Zymurgy

(Also known as brewing beer for the vocabulary impaired)

By Leonidas

This will be a general guide to making beer. The idea here is to give a novice brewer a simple step by step guide to making drinkable beer the first time out. It will give you a minimalist list of equipment and the proper way to employ the gear to give you something you will be happy to give to friends and family.

I have been brewing since 1994. I have made wine, beer, cyser, mead, metheglin, and barley wine, all with varying degrees of success. I have done brews in a simple fashion, and I have gotten fancy to do it and the inescapable conclusion I have come to is that simple beats fancy just about every time. It is with that in mind that the following simple guide is written.

Equipment

You will need to buy about $80.00 worth of gear to start with. Understand that with the exception of beer caps, corks, and/or rubber Grolsch bottle grommets, you will never have to buy anything more unless you break a bottle.

Go to your nearby brewing store, or to an online brew supply place, and get the following:

144 bottle caps (only if you want to do beer in capped bottles like a Heineken or Sam Adams)

A bottle capper. You can get an inexpensive hand held model for about $15.00 or less. You can get a nice combination capper and corker that is way easier on your arms for about $75.00 pictured here:

You will also want bottles. I prefer to use Grolsch type bottles because capping is so easy. All you do is fill the bottle and latch down the top, no muss no fuss. Another plus is that these types of bottles can often be had in different colors. If you get these kinds of bottles, remember replacement grommets.

Here we see a brown Grolsch type bottle, a Grolsch bottle, and a blue bottle. Girls tend to like the blue bottles, so that is what I use. At the end of the line we see a brown 22oz bottle that takes standard caps. Beer bottles should be colored, and not clear, because the colored bottles help to better protect the beer from harmful UV radiation. UV radiation can make your beer taste bad.

There are 128 fluid ounces in a gallon, and you are making 5 gallons, so it is suggested that you get for your first attempt at brewing either:

2 cases, which equals 48, 12 oz bottles or,

40 16 oz Grolsch type bottles or,

30 22 oz bottles.

You will want to get a bottle rack. A bottle rack is just what it sounds like, a rack for bottles. It is especially useful if you wash bottles by hand. It is also good for keeping dust and contaminants out of your freshly washed bottles when you are getting ready to fill them.

This rack holds 88 bottles.

Next you will need something to brew the beer in. You can use a standard watercooler 5 gallon plastic bottle for this task. I prefer to use glass because it cleans better, but I have used plastic and it serves quite well. You will need two of them for reasons that will become apparent. The jugs are called carboys in brewing jargon. I have no idea why.

Pictured here you see a 6 gallon glass carboy. Notice that I have added a metal handle at the neck. The handle is unnecessary, but very useful.

Next we need to get a big funnel. I suggest a large, a medium, and a small, but definitely get a large funnel.

You will need to clean not only the carboys but the bottles, so get a carboy brush and a bottle brush. A carboy brush is the same as the bottle brush pictured here except it has a very long handle.

You will need a large stew pot if you don’t already have one. 3 gallon or better is recommended, but you can go smaller. Also get a long metal spoon for stirring.

You will also need an airlock setup. You can see it on top of the carboy in this picture. It has a soft fitted cap with a simple one way valve to let gas escape.

Next you will need a siphon. Get about 10 feet of food grade clear siphon tubing. I suggest a 3/8^th inch diameter, but smaller sizes work too. Make sure you get the same diameter as the filling wand you intend to use. Get a hose clamp to go with the tubing. It will come in very handy.

I used to just create a siphon by using my mouth, but that is unsanitary and a pain in the nether regions. Now I use a siphon starter. The siphon started is a simple tool that uses a piston in a long tube to get the siphon started. I recommend it heartily. To get the siphon started you just insert the siphon apparatus and work the piston up and down a few times.

You will need the aforementioned filling wand. There are two types of filling wands. One is spring loaded and the other uses gravity. I strongly recommend the non-spring loaded, gravity powered one.

Note that it has a valve that opens when the wand is set into the bottle, but that swiftly shuts tight without dripping when the wand is picked up. You can see the beer in the wand.

It isn’t just cool to watch the beer flow through the clear tubing and wand, it is also necessary, so make sure you get clear tubing and a clear wand. But mostly it is just cool.

You need good water to make beer, and you need cleanliness. I have found my two biggest allies in this to be Clorox and Deer Park water. Tap water will work, but if your tap water is nasty, it will make nasty beer. You need some minerals for water to taste good, so distilled won’t do, but neither will water so soft you can float a block of lead in it.

I use Deer Park because it is the best bottled water in the area. When I lived in Louisiana I used Abita water, which was way better than Deer Park. Abita is home of Abita beer, which is some excellent stuff. If you are ever in New Orleans or southeast Louisiana, give it a try, especially the Purple Haze.

The last items you will need will be glucose, also known as corn sugar, yeast nutrient, and a beer kit.

Note that in this picture we have a packet of brewing yeast, a little directions pamphlet, a package of priming sugar, 3 pounds of glucose, and a can of malt extract that has been thoughtfully hopped for us by the manufacturer.

I would, under all circumstances, avoid using table sugar. Table sugar is a dimmer with a glucose half and a fructose half. The glucose, for reasons that will not be discussed here, goes all the way to alcohol and carbon dioxide. The fructose does not, and its end products can make monkey urine taste like a pina colada in comparison. Avoid it, use only glucose or dried malt, which is a glucose-glucose dimer.

You can use up to 5 pounds of glucose in a five gallon batch, but I am only using 3. The more you add the stronger the beer, up to the point at which the yeast can’t make any more alcohol because alcohol is a waste product and is therefore toxic to the yeast.

The priming sugar is glucose and is used in the final stage, bottling. You don’t have to get a separate package, just set aside 5 ounces from your initial 3 to 5 pounds of glucose and set it in the fridge.

Here we have yeast nutrient. Yeast nutrient contains salts needed for the yeast to function. Mostly phosphate salts, yeast nutrient also contains dead yeast for cannibalization. Don’t use more than a teaspoon and a half, or you can make the beer taste a little funky, and no one wants that.

So to sum up, you will need at minimum:

2 carboys and brushes for cleaning

An airlock

10 feet of clear hose with a clamp

A filling wand

A beer kit

3 to 5 pounds of glucose

Bottles of your choosing with grommets or caps

A funnel

Water and bleach

A long metal spoon

A capper if you intend to use standard bottles

A bottle rack

A large pot

Zymurgy

Equipment

Main Menu

All Rights Reserved