Brewing Beer: Smoking Meat, Making Sausage, Making Cheese, Making Jerky, Brewing Beer, Canning, Dehydrating

Brewing Extract Beer

with Steeped Grains and Hops

For our example we will produce a 5 gallon batch of beer, for a 2.5 gallon batch just reduce the ingredients by half.

1. Boil 2 gallons of water set it aside and let it cool to room temperature covered.

2. Place 3 gallons of water in a pot turn on the heat.

3. Place grains in the muslin bag tie a knot in it and steep the grains swirling them around until the temperature reaches 165°F. Do not let water get above 170°F before removing grains or it will leave an off taste in your beer! (as shown on the left)

4. Remove grains DO NOT SWEEZE BAG it will leave bitter tasting tartans in your wort.

5. When the water begins to boil turn off the heat and add all extracts and stir well to dissolve - you don’t want it to stick to the bottom – this mixture is called Wort.

6. Once the extracts are dissolved turn the heat back on to boil the wort. Stir frequently.

NOTE: Once wort begins to foam (Hot Break) watch carefully to prevent boiling over! If it looks like it’s going to boil over turn off heat briefly or blow on the foam.

7. If you have bittering hops place them in a clean muslin bag tie a knot in it and add them now. Boil Bittering hops for 55 minutes.

8. If you have aroma or finishing hops add for the last 5 minutes of the boil.

9. Turn off the heat – cool down to 70° - 90°F as quickly as possible by placing pot in a sink or tub filled with cold water, or a snow bank stirring constantly. If you have one use a wort chiller.

10. When the temperature is down to 70° - 90°F aerate the wort by stirring up quickly or whip it using a wire whisk. Yeast needs oxygen in the wort before it’s added.

11. Take a hydrometer reading if you have one and record this number correcting for temperature. Drink the wort from the hydrometer test tube. Never pour this back into the beer. Make notes on your readings and what you’ve tasted for later. It will be really sweet!

12. When there are plenty of bubbles in the wort add the yeast now stir gently you don’t want to add air to the wort once the yeast has been added. Let it sit for 10 minutes.

13. Transfer wort to your fermenter of choice being careful to leave as much of the sediment and trub behind as you can.

14. Place Air lock on ferementer (if there is one)

15. Place fermenter in a place where it will be out of the sunlight and undisturbed for several days to a few weeks depending on the recipe. In about 24 hours you should see bubbling in the airlock. Keep an eye on the temperatures!

16. Clean up!

Still easy right?

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