

During the boil you will be doing a few things, including putting in hops, preparing your boil additives (which also could be done while your water is heating up initially), and of course sanitizing your fermenting bucket and all equipment or items that will come in contact with the wort.

Hop schedules

Hop schedule is basically a term for the time and intervals at which you will add various hops to your boil. Typically you will be adding hops at one or more of the following intervals: at the start of the boil (60 minutes), half way through the boil (30 minutes), and at the end of the boil (0 minutes). Hops introduced at the 60-minute mark (the start of the boil, counting backwards from 60 to zero) are added for flavor. And hops added towards the end of the boil (at the 0 mark, or one minute from the end of the boil), are added for aroma, giving off that wonderful floral aroma that comes only from hops. Hops that are added at the 30 minute mark are generally for both aroma and flavor. Beers like Extra Pale Ales will have hops added throughout the boil, whereas IPA's may have more introduced at the start for the bitter flavor, but perhaps less at the end.

4. Chilling the wort

After your wort has boiled for 60 minutes, pull it off the heating element and prepare to chill it. The objective is to get your wort temperature down to about 90°F within 20 minutes --- how you get to that point is pretty much up to you. My suggestion, give your kettle an ice bath. Pour a little bit of ice at the base of the sink, put the kettle in the sink, and then surround your kettle with ice, and allow it to chill until the ambient kettle temperature reaches about 90°.

But in addition to the ice bath, you will be pouring the last 2.5 gallons of water into your batch. Recall when you added 2.5 gallons of water in for the boil to mix with the extract? You will combine the remaining 2.5 gallons of cold drinking water and your wort into your fermenting bucket. So this also helps dramatically reduce the cool-down time.
If you have a little extra cash to spend, consider an immersion wort chiller. While this is one additional thing to clean, sanitize, and hook up, it does make wort chilling much easier. Shown in the photo to the right, I'm using an immersion chiller placed sideways into my kettle (the only way it would fit in my small kettle). I am running cold water from the sink through the hose and wort chiller, and then out around the kettle.

The reason you want to get that temperature to 90° within 20 minutes is because the longer your wort is between room temperature and under 200°, the greater the risk for your wort becoming infected with foreign yeast or bacteria. If for some reason you just cannot get that temperature down within 20 minutes, keep your kettle sealed shut and immersed in ice and/or cold water until it does reach 90°.

5. Ferment your wort

When you've finally chilled your wort down to 90°, you will want to find a way to aerate your wort before you pitch the yeast (getting oxygen into the mix). Boiling your wort, while purifying itself, it does reduce the amount of oxygen in the liquid and doesn't necessarily give the most optimal environment for your yeast to continue to reproduce and digest the fermentable sugars in your wort.

Aerating simply increases the speed of yeast production in your wort, but you can get by with a minimalist approach --- just splashing your wort around a little bit. I have never used any aeration devices apart from safely splashing the wort a little bit, and most of my batches have fermented just fine.

If you choose to aerate and have done so, now pour your wort into your fermenting bucket and then pitch yeast packet --- and if I need to be obvious about that, it simply involves cutting open a small corner of the yeast packet and emptying the yeast solution into the bucket. Stir it up well and then seal up your bucket.

If you have a hydrometer, you may wish to take a reading before you seal up your bucket [and make sure you've sanitized that hydrometer!]. The hydrometer will measure your Original Gravity (OG) reading. The OG is based upon the density of the wort (ratio between water and malt/grains/extract). Knowing the OG and your Final Gravity (FG) --- which you collect on bottling day --- will give you an approximate Alcohol By Volume (ABV) in the end.

When you've sealed up your fermenting bucket, it's important to allow air to escape the bucket and not get in, hence why the need for a one-way air lock. If you cannot get an air lock but have access to some plastic tubing and can connect it to the bucket lid (with a tight sealed fitting), put the other end of the tube (not connected to the lid) in a small one-gallon bucket half-filled with water. Depending upon the yeast activity and your fermenter size, you could have what's called blow-off --- blow-off is foam, fizz, and particles from the wort that blow up through the tube and into your one-gallon water bucket.

If you've got an eight to ten gallon bucket for a five gallon batch you should be okay. But if you've gone Cadillac on me and went and bought a glass carboy to ferment your beer in, make sure you have a blow-off hose (instead of the one-way air lock). You'll thank me later when you see lots of foam frothing up through your fermenter, down the tube, and into your blow-off bucket.

Make sure you clean up after yourself, so that your significant other will permit you to continue brewing beyond this batch. You've gotta keep enough good will deposited in their bank account to keep brewing in the future.

6. Bottling day

In general, it's pretty safe to say that for most ales you can bottle them up after about four weeks of fermenting. Some darker and higher gravity ales may require more time --- even up to three months. Be sure to refer to your kit's instructions for fermenting time.

Clean and sanitize ALL of your bottles, bottle caps, equipment, and pretty much ANYTHING that will be coming in contact with your beer. Please follow the instructions on your sanitizing product packaging for specific instructions and usage.

Prepare to prime your wort by boiling up about a cup or two of water and adding 5 ounces of priming sugar (per 5 gallon batch), boil for about five to ten minutes, and then cool the priming solution down to room temperature. While the solution is cooling, this would be a good time to take your Final Gravity (FG) measurement. There are a host of FG calculators out there to help you determine the ABV% of your beer.

When the solution has reached room temperature, pitch it into your wort and stir it in good, ensuring that the sugar solution has mixed in well with the wort.

After you've mixed the priming sugar and wort together, it's time to get the beer into your bottles or into your growlers. Now how you do that will vary from setup to setup. Some fermenting buckets will have a shutoff valve that you can hook your bottling hose to, some will require you to pump it out. If you need specific instructions on that, contact either someone at your brewing store or drop your questions as a comment and I'll try to respond.

Make sure that you leave a little breathing room in your bottles, roughly an inch, and then either cap your bottles or seal up your growlers.

Let the bottles and growlers sit in a dark, cool room (roughly 68° is ideal) for two weeks. Then refrigerate your beer and you're ready to enjoy the works of your hands.

If you have questions about the extract brewing process, please post your questions in the comment box and I'll do my best to answer them. If you found this tutorial helpful, be sure to link me up and share it with your friends.