Strong beer at home. Homemade malt beer according to an old recipe. Madagascar lemon beer

If you ask the question: “Which beer is better?” - then the answer is clear: “Homemade beer!” Any recipe for making this drink is suitable. In any case, the product will turn out much tastier than its store-bought counterparts. For people who love fresh and high-quality beer, it is better to prepare it with their own hands. The drink turns out incredibly aromatic and pleasant to the taste.

Brewing secrets

Making homemade beer is not as difficult a task as many people think. You just need to reserve time and do everything as written in the recipe. Most often, housewives brew homemade beer from hops, believing that it is easier to prepare. But that's not true. Any beer is brewed almost the same way.

Basic cooking rules:

It is better to use filtered or boiled water for beer.
Yeast can be dry or fresh, but it must be brewer's yeast.
When brewing, you can use malt obtained by germinating barley grains or
The color of the hops should be yellow-green.
Fermentation should occur at a temperature slightly below room temperature.
The containers in which beer will be brewed must be sterilized.
It is advisable to keep the kitchen clean while cooking.
It is better to use a high pan for cooking.
It is advisable to leave it alone during this time.
It is better to store finished beer in the refrigerator or cellar.

Homemade beer: classic recipe

Classic home-brewed beer turns out to be very aromatic and tasty, in any case, much better than store-bought beer. It will be a pleasure to treat your loved ones and friends with this drink. They will definitely appreciate beer, for the brewing of which only high-quality products were used. It is also suitable for relaxing alone. The drink relaxes and calms.

Ingredients:

Two buckets of cold water.
Half a bucket
A teaspoon of salt.
Six large glasses of hops.
A cup of yeast.
A small cup of molasses.

Cooking method:

You need to pour water into the barrel and add malt to it. The mixture should be left overnight.
In the morning, pour everything into a container and add salt. The mixture must be simmered over low heat for about two hours.
Then you need to add hops and cook for another twenty minutes.
The resulting mixture should be passed through cheesecloth and poured into a barrel.
Once everything has cooled, you need to add yeast and molasses to the barrel. Everything must be mixed and left for a day.
Afterwards, the beer should be bottled and kept for a day.
The bottles are then corked and kept for another day.

Recipe No. 2: Simple Homemade Beer

Simple beer is beer that is prepared within two days. Otherwise it is also called precocious. This is a very tasty and rich homemade beer. The recipe for its preparation is simple and quite affordable. Beer can be served for a noisy and cheerful company. Its taste should please everyone without exception.

Ingredients:

One kilogram of barley or rye malt.
1 kg rye flour.
One hundred grams of hops.
Nine liters of water.
Fifty grams of yeast.
Four hundred grams of honey.

Preparation:

Hops need to be ground with flour and mixed with malt.
Place the entire mixture in a clean cloth bag.
Afterwards it must be hung on a stand. You need to put a pan on the bottom and pour boiling water on top. The wort should flow out in a thin stream.
Add honey and yeast to the resulting cooled mixture. Everything should be left for a day.
Afterwards, the beer is bottled, corked and placed in the refrigerator for less than two days.

Recipe No. 3: from malt

This time we’ll look at recipes for homemade malt beer. It is this that gives beer its richness, fullness of taste, delicate color and persistent foam. Almost everyone likes beer, as it has a rather delicate and pleasant taste. It’s better to treat your closest friends to this drink; they will appreciate the brewer’s work.

Ingredients:

4.5 kg of rye malt.
7 kg of bread.
4.5 kg wheat malt.
Ten grams of yeast.
Four kilograms of dry hops.
Twenty bottles of boiled water.
Two tablespoons of soda.

Cooking method:

In a large container you need to put bread, malt, yeast and hops. Everything should be mixed and left in a warm place for five hours.
Then the mixture must be filled with water, closed with a lid and left for a day.
After a day, everything should be drained without sediment and expressed.
You need to add soda to the mixture and leave it for another day.
Afterwards everything is bottled.

Recipe No. 4: from hops

Now let's look at how to make homemade beer from hops. It gives beer a pleasant, bitter taste. It also brightens the drink and creates foam. The beer is very reminiscent of classic beer, so it suits absolutely everyone’s taste. The drink is slightly bitter and foams very strongly. This beer is sure to please everyone.

Ingredients:

Nine liters of water.
Thirty grams of hops.
Four glasses of sugar.
Fifty grams of yeast.
One kilogram of rye malt.

Cooking method:

Pour water into the container and add hops to it. You need to cook everything for one hour.
The resulting mixture must be cooled, strained and yeast added to it.
Everything should ferment in a warm place for at least three days.
Afterwards, the drink should be strained, bottled and closed.
It is advisable to insist everything for a week.

Recipe No. 5: Mint Beer

Very often housewives ask the question: “How to brew homemade beer with mint correctly and will it be tasty?” The drink turns out to be truly unusual. Its taste is specific and not for everyone. Ladies will definitely like this beer. It turns out light and tender. This beer is prepared in almost the same way as the previous types. The main thing is not to overdo it with mint.

Ingredients:

Three small handfuls of mint.
Three liters of water.
50 g yeast.
Three small glasses of sugar.
One packet of vanilla sugar.
A crust of bread.

Cooking method:

Pour boiled water over the mint and close the pan. Everything needs to stand for about an hour.
Afterwards the mint must be strained. Add a crust of bread with yeast and sugar to the mixture.
The drink should be left in a warm place to ferment.
After the foam appears, add vanilla sugar.
The beer is bottled and tightly sealed.

Recipe No. 6: Juniper Beer

This beer is also homemade. It is based on the use of juniper. The drink has an unusual taste and smell, but many people really like this beer. Its strength reaches 5 degrees. This treat is perfect for entertaining guests and friends.

Ingredients:

200 g juniper berries.
Two liters of water.
50 grams of honey.
25 grams of yeast.

Preparation:

Fresh berries need to be cooked for thirty minutes.
They should then be strained and cooled.
Yeast and honey are added to the resulting mixture. Everything needs to be mixed and left alone for the duration of fermentation.
As soon as the yeast rises, you should stir everything again and pour it into glass bottles.
The bottles must be sealed and left in a cool place for five days.

Recipe No. 7: from dried fruits

Sometimes housewives have a desire to experiment. For example, you can brew beer from dried fruits. They produce homemade beer with the most extraordinary taste and smell. The recipe for making it is quite simple.

Ingredients:

Twenty bottles of water.
Eight kilograms of rye malt.
2.5 kg juniper berries.
300 g of dry berries (any).
100 g dried apples and pears.

Cooking method:

The malt must be filled with water so that it covers it completely. Everything should be boiled for fifteen minutes and removed from heat.
Berries and dried fruits are then added to the mixture.
Everything needs to be poured into a barrel and filled halfway with warm water.
The barrel should be hammered and left for a day.
Every day during the fermentation process you need to add a little water.
Afterwards the drink should be left alone. The beer will be ready as soon as it stops making noise.

Here's how easy it is to make beer at home. The recipes are all accessible and easy, and there is no doubt about the quality of the product used. Not much effort will be spent, and a calm, relaxing and cozy evening with homemade beer is guaranteed.

You can buy beer in any store. However, at breweries, various dyes and preservatives are added to the drink so that the beer retains its presentation longer. If you don't trust beer companies, you can make beer at home.

Why is homemade beer better than store-bought beer?

You can prepare it at home. If you carefully read the label on the bottle, you will find that manufacturers often add preservatives, flavors and colorings to the drink. And if the addition of preservatives can be somehow justified (natural beer spoils quite quickly, but it still needs to be bottled and delivered to the store), then the addition of flavors and dyes is important for manufacturers only to improve the presentation of the product. Homemade beer also compares favorably with draft beer due to its thick foam and rich hop-malt taste. Also, factories often resort to clarification and pasteurization procedures, which decompose various vitamins and beneficial microelements.

There is an opinion that to produce good beer you need a lot of special, expensive equipment. This is a myth that is actively supported by many brewing companies. Home brewing is not profitable for them. The only expensive tool you can't do without when brewing beer is an electronic thermometer. It will instantly determine the temperature of the liquid in which it is placed. It is really difficult to do without it, since at some stages of cooking it is necessary to maintain a strictly defined temperature.

Necessary equipment

To make beer we need the following tools:

25-30 liter saucepan for wort . Give preference to enamel pans without black burn marks. Before cooking, wash the pan well with detergent and then dry it in the sun. It is important that there is no detergent left in the pan - this will ruin your drink.

Additional fermentation tank for 20-25 liters . Pots, bowls, and various pottery dishes are suitable for this purpose. You can ferment the wort either in one container or in several.

Thermometer. It is impossible to make good homemade beer without a thermometer. Moonshine and wine do not require special treatment. But in brewing you can’t do without a thermometer. Give your preference to an electronic thermometer with a long spout. Yes, a thermometer can be quite expensive, but this purchase will pay for itself.

Bottles for finished beer . Give preference to glass containers, as glass does not retain odor well. If glass bottles are not available and purchasing them would be expensive, you can bottle the beer in plastic bottles.

Medium thin hose . Give preference to silicone hoses. We will need this component to remove the foam.

Beer wort cooler . For this purpose, you can use a large metal bowl filled with cold water. If you don't have a bowl of the required size, you can use a bathtub filled with ice or cold water.

Water seal . We will need it for fermentation.

Gauze for malt bag and filtration . The gauze size should be 3-5 meters. It's inexpensive.

Wooden or metal spoon . We will need it to stir the drink while cooking.

Iodine and clean white plate to take a sample (optional, you can do without it).

A device for measuring the density of liquids - a hydrometer (also optional).

What is beer made from?

A standard beer brewing kit looks like this:

Water- 25-27 liters. We will brew hops and malt in it.
Hop with acidity 4.5% - about 50 grams. Hops can be obtained at any market. Russian hops are suitable for homemade beer. Hops will add bitterness and aroma to the drink.
Barley malt- about 3 kilograms. Barley malt can be obtained at any market or in a specialty store. However, remember - Russian malt is usually not of very high quality. Buy German or Czech malt. It can be ordered online. Malt will make the drink rich and tasty.
Brewer's yeast- about 30 grams. Brewer's yeast can be obtained at any market or in a specialty store. You can also buy Russian yeast. We need yeast for fermentation.
Sugar. We will need sugar at the rate of 8 grams of sugar for 1 liter of beer. Sugar is important for additional fermentation, as well as for saturating the drink with carbon dioxide.

How to Brew Homemade Beer in Six Easy Steps

There are many ways to make homemade beer. Next, we will look at how you can make beer at home in 6 steps. Even a beginner can master it.

First, carefully read all the preparation steps and tips, and only then proceed to the process itself.

Stage 1 - preparatory work

Check that the necessary components and equipment are available. Check the thermometer separately - to do this, boil water in a container.

Sterilize your instruments. This is necessary in order to avoid unwanted bacteria getting into the beer. Wash all equipment and dry it in the sun. While the equipment is drying, wash your hands with soap. Do not use alcohol or vodka as a sterilant - this will harm the drink. Sterilization is vital. If you don’t do this, there is a chance that you will introduce so-called “wild yeast” into the wort, which will turn your homemade beer into an unpalatable mash.

Pick up water. Give your preference to bottled or spring water. If it is quite expensive to get it, you can use tap water. If you are using tap water, boil it the day before cooking and then place it in a cool, dry place to settle. This must be done to get rid of various harmful components in the water. For example, tap water is often chlorinated, and during settling, the chlorine will leave the water within a day.

Prepare the yeast. If your yeast is pressed, break the yeast brick into small pieces, then pour clean warm water over them for 5-10 minutes.

Stage 2 - prepare the wort for brewing

Take the malt, put it in the pan. Then take a crusher and grind it to a powder. After this, the malt is ready for mashing. Sometimes malt is sold already crushed. However, experienced brewers do not recommend buying such malt, since it very often contains artificial additives like starch or even flour to increase the weight of the product.

Twin Roller Malt Mill

Make a small bag out of gauze. Place the ground malt there. The malt should not fall out of the bag. It is recommended to make the bag in 3 layers.

Pour 25 liters of water into a large saucepan and place it on the fire. Place the tip of a thermometer into it from time to time. When the temperature is around 80 degrees, turn the heat down.

Place the bag of malt in the water and cover the pan with a lid. Boil the malt for one and a half hours. The temperature should be maintained around 67 degrees. Remember that placing the malt bag into the pan will cause the temperature to drop dramatically, so sometimes brewers turn the heat up just a little bit higher.

Cooking at a temperature of 67 degrees will make the beer dense and soft in taste. Its strength will be about 4%.

After an hour and a half, do an iodine test. It is done to determine the presence of starch in the drink. They make a test like this: take a few tablespoons (5-10 milligrams) of wort and pour them onto a white plate; After this, a few drops of iodine are dripped onto the wort. If the color of the liquid has not changed, then it is considered ready. If the color of the liquid turns dark blue, cook the wort for another 10-15 minutes. It is important that you don’t need to do an iodine test - just boil the wort for an additional 15 minutes.

Good and bad iodine test results

During brewing, the malt took part in natural fermentation. Now we need to stop this process. To do this, make the fire larger so that the temperature in the pan is about 80 degrees. Cook for 5 minutes.

After this, remove the bag of malt from the pan.

Stage 3 - boil the wort

Turn up the heat to bring the liquid to a boil.

Add 20 grams of hops there. Don't turn down the fire. After half an hour, add 15 grams of hops.

After another half hour, add the remaining 15 grams of hops. You need to cook the wort for another half hour.

Stage 4 - wort cooling

Our task at this stage is to very quickly cool the wort to 25 degrees. This must be done within 20 minutes so that wild bacteria do not have time to settle in it, starting wild fermentation.

Turn off the pan with the wort, put on thick gloves, and add some cold water to the bath.
After that, take the pan with the wort and put it in the bathroom. After this, fill the bath so that water does not get into the pan. If there is ice in the refrigerator, add it to the bath.
After 15 minutes, use a thermometer to measure the temperature of the wort. If the temperature is 25 degrees or lower, you can proceed to the next step. If not, wait a little.
Now pour the cooled wort into the fermentation container, first passing it through cheesecloth several times.

Stage 5 - wort fermentation

Now you need to add the yeast. There are two types of them (depending on the temperature):

Top fermentation - add at 20 degrees.
Bottom fermentation - add at 10 degrees.

For our case, top-fermenting yeast is suitable (if you want to add “bottom” yeast, cool the wort additionally).

The following actions:

Using the instructions on the yeast packet, calculate the required amount of yeast.

Take a glass of cold water, pour yeast into it, stir it well.

After this, pour the glass of yeast into the pan with the wort, mix the resulting mixture well.

Place the pan with the yeast in a cool, dark place. Install a water seal to prevent excess oxygen from entering the container.

After about 12 hours, fermentation will begin. Active fermentation lasts about 2-3 days, after which the process begins to fade.

After a week, take out the pan, remove the water seal and use a hydrometer to check the density of the liquid.

After half a day, take the pan out again, remove the water seal and use a hydrometer to check the density of the liquid. If the numbers are the same, fermentation is over. If they differ, let the liquid ferment some more.

Stage 6 - clogging, adding sugar, producing carbon dioxide

Now it is necessary to carry out carbonization. This must be done so that the beer foams well and is carbonated:

Take glass or plastic bottles and add 8 grams of sugar per liter to each. Once the beer is added, the sugar will cause a little additional fermentation, which will release some carbon dioxide.
Pour beer into bottles and close the lid tightly. The distance between the beer and the lid should be up to 2 cm.
When pouring bottles, do not shake them so as not to disturb the yeast. If you touch the yeast, the beer will turn out very cloudy (however, some people like it).
Place the bottles in a dark, dry place where the temperature will not exceed 24 degrees. After three weeks the beer will be ready. The beer needs to be shaken thoroughly every week. After this, move the beer to the refrigerator. The beer is ready, you can drink it. In a good refrigerator, beer can be stored for up to 9 months. After opening the bottle, the drink is stored for three days.

To make home brewing easier, experienced brewers recommend the following:

Russian malt is of rather low quality. Therefore, give preference to foreign malt, for example, German or Czech.
Never buy ground malt, as sellers often add starch to it. Don't overpay for starch.
You can let the beer mature. To do this, at the final stage of preparation, do not put the beer in the refrigerator, but let it sit for another month. As a result of maturation, the beer will acquire a caramel flavor.
While brewing the malt, do not forget to stir the pan with the mixture with a spoon. This will enhance fermentation, which will have a good effect on the quality of the drink.

How to brew beer at home - a traditional recipe

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To become a home brewer, all you need is a desire to brew beer. The vastly developed brewing industry, as well as this article, will help with the rest. The collected material is a complete guide to brewing beer at home from malt and hops. No more is required.

Beer, relatively speaking, can be prepared in two ways: from malt extract and directly from grain. The first method is the simplest: you need to buy malt extract, mix it with water, boil it, add sugar and yeast, ferment the resulting wort and bottle it (we have written a separate one). It doesn’t sound interesting, but it was malt concentrates that became a good help for the popularization of home brewing. Perhaps these are where you should start. I'll explain now.

Malt concentrate is concentrated beer wort. The technology itself for producing beer according to a traditional recipe is very labor-intensive, largely due to the stage at which the wort is prepared. At home, this takes 5-7 hours of nerves, dancing with a thermometer and extreme concentration. During these 5-7 hours, the malt is mashed with water, heated to a certain temperature with certain pauses, then filtered and only then brewed with hops and other ingredients.

Malt concentrate is prepared in a similar way, after which the hopped wort is concentrated - the liquid is simply evaporated to form the same powder (or viscous mass) that is sold to us in beautiful jars labeled “malt concentrate”. In other words, home brewers have a unique opportunity to bypass the complex and time-consuming process of preparing beer wort.

But there comes a time when a brewer, having tried different concentrates and additives to them, begins to think about traditional brewing, which, oddly enough, is practiced by brewing giants.

If you still think that large factories brew beer from “powder,” then you are deeply mistaken. This . Malt concentrate costs several times more than regular beer malt, not to mention the organization of its production, so it is not profitable for brewing giants to use them.

Well, let's brew our first beer from malt, hops, water and yeast!

In 1516, Germany passed a law on the purity of beer, the so-called Reinheitsgebot, according to which beer must be brewed exclusively from barley malt, hops and water. We do not suffer from purism, but it is from malt and hops that we will continue to dance, as well as from yeast, which was discovered much later. But we admit that you can add any interesting ingredients to the wort: unmalted grains, honey, herbs, fruits and fruit juices, vegetables, even mushrooms and tree bark. Brewing is a creative process.

MALT

First of all, this is a convenient wort kettle, also known as a mash tun, enameled or made of stainless steel, most often with a thermal cover. The fermentation tank, fermenter, which is generally called a “beer factory,” can be plastic containers with a slot in the lid for a water seal, or plastic or stainless steel barrels equipped with taps, thermometers, pressure gauges and other convenient gadgets.

Now collectively what is difficult to do without:

Scale or measuring cup for malt and hops.
Container for soaking and filtering (bucket-basin 5-10 l).
Malt crusher (mill, meat grinder, coffee grinder).
Wort boiler for 25-30 l.
Spoon with a long handle - paddle (plastic).
Accurate thermometer with a scale up to 100˚С.
Iodine – for malt testing and disinfection (or a special disinfectant).
Fermentation container with water seal.
Hydrometer for measuring wort density.
Silicone tube for pouring beer.
Glass or plastic bottles with tight lids.

Of all the above, the most difficult thing to do without is a thermometer. During the preparation of the wort, in particular its malting, it is very important to accurately observe the temperature pauses, otherwise the beer simply will not turn out. The bottles are convenient with a yoke cap; you can also use standard beer bottles, but then you will have to buy a crown capper and the crown caps themselves (regular beer caps).

What else will be useful:

Self-adhesive thermometer for fermentation tank.
Filter materials, additional containers for filtration.
A canvas or gauze bag for mashing the wort.
Chiller for rapid cooling of wort (or ice bath).

We advise you to take a closer look at some brewing products on the world famous Chinese trading platform AliExpress. Recently, we have been running a section in which we publish selections of such products. For example, you will find links to cheap measuring instruments necessary for comfortable brewing and much more (scales, thermometers, hydrometers, volumetric flasks, mash bag, etc.)

Preparation

Cleanliness is the key to success! In this case, this is not an empty phrase. Beer wort is an ideal breeding ground for any microorganisms that will develop colonies in it in a matter of hours and will no longer make beer. Always use sterile containers and accessories and minimize contact of the wort with air. During cooking, wash your hands thoroughly with soap, or better yet, wipe them with alcohol, as well as any equipment that will come into contact with the wort.

Disinfection is the key to successful brewing.

Containers can be washed with iodine solution or special disinfectants that beer stores are stocked with. You can also use a weak solution of bleach: 1 tbsp. l. for 5 liters of water. But still more reliable than special equipment. After using them, be sure to rinse the disinfected containers thoroughly, preferably with hot water (be careful with plastic). It is not necessary to rinse after iodine. Do not use several solutions at once - their reaction with each other can lead to the formation of toxic substances.

Heads from any moonshine can be used as a sterilizer.

Preparation of beer wort

So, you bought or germinated high-quality beer malt, found aromatic hops, prepared the water and sterilized all the equipment. Now, in fact, it’s time to learn how to brew beer at home.

First you need to create a recipe, namely, decide how dense and bitter your beer will be. PC brewing programs such as BeerSmith will help us with this. For informational purposes, you can use it for 21 days, then you will have to buy a license, but it is worth the money ($28). BeerSmith allows you to automatically calculate all the parameters of the future beer based on the given ingredients. It also already contains 100 beer styles from the BJCP guide. By the way, it wouldn’t hurt to get the BJCP manual itself, where the classification of beer is clearly described.

Malt preparation

First, you need to measure out the malt. For a classic recipe for beer made from malt and hops, take 4 kg of malt per 25 liters of beer. You can vary the amount of malt and water, thereby influencing the density of the drink and its taste. The malt needs to be winnowed and washed from dust and dirt.

Purified beer malt must be ground into fine grains. To do this, you can use a malt crusher, but if you don’t have one at hand, an ordinary meat grinder or other kitchen equipment will do: blender, food processor, coffee grinder. However, practice has shown that having a malt mill on hand is much more convenient and practical.

Before mashing the wort, some brewers do what is called a “pre-mash” - soaking the malt in water for 12 hours. This procedure is necessary to give the malt husk elasticity - it will not be damaged during crushing, which means it will be more convenient to filter the wort. Pre-mashing also activates enzymes. Grinding wet malt leads to corrosion of the metal parts of the crushers, so not everyone resorts to this method. But soaking can be done after grinding, right? Be that as it may, our main task is to prepare and grind our malt to the desired condition (the optimal grind size is like barley).

Mashing malt using the infusion method

Mashing the wort is the most important process in beer brewing. At this stage, the crushed malt is mixed with water (mashed), causing the enzymes in the malt to go into solution and break down the starch into sugar, which the yeast will then process. Enzymes require a certain temperature to work. There are two fundamentally different methods of mashing: infusion and decoction. We will use infusion - this is a classic mashing scheme for home use, during which the wort is heated sequentially, while maintaining the temperature pauses necessary for the enzymes to act. The decoction method is used in factories as a cheaper method - part of the wort is boiled and added to the rest, raising its temperature to the desired temperature.

For the classic beer recipe, a hydromodule of 1/3 is used (1 part malt/3 parts water). Therefore, to prepare 25 liters of beer we need to take 4 kg of malt and 12 liters of water. Water needs to be boiled and cooled to 60˚C. Pour in the malt in a thin stream, thoroughly mixing the wort so that no lumps form. If you have not acquired a convenient wort kettle with a filter system, your first attempts at brewing beer can be made using the “in a bag” method - pour the malt into a fabric bag and “mash” it directly in it.

At this stage, it is advisable to control the acidity of the wort using a pH test. For brewing, the optimal pH is 5.2..5.5. How to properly increase acidity. For this purpose, any food acids are used.

After mixing hot water with malt, it’s time to arm yourself with a thermometer and monitor the temperature pauses. There are three of them, two of which are required:

Protein break. The mash is kept for 15-20 minutes at a temperature of 25-55°C. This pause is optional. It is used if weakly modernized malt or “unmalted” malt is used. During the pause, the wort boiler (saucepan) must be insulated and the wort must be stirred periodically. The protein pause promotes better breakdown of proteins, reduces the turbidity of the wort, and facilitates further filtration. The density of taste weakens slightly and the amount of foam decreases.
Maltose pause. The mash is kept for 20 minutes to 1.5 hours at a temperature of 62-68°C. During this time, enzymes convert starch into maltose, a monosaccharide. At low temperatures and a long pause, more fermentable sugars are obtained, which means the beer becomes stronger, while the density of taste is significantly lost. At a higher temperature and a shorter pause, more unfermentable dextrins are formed, which give the beer a dense taste. The strength falls accordingly.
Saccharification pause. The mash is kept for 15 minutes at a temperature of 70-75°C. At this stage, the final saccharification of the wort occurs. Starch completely breaks down into dextrins, and enzymes begin to decompose. With an increase in this pause, which makes sense only by reducing the previous ones, the strength of the beer decreases and its flavor density increases.

After the third pause, an iodine test should be done to check the completeness of saccharification. To do this, take a couple of drops of the mash and place them on a white plate. Wait a few minutes and add a drop of iodine, then mix the drops. If no color change occurs, then the wort has completely saccharified and can be fermented. If the iodine turns blue, it means there is still starch in the wort - the wort needs to be boiled for another 15 minutes at a temperature of 70-75°C. After this, you can still boil it for about 5 minutes at a temperature of 75-77°C and begin filtering.

Mash filtering

If you initially mashed the wort in a bag, then there is practically no need to filter the wort. However, the spent grain (the undissolved part of the wort) still contains a lot of sugar, so it is advisable to rinse it. The optimal water temperature for washing is 75-77°C. But more on that later. First, you need to filter the wort and measure its density. Modern wort boilers are equipped with a filter system with a false bottom and a tap. All you need to do is place a large collection container under the tap and start draining the wort. The first wort will be cloudy, so it is better to pour it into a separate container until clear liquid begins to flow from the tap. You need to change the container to the main one, and return the first cloudy wort to the filter tank.

What works here is spent grains of malt, which are collected in a dense layer on a mesh bottom (if we are talking about a purchased wort kettle) and begin to play the role of a good filter. You can assemble your own filter system from a large tank and a sieve, but I will leave these engineering intricacies to your conscience. After filtration, you must measure the density of the wort using a hydrometer. Typically the density varies between 14-22%. It's time to bring the wort density to the levels in our recipe by washing. The amount of water depends on the desired density.

For beer with a density of 12%, you should take the following amount of water at a temperature of 75-77°C (not higher):

During the filtration process, try to control the density of the wort using a hydrometer so as not to overdo it with the amount of wash water - at the end of the wash, more “useless” substances pass into the wort, which only increase turbidity.

Boiling wort and hopping beer

The resulting wort must be poured back into the wort kettle and boiled for 1-2 hours with the addition of hop cones. Brewing beer is necessary to enrich the wort with hop bitterness and aroma. During boiling, all unnecessary microorganisms are killed and malt enzymes are completely destroyed. It is recommended to boil the wort for at least 1 hour. Boiling should be active; 10-15 minutes before the end of cooking, it is better to reduce the heat and cover the wort with a lid.

Place the wort on the fire, add hops for bittering - approximately 80% of the hop requirement. The bitterness that will be transferred into beer from hops depends on the amount of alpha acids contained in the cones (or pellets). For example, to obtain a drink with a slight hop bitterness, for 25 liters of wort it is enough to take 25-50 g of granulated hops with an alpha acid content of 6.4%, for bitter beer - 60-100 g. The granules are simply put in the wort, it is better to put the cones in a fabric bag. 10-15 minutes before the end of cooking you need to add hops for taste, and 5 minutes before the end of cooking - for aroma. Irish moss is also added with flavor and aroma hops for better clarification of the beer.

Cooling of beer wort

The brewed wort must be quickly cooled to a fermentation temperature of 16-18°C. It is important to cool quickly, within 20-30 minutes, - this reduces the risk of contamination of the wort with foreign microorganisms that can seriously compete with yeast. At home, this can be done using a cold water bath (with plenty of ice if possible).

If you are going to brew beer regularly, I advise you to purchase a chiller - a coil through which running cold water is supplied.

A chiller is the best way to quickly cool beer after brewing.

Adding yeast with preparation

During cooling, it is advisable to ferment the yeast so that you don’t have to wait later:

Pour a small amount of wort at a temperature of no more than 30°C into a sterile container and add/pour yeast into it.
Cover with a sterile lid and let stand for 30-40 minutes. When signs of fermentation appear, yeast can be added to the cooled wort.

But before adding yeast, the cold wort must be freed from suspensions, which is why the cold wort becomes cloudy. This process will have a positive effect on the final taste of the drink. To do this, stir the wort using a swirling motion using your stirring spoon. As a result of rotation, the suspension will settle to the bottom in the center of the container, and the wort can be easily poured into the brewery for fermentation.

Also, before adding yeast cultures, it is important to saturate the wort with oxygen, which was all lost during boiling. To do this, the wort needs to be stirred intensively, or better yet, poured from a great height. Experienced brewers use aquarium compressors for aeration. Don't forget that everything should be as sterile as possible.

Basic beer fermentation

Before fermenting the wort, take a small amount to check the density. This data will come in handy later. The optimal density for light light beer is 10-12%, for dense beer – 12-16%. After pitching the yeast, stir the wort well. Close the fermentation container with a lid with a water seal and place it in the place where the beer will ferment. This should be a dry room with a stable temperature of 18-24°C.

Beer fermentation lasts 5-8 days. The end of fermentation is characterized by the absence of carbon dioxide released through the water seal. Open the container and take a small amount of young beer to measure the density. The density of fermented beer should drop to 2-2.2%. In fermented beer, the gravity is constant because the sugars are no longer processed by the yeast. Knowing the initial and final density, you can calculate the final strength of the drink. If everything went well, the beer can be bottled and sent for maturation.

Overflow, post-fermentation, maturation

Now we have come to the most enjoyable stage of brewing homemade beer. At this stage, the beer does not have a full taste. In order for this flavor to develop, the beer must undergo a maturation process in tightly sealed bottles. Before pouring, you need to get rid of the yeast sediment - carefully drain the beer through a silicone hose without stirring the sediment. You can use an intermediate transfer: first pour the beer into a container, which should be left for a day at a low temperature (5-7°C), and then bottle the completely clarified drink.

In order for the beer to ferment and become saturated with carbon dioxide, sugar or other substances that contain it are added to it, for example, honey or unhopped malt extract. For 1 liter of beer, it is enough to take 8-9 g of sugar or honey, malt extract - 11 g or 1.25 times more sugar. Of course, malt extract is preferable. It is better to boil their sugar into syrup or use fructose-dextrose (6-7 g/1 l). You can add sugar to each bottle, after which they need to be shaken well to completely dissolve, but it is better to mix the required amount of sugar/malt with beer in a separate container and from there pour the drink into bottles.

Beer is bottled in clean, sterile bottles. It is necessary to leave 3-4 cm from the neck for normal fermentation and carbon dioxide concentration. Glass bottles without a tight yoke stopper must be sealed with new crown caps. Beer should be fermented in a dark room at room temperature. Ripening should take place in a cool, dark place for at least 1-2 weeks. To avoid confusion, it is better to label the bottles - indicate the type of beer and the date when it was bottled. You can store it for 6-8 months, and the drink will remain “alive” all this time.

It's time to reap the fruits of your activities.

I will continue to cover beer topics and hope for any possible help from you. Becoming a home brewer is not difficult. To do this, you only need one thing - the desire to cook. In conclusion, I would like to say that home brewers are passionate people who are not afraid to experiment. Don't limit yourself to anything other than consuming the results of your new hobby. For moderation is the best feast!

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Beer is one of the oldest drinks, known to mankind since the Neolithic era, along with honey, kvass and wine. Some scientists even believe that grain crops began to be grown not for bread, but specifically for making beer. This article will discuss a method for preparing it at home, without specialized equipment.

How to brew beer at home - what you need

Two pans with a volume of 5-6 liters.
An aluminum colander, a piece of gauze, a 5-6 liter bottle of bottled water. And a thermometer for water up to 100 Celsius.

How to brew beer at home - ingredients

Pilsen barley malt approximately 1.5 kg, give or take depending on what kind of pans you can find.
6 gr. hops for bittering and 6 gr. hops for aroma. And, of course, yeast and water.

Brewing beer at home

The first thing we need to do is take a pan, pour 3 liters of water into it and heat it to a temperature of 66-67 degrees. After this, the heating must be turned off. Next, slowly add the malt and stir it at the same time. When adding malt, the water temperature should drop to approximately 62-63 degrees. Now close the lid and wrap for 40 minutes.
After 40 min. we need to add a little boiling water to our mash, thereby raising the temperature to 72-73 degrees. If you can’t raise the temperature with boiling water, you can turn on the gas or stove for a short while, while constantly stirring the mash and monitoring the temperature.
After raising the temperature, the mash needs to be wrapped again for about half an hour.
Half an hour has passed and now we need to put our beer base on the fire again and heat it to 78 degrees and wrap it again for five minutes, this is necessary to stop the processes.
At this time, pour 3 liters of water into the kettle and heat it to a temperature of 78 degrees. We will need it later for washing the wort.
Five minutes have passed, now we need to pour our mash through a colander into the second prepared pan, and slowly pour the remaining grain with water and combine it with our main wort.

We drained and spilled the wort, now we put the main pan back on the fire and bring it to a boil. After about 20 minutes, add bittering hops to the wort, and after another 50 minutes, add aroma hops and cook for another 10 minutes.
The entire brew took us 80 minutes and now we need to cool our wort in the sink to 50 degrees Celsius.

Pour the wort into the bottle through a funnel, after placing gauze in it.

Place the bottle under cold water and cool its contents to 20-28 degrees. You can just wait for it to cool naturally. We take our fermentation container out of the sink, check the temperature and if it is what we need, shake the bottle, saturating the liquid with air so that the yeast added further wakes up.
After adding the yeast, insert a water seal into the bottle cap to allow gas to escape, you can use a rubber glove and leave to ferment for 10 days.

Ten days have passed and we hope you were patient and didn't drink beer sooner. All that remains is to pour it into a suitable container and you can go to your neighbors.

The foamy, intoxicating drink came to us from Ancient Egypt. For brewing, people from the African continent took malt, hops and water. The Egyptians did not make beer for the sake of intoxication - they saw it as medicine and bread. Over time, in the process of improving production, recipes began to be supplemented with various additives, sometimes useless and even harmful to the body. They are included in beer for its unique taste. But what if you want a natural, environmentally friendly drink? We will answer this question by telling you how to brew beer at home.

Preparing the base for beer

The main components of the foamy drink are:

The water is free from impurities, does not leave a strange aftertaste and is absolutely transparent. If artesian water is not available, it is replaced with filtered water. It is also allowed to use water purchased in a store. Its advantage is that it undergoes bacteriological control.
Yeast. The recipes suggest using beer ones. If there are problems with the purchase, you can put in the usual “live” ones.
Hop. This phytoproduct gives beer the necessary density and taste. The best drinks are obtained from reddish or yellow-green cones with yellowish pollen under the scales. Green and cloudy fruits are not suitable for brewing.
Malt. The good quality of this ingredient is confirmed by its white color, pleasant smell and sweet taste. He shouldn't drown in water. Before preparing homemade beer, the malt should be soaked and sprouted at a temperature of 10 – 30°C. Then the component is dried and ground to obtain grains. The malt drying conditions determine the color of the beer. The light drink is made from naturally dried barley, the dark drink is made from raw materials fried and steamed in the oven.

Equipment for making beer at home

To work with ingredients conveniently you will need:

How to make beer at home: instructions

To get high-quality homemade beer, you need to do some preparatory work.

Equipment must be washed, sterilized and dried. There is no need to pour boiling water over the hydrometer and thermometer. After preparing the malt in the manner described above, they begin to activate the yeast. Before adding them to the wort, they are diluted with boiled, not hot water.
The second stage is mashing the wort, that is, mixing the wort with hot water. 25 liters of prepared liquid are heated in a saucepan to 80 degrees. Then the grain-like malt is poured into water or first placed in a gauze bag and lowered into a container in this form. The bag will prevent the mixture from burning and will prevent the removal of malt residues. As soon as the malt is in the water, close the pan and set it on low heat. The contents should be cooked slowly for 90 minutes, and its temperature should fall within the range of 61 - 72 degrees. If you want to make a strong drink, keep the temperature around 61 degrees. If you want a weak product with a pronounced flavor, increase the temperature to 70 degrees. The optimal thermometer reading is 65°. Compliance with this condition allows you to obtain a bright taste and a standard strength of 4%. After an hour and a half, place a little wort on a clean white plate and drip iodine onto it (1 - 2 drops). The blue color of the wort indicates the presence of starchy particles, which need to be removed by an additional 15-minute boiling. The initial shade of the mixture indicates the absence of starch and suggests a transition to the next stage of beer preparation.
The temperature of the contents of the pan is raised to 78 - 80 degrees and set for 5 minutes, after which the bag of malt is removed. It is washed in the remaining water, heated to 80°. The liquid with extracts is poured into a common container.
Boiling the wort is an important step in making beer. After filtering, it is brought to a boil and combined with 15 g of hops. After boiling the composition for 30 minutes, a second portion of hops is introduced into it, and after another 40 minutes, a third 15-gram portion is introduced. Boiling is extended by 20 minutes. In total, the wort is boiled for 90 minutes, and it should constantly gurgle - this is what the recipe requires.
Brewing technology requires cooling of the wort quickly, preventing the entry of foreign microorganisms into the composition. The pan is taken to the bathroom and placed in cold water. Within 15 - 30 minutes the wort should cool to 25 degrees. The mixture is passed through a piece of gauze over a container in which subsequent fermentation will occur. To enrich the wort with oxygen, it is poured twice from container to container, but without gauze.
To ferment the wort, it is combined with activated yeast and stirred. The top-fermentation product can be introduced into the wort at a temperature of 18 – 22°. Bottom-fermenting yeast requires conditions of 5 – 16°. A variety of yeast allows you to make two types of beer. The fermentation container with all the ingredients should be moved to a dark room. The temperature should be the same as required by the type of yeast. Place a lid with a water seal on the container and keep the mixture for 7 – 10 days. Gradually, fermentation will become regressive, and the hop liquid will become clearer by the last day. Its readiness is determined by a water seal or a hydrometer. In the first case, understanding is facilitated by bubbles, in the second - identical indicators taken with an interval of 12 hours.
The preparation of the drink is completed by capping and carbonation. To obtain foam and excellent taste, sugar is poured into opaque sterilized bottles at the rate of 8 g per liter of intoxicating liquid. The silicone tube allows you to carefully pour the beer, and it also prevents sediment from getting into the beer. During the pouring process, it is important to ensure that the tube remains in the middle of the contents of the pan and does not touch its surfaces on which yeast remains. When filling bottles, leave 2 cm from the top and seal the container. Homemade beer is enriched with carbon dioxide in sugar, which gives the effect of light fermentation. For this process to take place, the drink requires placement in a dark place and a temperature within 20 – 24°. The beer container should stand for 3 weeks, but from the 8th day it is recommended to shake it weekly. At the beginning of the 4th week, the bottles are transferred to the cellar or refrigerator.

Chilled beer is completely ready to drink. But an additional month of aging in a cool place will significantly improve its taste. We invite you to watch the brewing process in the video below.

An old recipe for homemade honey beer

You can prepare this delicious drink from the following ingredients:

live pressed yeast – 100 g;
natural flower honey – 4 kg;
red or yellow-green hop cones – 65 pcs.;
purified cold water – 20 l.

How to brew beer at home? Add hops to a pan of water and boil the raw materials over low heat for 2 hours. The broth is cooled to 70 degrees and honey is gradually introduced. The sweet liquid is brought to 25° and stirred with yeast. The container is left slightly open and kept in a room at room temperature for 6 days. On the 7th day, the beer is bottled and placed in a cold place again. After 24 hours, the container is sealed. After 2 days they begin tasting. The video clearly shows how to brew a honey intoxicating drink.

Simple recipe with molasses

For variety, you can make beer with molasses. 45 g of hops are boiled in 10 liters of water and, after straining, added to 1 kg of molasses. The mixture is boiled again, then poured into a barrel and put away for cooling. The wort is prepared from 260 g of diluted yeast and wheat flour (the recipe can be taken from the literature on baking pies). The noisy, voluminous wort is poured into the cool contents of the barrel and stirred thoroughly. Next, the barrel is sealed and transferred to heat for 6 hours. After the time has passed, the container is moved to a cool place and kept for 3 days. Preparation is completed by pouring the drink into bottles and sealing with stoppers and filling with wax, resin or sealing wax.

Homemade table beer recipe

You can make your own table beer from the following ingredients:

Prepare table beer by mixing wine, water and sugar in a saucepan. The composition is supplemented with hops and raisins, wait until it boils and boil for 35 minutes, stirring constantly. Add malt and 9 liters of water to the liquid filtered through cheesecloth. The mass is boiled again, cooled to 30 degrees and combined with yeast. Then they let it sit for 8 days, but periodically visit the vessel and skim off the foam. Finally, the homemade beer is bottled and kept cool. This makes 10–15 servings, which are recommended to be consumed within 2 weeks. With a longer shelf life, the beer becomes cloudy and loses its taste.

Vilna beer recipe

To make delicious Vilna beer, the housewife must put the following components in the container:

rye malt – 1 kg 200 g;
linden honey – 200 g;
raisins – 400 g;
scalded hops – 900 g;
mashed crackers – 400 g;
salt - a pinch;
yeast combined with a glass of warm boiled water.

The video shows how to make beer at home. The Vilna drink is prepared using the same technology. Production begins with diluting the created mass with water to a thick, creamy consistency. Cover the container with a thick cloth and put it in a warm room for a day. The next day, the mixture is diluted with 3.2 liters of boiled water and, after thorough mixing, 10 grains of ground bitter almonds are added to it. And again, cover the container and put it away in a warm place for a day.

Next, the recipe instructs to add 6.5 liters of boiled water to the composition and pour it into a cast iron pot, which will simmer all night on a hot stove. In the morning, 50 g of baking soda is poured into the mass and after a couple of hours the infusion is drained, passing through a canvas cloth. Filled bottles are sealed with corks and the top is reinforced with wire. First, the container is placed in a warm place, and after 6 days it is transferred to the cold. The drink will be ready in 10 days.

Now you know how to brew beer at home in different ways. Having mastered these simple recipes, you can please your loved ones with a delicious drink that does not contain additives that are dangerous to the body. We hope our selection of videos will teach you the art of brewing.

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