Whether you are making beer, wine, cider, or seltzer, a lot of the equipment needed for your fermentations remain the same. We recommend the following as our starter kit to make sure you have the necessities so that you can make sure your first beer is a good one!
Homebrew Starter Kit
Fermenting Bucket
Drilled Lid
Bottling Bucket
Spigot
Hydrometer
Thermometer
Adhesive Thermometer
Capper
Auto-Siphon + Tubing
Bottling Brush
Bottling Wand
Airlock
Sanitizer
5 Gallon Kettle
while different recipes may have temperature or time variations, the following guide applies to most every extract beer:
Heat 1.5 gallons of water to 160°F and remove from heat. Place crushed specialty grains into a large muslin or nylon bag and steep them in the water for 30 minutes.
Remove the grains and allow excess water to drip off – Do not squeeze. Discard grains and add your liquid or dry malt extracts.
After the extract has dissolved, add more water to top up the pot to a comfortable boil volume (for example 3.5 gallons in a 5 gallon pot). Turn back on the heat and bring it to a boil. Boil for a total of one hour adding hops at different times for different results (60 – 30 minute for bittering, 30 – 15minute for aroma, 15 – 0 minute for flavor)
Remove the pot from the heat and chill as quickly as possible using an ice bath or wort chiller. Once the wort has been cooled to below 80°F, pour it into the primary fermenter and top up to 5 gallons with cool water. Stir with a spoon for 5 minutes to aerate, take a starting gravity reading and then pitch your yeast of choice. Put the lid and airlock on and ferment at 60° – 68°F for primary fermentation.
After 7-10 days or when fermentation activity stops, rack the beer into a another fermenter with an airlock for secondary fermentation. If you wish to dry hop or add fruits / botanicals to your beer this is a great time to do so.
After another 10 – 14 days take another gravity reading (it should be close to the final gravity of the recipe). Boil 4.5 oz of corn sugar in 2 cups of water for 5 minutes and pour into a bottling bucket. Then rack the beer into the bucket (make sure to stir well to distribute the corn sugar) and into bottles.
Bottle condition at room temperature for 14 days and enjoy. Cheers!
