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My friends and I like to drink a glass or two of delicious cold beer after a bath. Usually we appoint a responsible person for bringing a foamy drink to the bathhouse, and he brings it to everyone. I was recently appointed as such a person.
I walked between the shelves in the store for a long time, but I just couldn’t choose – everything is so tasty. My eyes fell on draft beer in PET bottles.
The inscription on it said that it was “made at home.” I took it for a test. Nothing turned out like that. And then I thought, maybe I can brew beer myself and surprise my friends?
I received this message from my subscriber Vladimir R. I have long been interested in the topic of home brewing, so today I am publishing his story and waiting for your advice and recommendations on how best to brew foam at home.
Why I decided to make alcohol myself
I have long come to the conclusion that you need to drink unfiltered beer, which is made at home or in small private breweries. Such a product is much tastier and more pleasant than the one that is produced for mass consumption.
It contains no preservatives or other chemicals. Given the short shelf life of such a drink, its production on an industrial scale is unprofitable.
Solving the problem of long-term storage, many manufacturers actively use preservatives and other inedible additives.
Some companies replace hops and malt with chemical components, releasing drinks in which only the name on the label remains from the beer. This gave me the idea to try making my own beer.
What ingredients are required
On brewing websites, they write that a special microbrewery is required to make beer, which costs a lot of money. Since I was not ready for such financial sacrifices, I decided to use improvised means.
Attention! You still need to spend a little. You need to buy malt, hops, brewer’s yeast. The last ingredient must be chosen with great care, it is on it that the quality of the beer depends. I recommend buying from specialized stores.
To prepare the drink, I used the following ingredients:
- water – 32 l;
- barley malt – 5 kg;
- brewer’s yeast – 25 g;
- hops – 45 g;
- granulated sugar – 7 g per liter.
In order not to get sour mash instead of beer, all used utensils must be perfectly clean, preferably sterilized. Everyone remembers how mothers and wives sterilize canning jars?
The cooking process
Making homemade beer is a multi-stage process that takes about 7 hours:
1. Almost hot water (about 40 degrees) is poured into a 80-liter enamel pan. A gauze bag filled with ground malt is lowered into it. The pan is closed and aged for 1.5 hours at a temperature of 63-70 degrees.
Attention! To do this, the heating is periodically turned on and off. At this temperature, the sugar content of the malt increases, and the wort becomes sweet.
2. After the set time has elapsed, the temperature of the liquid must be increased to 80 degrees. The malt is taken out of the pan and washed in 7 liters of water, which remained unused. Having well washed out the remaining sugars from the malt, the resulting water is poured into the wort.
3. Bringing the wort to a boil, I removed the foam that appeared and poured in the first portion of hops (15 g). Now the wort should boil intensively for 30 minutes. Having poured the next 15 g of hops, I set the boil for another hour. After adding the remaining hops, the liquid boiled for another 15 minutes.
4. Now you need to quickly cool the wort. I put the pan in the tub, where I constantly added cold water. With vigorous stirring, the contents of the pan were able to cool in 25 minutes.
5. Diluted brewer’s yeast is added to the cooled liquid (dilution instructions are indicated on the package and may vary depending on the manufacturer). I installed a water seal in the container (I lowered a plastic tube into the liquid, and brought its other end out and placed it in a mug of water). I left the pot to ferment in the warm kitchen.
Attention! Within a few hours, the wort began to ferment violently, blowing bubbles through the water seal. On the fourth day, the fermentation noticeably subsided, and the liquid in the pan became much lighter.
6. When the bubbles stop coming out, according to the technology, the drink needs to be carbonized (filled with carbon dioxide). This improves the taste and allows you to achieve a thick, dense foam. To do this, pour 7 g of granulated sugar into sterilized dark glass or plastic bottles.
7. Using a thin silicone hose, the beer is gently drained, filling the bottles not to the top. The container is tightly corked and left for secondary fermentation at room temperature.
What result did I get
A month later, I became the owner of 23 liters of excellent home-made beer, the strength of which did not exceed 5%. Inviting friends, we quickly organized a bathhouse, complemented by delicious, aromatic beer.
Excessive alcohol consumption is harmful to your health. Take care of yourself!
I don’t know if I did it right or not, but not only I liked the quality of the drink. Maybe someone who has a similar experience, I will be glad to learn about the intricacies of making homemade beer without buying expensive equipment.