Brewing your own homemade beers is easy. Beer is made from four basic ingredients. If you have questions or would like more detail please ask the brewmaster.

Ingredients

* Water

Fresh, non chlorinated water. Beer is full of life, literally.You need fresh water free of contaminates. Taste it, smell it, look at it closely. If you are happy with what is there it will make fine beer.

* Sugar

This is usually in the form of malted barley, a sweet syrup or powder made from barley. There are many styles to choose from, each with its own flavors and characteristics. Dip your finger in and taste it.

* Hops

Beer has always had some herbal preservative, but hops have become the most popular. Hops are the leaves of a vine that contains preservative and flavoring oils. The bittering qualities offset the sweetness of the malt.The more malt you use the more hops you should use. Whole leaf or plug hops are best, pellets will work. Keep air tight and refrigerated. Like all cooking, freshness of the ingredients has a major effect on the final results. Fresh hops have aromas like nothing else in this world.

* Yeast

Yeasts are microscopic plant/animals that feed on sugar and excrete alcohol and expel carbon dioxide. Proof that God really does exist! By providing ideal conditions you can ask these little beings to make beer for you. They are alive, treat them with respect. Don't use bread yeasts, get beer yeast from a homebrew shop or mailorder. Get liquid yeast if possible, it usually gives better results. There are many kinds of beer yeasts, each with its own flavor and characteristics.

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Equipment

I can't stress enough how helpful it is to have a local shop to help you get started, but if you can't find one you can still learn.

Purchase a brew starter kit. In it should be

A six gallon plastic fermenter bucket
4-6 feet 3/8" plastic hose
Fermentation lock
Bottle capper
Bottling wand
Racking cane

Also purchase a 6 gallon glass fermenter known as a carboy, and a rubber stopper with a hole in it to fit both the carboy and fermentation lock.

You will also need

A large plastic funnel with a long snout, auto supply stores have these to add transmission fluid.
A strainer that sits in the funnel, one with a handle.
Beer or candy thermometer
50 12 oz. beer bottles, ask for bar bottles at your local redemption center. Screw cap bottles are not as reliable.
Two muslin bags around 10" square
Bottle caps.

How to

Fill your sink with hot water and two tablespoons of non sudsing bleach. Siphon it into the six gallon glass fermenter, keep adding hot water until the fermenter is full. Let stand for thirty minutes. Pour this sanitizing solution into the six gallon plastic bucket and let set 30 minutes. Rinse both well with hot water. This is easily done with a bottle washer. This little device screws to your faucet and directs a jet of hot water into fermenters or bottles. Its usually around $12.00 and well worth it.

Fill the sink again with the same sanitizing solution. soak all of your spoons, strainers, funnels, hands, anything that will contact the raw beer.

If the recipe calls for any whole grains, put them in a plastic or cloth bag and roll back and forth for five minutes. They should be cracked and broken, not pulverized.

Put 1 1/2 gallons of cold water in a 3-5 gallon kettle. Put cracked grains (if the recipes uses any) in a muslin bag and drop in the kettle.

Turn on the heat and bring to 160 degrees and hold for twenty minutes. Remove the bag of grains, squeezing first to get as much liquid as possible.

Crank up the temperature and start adding the dry and/or liquid malts and any other sugars the recipe calls for. Stir constanly until it boils. At this stage it can EASILY foam up and boil over, the resulting hardened mess on the stove ruins a perfectly fine day.

When it starts to foam up and boil add the hops. Leaf and plug can be added directly, pellets should be put in a muslin bag first. Set the time now. Reduce heat so that it is just boiling but more than a slow simmer.

In 50 minutes add any flavor hops the recipe calls for and 1/2 teaspoon Irish Moss. After 10 more minutes add any aroma hops, then turn off the heat.

Put 3 1/2 gallons of cold water in the fermenter, insert the long necked funnel that has been rinsed in hot water. Set your strainer in the funnel and slowly ladle the hot liquid called wort through the strainer. If the flow slows, empty the strainer occassionaly. Put the rubber stopper into the fermenter. Tip the fermentor of wort slightly and swirl it rapidly to dissolve more air into the liquid. Watch it swirl and enjoy the show.

Tape your thermometer to the side and when it gets below 80 degrees you may add the yeast, also called pitching the yeast. The liquid beer yeast cultures come in foil packs, just follow the instructions on the package and it will work fine. Insert the fermentation lock into the stopper and add a little water to create a seal.

Within 24 to 36 hours the whole carboy will be churning and boiling with millions of microscopic lives. We have created ideal conditions for the rise and fall of an entire generation of yeast plants. It is a very visible process, please stop and watch and contemplate what's going on in there. Fermentation will cease after a week or so depending on temperature (68-78 degrees) . One day you will look and the churning will have stopped, the lock will bubble only once every few minutes, and most important, the cloudy nature will have cleared. You may bottle anytime within the next few days. Just don't let it set for more than four or five days after fermentaion has stopped. The yeast plants that have settled out can start to break down and affect the flavor.

Bottling

Wash and sanitize fifty twelve ounce recapable bottles or any combination of sizes to hold about five gallons. Rinse well in hot water or use a bottle washer. Set upside down in a rack to dry.

Boil one cup water and dissolve 3/4 cup corn sugar. Put this mixture into your six gallon plastic bucket that has been sanitized and rinsed. Set the plastic bucket on the floor and the full fermenter on a bench or counter. Take your racking cane, looks just like a cane, plastic hose and bottling wand out of the sanitizing solution and rinse well inside and out.

You might want to practice a little with the cane and wand using plain water. Siphoning is an art that can be learned with a little practice. Don't suck on it like the time you stole the neighbors gas. Lots of things live in your mouth that are just waiting to get into the beer and do really nasty things to the taste.

Fill the cane and tubing with water and hold the ends up and level with each other. Do not use the bottling wand for this step. Pinch the end of the tube not attached to the cane tightly. Shove the long end of the cane into the fermenter and the other end of the tubing into a small bowl on the floor. Relax your pinch. When the water stops and the beer starts, pinch again and quickly move the tubing into the plastic bucket. Let it flow freely by laying the tubing on the bottom of the bucket. Try not to let it splash. The less air introduced at this point the better. Don't try to get every last drop. There is quite a bit of , well lets be honest, SLUDGE on the bottom of the fermenter. We don't want it in our brew, so leave an inch or so in the fermenter. When completely transfered, gently stir with a sanitized long handled spoon. Lay the cover on and let set 15 minutes, or long enough to get your bottling stuff ready.

Rinse the fermenter, if its really cruddy fill with sanitizing solution and let set over night. Here again the power bottle washer works great.

Set the plastic bucket full of flat beer on the bench or counter. Sanitize and rinse the racking cane and tubing. Fill with water, attach the bottling wand, plunge the cane into the bucket of beer, jam the bottling wand into the bowl on the floor and when the water stops and the beer starts, lift the bottling wand. The beer flow automatically stops. Shove it into your first bottle and just as the beer reaches the top pull it out. Pulling the bottling wand out automatically or magically leaves the proper 1" or so headspace in the bottle. Continue till all bottles are full.

Boil 50 caps for a minute and drain. There are several kinds of cappers, so try yours out before hand to get a feel for the whole capping process. Having one person fill bottles and one cap makes for a quick time of it all.

Label your creations. Be fancy or plain but put the style of beer and the date bottled somewhere on the label. Plain paper sticks to bottles very well by soaking in whole milk and smoothing the label onto the glass. Don't laugh, it works, its the only glue we use. The labels come off easily in hot water.

Most ales are ready to drink in two weeks, are better at four weeks, but start to fade in flavor after four to six months. Although there are some exceptions.

Sounds like a lot of work, but when the work is shared with good friends, and the brewing process is enjoyed and savored it can be a very magical event.

This article copyright Ashlynn's Grove

A Short History of Ale Brewing * A Few Ale Recipes to Try

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