How to brew beer at home?
The main ingredients of beer are water, hops, malt and brewer's yeast. To get a delicious quality drink, these ingredients must be properly prepared. For example, Beer water must be necessarily soft. If the water is hard, it is recommended to boil it for 30 minutes or more.
Hop for beer you can buy or prepareyourself. If the ham site grows hops, and necessarily "female", then you can collect and harvest it. Hops mature, beginning in mid-August. Collected hops should be dried in wooden boxes and crushed, for example, under a press.
Malt - it's sprouted grains, it can be barley,wheat, rye. The most popular barley malt. To make beer at home, you can use one of two main methods: brew beer at home from malt extract and directly from the grain. It is rather difficult to grow malt on your own, therefore, usually you buy ready-made beer for home beer.
To to cook beer at home from malt extract, you need a large capacity (25-30 liters) forwort preparation, a large fermentation tank with a water trap hole and a hydraulic seal, a thermometer, a long-handle spoon-stirrer, a siphon tube for beer overflow, beer bottles with sealed lids (for example, plastic).
So, to make beer, you need to first pour 2-3 liters of water in a saucepan, then add 1 kg of sugar and boil. Then a jar with malt extract should be5-10 minutes put in hot water. In the prepared fermentation tank (it must be sterilized), pour the softened malt extract, and then add the sugar syrup obtained earlier. A sterilized spoon should carefully place the syrup with the extract.
According to the instructions that are attached to the extract, you need add cold water to the container - as a rule, it is still from 20 to 25 liters. It is better to filter out water first, or at least let it settle. It is important that the temperature of the resulting solution is optimal for fermentation - 18-24 ° C.
Now it's time to start adding yeast. The process is quite responsible, sinceit is on how well the beer must melt, the final quality of the drink will depend. Brewer's yeast usually comes complete with malt extract.
To make beer at home properly, yeast must be poured evenly into the must, making sure that they do not form lumps. In addition, you need to add the yeast quickly in order to minimize the contact of the future beer with the environment.
After the addition of yeast, tightly close the lid of the fermentation tank, carefully making sure that the air can notto get inside. Then you need to install a hydraulic seal - the rubber stopper should close the hole in the lid tightly. In the hydraulic shutter it is necessary to pour cold boiled water - the required level is usually indicated by a mark.
Further tightly closed The container should be placed in a cool dark room - the air temperature should be within18-24 ° C. The beer must be aged for as long as required by the type of beer produced, however, it is usually not less than 5-8 days. Do not open the lid during fermentation!
When the required time for fermentation expires (the fermentation will end and the air bubbles cease to exist), the beer must be bottled. At this stage, hops are added to the beer - it scents the drink. At the bottom of the bottles are placed the freshest and largest cones of hops, then the bottles are filled with beer (up to the neck of the bottle you do not need to top up about 5 cm).
In bottles of beer for secondary fermentation sugar is added, at a rate of 1.5-2 teaspoons per liter. It is best to add sugar as a syrup to minimize the risk of contamination. After adding sugar, the bottles are sealed tightly, shaken and placed in a cool place for 1-2 weeks for after-fermentation and ripening.
After 2 weeks or even a month (the longer the beer ripens, the better) home-made beer can be consumed.
