Section 1 – Brewing with Malt Extract
Introduction
Perhaps you have been part of this conversation:
“You brew your own beer?”
“Yes.”
“Really? Wow…what does it taste like?”
“It’s really good.”
“Can you make Budweiser?”
“Yes, and every other kind of beer too.”
“You know, I have always wanted to try doing that.…”
Hello and welcome to the 3rd edition of How To Brew. This book is going to introduce you to the art and science of brewing, great beer, and a fascinating hobby. You will truly “Amaze your friends!” Because brewing good beer is not hard.
This is how the brewing process works:
1. Malted barley is soaked in hot water to create fermentable sugars.
2. The malt sugar solution is boiled with hops for seasoning.
3. The solution is cooled, and yeast is added to begin fermentation.
4. The yeast ferments the sugars, releasing CO2 and ethyl alcohol.
5. When the main fermentation is complete, the beer is bottled with a little bit of added sugar to provide the carbonation.
Sounds fairly simple, doesn’t it? It really isn’t any harder than baking a batch of cookies. What is difficult is understanding how to make cookies when you have never seen it done before. The goal of this book is to teach you how to brew beer in as logical and straightforward a manner as possible without burying you in scientific details. When you have read this book, you will understand what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how to do it easily.
In this first section of the book, we are going to lay the groundwork for the rest of your brewing education. As with every new skill, it helps to learn to do things the right way the first time, rather than learning via short cuts that you will have to unlearn later on. On the other hand, you don’t need to know how an internal combustion engine works when you are learning how to drive. You just need to know that it needs gas and oil to work.
To learn to brew beer, you don’t need to learn how the yeast metabolize the malt sugars. But, you do need to understand that eating sugar is what they do, and you need to understand what they need from you to get the job done. Once you understand that, you can do your part, they can do theirs, and good beer will happen. As you gain some familiarity with the brewing processes, you can delve deeper into the inner workings and probably make your beer even better.
It is a long section, but you will learn to brew, and brew right the first time. Later sections of the book will delve deeper into malted barley so you can take more control over the ingredients, and thus, your beer. A later section, Section IV—Recipes, Experimentation, and Troubleshooting, will give you the roadmaps, the tools, and the repair manual you need to always achieve your goals.
It is my sincere hope that this book will help you to derive the same sense of fun and enthusiasm that I have experienced, and that it will enable you to brew some really outstanding beer.
Good Brewing!
This chapter will provide an overview of the entire process for producing a beer. You can use this single chapter to brew a beer right now, today.
This chapter explains why good preparation, including sanitation, is important, and how to go about it.
This chapter examines the key ingredient of do-it-yourself beer and how to use it properly.
This chapter cuts to the chase with a few do’s and don’ts about a very complex subject.
This chapter covers the different kinds of hops, why to use them, how to use them, and how to measure them for consistency in your brewing.
This chapter explains what yeast are, how to prepare them, and what they need to grow.
This chapter walks you thru a typical brew day: mixing the wort, boiling it, and cooling it to prepare it for fermentation.
This chapter examines how the yeast ferments wort into beer so you will understand what you are trying to do, without going into excruciating detail.
This chapter does just what it says: it takes what you have just learned and walks you through the practical application.
This chapter examines the key differences of lager brewing, building on what you have already learned about ale brewing.
This final chapter of Section 1 explains each step of how to package your five gallons of new beer into something you can really use.
