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Disinfection! Write this word on pieces of paper and stick it all over the kitchen. Or better yet, get a tattoo on your wrist.
Disinfecting everything and always is the only rule in brewing that must not be violated under any circumstances. If you are too lazy or have no time to do it, just do nothing that day. It will be better, trust me.
“Do not allow impurity; be neat in dress and dwelling.” — Benjamin Franklin
Story from my subscriber Marat.
Selection and preparation of equipment and premises
Chlorine-containing tablets are a necessary thing in the household. I bought Deo-Chlor (300 pieces for 650 rubles). Why do I need three hundred grand? So the coronavirus is in the yard! Every day my wife wipes everything that is possible with this solution. What can not be also wiped, but carefully.
For fermentation today we need the following items:
- malt extract of beer wort – 1 jar;
- fermentation container with a lid – 1 pc.;
- water seal – 1 pc.;
- stirrer spoon – 1 pc.;
- pans 3 l and 5 l – 1 pc.;
- prepared aerated water – 20 l;
- glass jar 1l with a lid – 1 pc.
Pour 20 liters of water into the fermentation tank and dilute two disinfectant tablets in it. In the resulting solution, we immerse the lid from the fermenter, the water seal, the stirrer and the jar with a lid. This completes the first stage of the fight against harmful microorganisms.
We will work in a bright, closed, well-ventilated area. Our option is a cozy home kitchen, from which a wife, children and a cat are extracted. Neither a garage, nor a barn, nor a basement will suit us categorically.
Recovery of beer wort from extract
Take two pans with a volume of 3 and 5 liters, fill with water to the middle and put on the stove. In one of the pans we put a container with a concentrate to warm it up and make it fluid. It has a consistency similar to honey and does not flow well from the jar.
Pour the dextrose into a smaller saucepan and stir to a clear syrup.
Important: never bring any of the pots to a boil!
Bringing yeast out of dormancy
We catch a jar with a lid from a disinfectant solution and rinse under running water until the smell disappears. Then fill it halfway with water and add a teaspoon of dextrose.
The water temperature should be no more than 30 degrees. We fall asleep about half of the yeast from the attached bag into a jar, shake it up and put it in a dark place for half an hour.
This process is called rehydration.
Water treatment – we make “living water”
If not everything, then a lot depends on water, so it’s worth choosing carefully. There can be no unequivocal advice here. Someone uses filtered tap water, someone – spring or bottled.
However, one common thing in water treatment can be distinguished – water should not be poor in oxygen. If you live in a city and there are no natural sources nearby, then use bottled water. There are definitely no foreign impurities in it, and we will add oxygen later.
Mix and stir
Pour 10 liters of prepared water into the washed fermenter from a height. Pouring from a height is necessary so that the liquid is saturated with oxygen, which is necessary for brewer’s yeast.
Then pour the contents of the heated jar of wort into it. The concentrate is a necessary and expensive product, so we rinse the jar thoroughly and add the rest to the tank. From a small saucepan, pour the dextrose syrup into the same place. Add water to the level of 20 liters.
reduce the contact time of the extract with air to a minimum, and water – vice versa
Important: reduce the time of contact of the extract with air to a minimum, and water – vice versa
No need to chase the amount of beer and pour 23 or even 25 liters of water. The smaller, the denser the body of your drink will be, the richer the taste and the stronger the strength. But less than 18 liters is also not worth it.
The temperature in the tank should be around 20-25 degrees. If the thermometer shows the desired numbers, then we launch the rehydrated yeast into the wort and mix everything with a stirrer spoon. Tightly close the lid of the fermentation tank and install a water seal. Voila!
Important: Fill the water trap not with water, but with an alcohol solution.
How was it really
As the astute reader guessed, I am so smart now with the same “hindsight”. Of course, out of greed, I simply took water from the tap, didn’t aerate it before putting it on fermentation, worked without protective equipment, the syrup and water in the pot with the jar boiled, poured out the yeast dry …
In short, I did not know exactly what a month later served as the final cause of the disgusting taste of my “beer”. Worse, I have never tried anything in my life. It even looked ugly.
Don’t be scared – this is what beer looks like after primary fermentation
Who made a decent beer the first time is a hero and a level 80 brewer. I wonder if there are such craftsmen here?