Homebrewing For Dummies

Introduction 1

About This Book 2

Conventions Used in This Book 3

What You’re Not to Read 3

Foolish Assumptions 4

How This Book Is Organized 4

Part I: First Things First 4

Part II: It’s in There: The Nuts and Bolts of Beer 5

Part III: Ready, Set, Brew! 5

Part IV: Homebrew Recipes 5

Part V: Alternative Brewing 5

Part VI: Putting Your Brew to the Test 5

Part VII: The Part of Tens 6

Icons Used in This Book 6

Where to Go from Here 7

Part I: First Things First 9

Chapter 1: Welcome to the Wonderful World of Wort 11

Homebrewers Abound! 11

All the Right Stuff 12

Gathering the equipment you need 12

Tracing the homebrewing timeline 13

Adding ingredients galore! 14

Preparing wisely 15

All done — now what? 16

Chapter 2: Setting up your Beeraphernalia 17

Sniffing Out Sources 18

Square One: Equipment for the Beginning Brewer 19

So much equipment, so little time 19

What do I do with all these gadgets? 20

Square Two: Equipment for the Intermediate Brewer 25

Now what do I need? 25

What do these gizmos even do? 27

Square Three: Equipment for the Advanced Brewer 28

I need even more stuff? 29

What else could I possibly need another doodad for? 30

Chapter 3: Creating your own Department of Sanitation 33

No Dirty Words: Sanitation Lingo 33

Battling Bacteria (and Fungi) 34

Soaps for Suds: Cleansers and Sanitizers 35

Cleaning Up Your Act: Equipment Cleaning Practices 37

Bottle Cleanliness Is a Virtue 38

Part II: It’s in There: The Nuts and Bolts of Beer 41

Chapter 4: Malt: A Tale of Two Sources (Grain and Extract) 43

Going with Grain 43

Malting 44

Mashing 45

Mixing it up with other grains 45

Manipulating grain: Kilning and milling 46

Enjoying the Ease of Extracts 47

Graduating to other malty methods 49

Comparing liquid versus dry malt extract 50

Chapter 5: Hop Heaven 51

Seeing the Hop Flower up Close 52

Hopping with Variety 55

Selecting the Best Hops 57

Freshness is fundamental 57

Bittering potential is important too 58

Taking Note of Top Hops 60

Chapter 6: Yeast and Fermentation 63

There’s a Fungus among Us 63

The Magic of Fermentation 65

It’s cyclical 65

Factoring in fermentation variables 65

Liquid yeast versus dry yeast: A foamenting debate 67

Propagating yeast 69

Yeast energizers and nutrients 71

Considering Alcohol Content 71

ABV versus ABW 71

N/A (nonalcoholic) beer is n/a (not achievable) 72

Chapter 7: On the Water Front 73

H₂OH: Understanding How Water Chemistry Affects Your Homebrew 74

Something Is in the Water 74

pHundamentals of pH balance 75

Antibacterial agents 75

Hard facts, fluid concepts 76

Mineral ions 77

Trace metals 78

Buying Brew-Friendly Bottled Water 78

Chapter 8: Adjuncts and Flavorings 81

Adjuncts: Sugar, Sugar Aw, Honey, Honey 82

Flavoring Your Brew with Flavorings 84

Funky flavorings: The exotic and the esoteric 85

Herbs and spice and everything nice 87

Chapter 9: Making Your Brew Bionic: Additives, Preservatives, Finings, and Clarifiers 91

To Add and Preserve 92

A Little Clarification, Please 93

The Acid Test 96

Part III: Ready, Set, Brew! 97

Chapter 10: Beginner Brewing Directions 99

Gathering the Tools You Need 100

Brewing Your First Batch 101

Taking Hydrometer Readings 104

Brewing day reading 104

Prebottling reading 104

Chapter 11: Intermediate Brewing Directions 107

Taking Control of Your Beer 107

Fooling Around with Ingredients 108

Grain and strain 108

Hop to it 109

Yeasty beasties 110

Conditioning for Better Beer 111

Secondary fermentation 111

Tertiary fermentation 115

Chapter 12: Homebrewing Directions for the Serious Beer Geek 117

Yes, We Have No Potatoes: Mashing Procedures 118

Three important variables 118

Gimme some water: Simplified water treatment for mashing 119

And then there were three: Mashing types 120

The aftermash or mash-out 122

Easing into Mashing with a Partial Mash 124

Going All Out with All-Grain Brewing 128

Increasing Your Batch Size 131

Harvest Time: Reusing Your Yeast 133

Chapter 13: Bottling your Brew 135

Picking Out Bottles 135

Ready, Set, Bottle! 136

Tanks a Lot! Bottling Kegged Beer 142

Carbon-aid: Sharing kegged beer in plastic bottles 142

Counterintelligence: Flowing from keg to bottle for competition 143

A Primer on Priming 144

Getting ready to prime 144

Deciding which and how much primer to use 145

Exploring alternative primers 146

Crowning Achievements 147

Chapter 14: Kegging: Bottling’s Big Brother 149

Roll Out the Barrel: Buying Your Kegging Equipment 149

Getting Your Keg Up and Flowing 151

Clean ’em out and fill ’em up: Sanitizing and racking procedures 151

Making bubbles: Carbonating procedures 154

Enjoying Your Brew: Tapping and Lapping Procedures 156

Part IV: Homebrew Recipes 157

Chapter 15: Ale Recipes 159

Extra Special/Strong Bitter (E.S.B.) (8-c) 160

Irish Red Ale (9-d) 162

Strong Scotch Ale (9-e) 164

American Pale Ale (10-a) 166

American Amber Ale (10-b) 168

American Brown Ale (10-c) 170

Northern English Brown Ale (11-c) 172

Brown Porter (12-a) 174

Robust Porter (12-b) 176

Baltic Porter (12-c) 178

Dry Stout (13-a) 180

Sweet Stout (13-b) 182

Foreign-Style Stout (13-d) 184

Imperial Stout (13-f) 186

English India Pale Ale (IPA) (14-a) 188

American India Pale Ale (IPA) (14-b) 190

Imperial India Pale Ale (IPA) (14-c) 192

White (Wit) (16-a) 194

Belgian Pale Ale (16-b) 196

Dubbel (18-b) 198

Tripel (18-c) 200

Belgian Golden Strong Ale (18-d) 202

Belgian Dark Strong Ale (18-e) 204

Old Ale (19-a) 206

English-Style Barley Wine (19-b) 208

Fun Label Ideas 210

Chapter 16: Lager Recipes 211

American Premium Lager (1-c) 212

Münchner-Style Helles (1-d) 214

Dortmunder/European-Style Export (1-e) 216

Bohemian-Style Pilsener (2-b) 218

Märzen/Oktoberfest (3-b) 220

American Dark Lager (4-a) 222

Munich Dunkel (4-b) 224

German-Style Helles Bock/Maibock (5-a) 226

Traditional Bock (5-b) 228

Doppelbock (5-c) 230

Fun Label Ideas 232

Chapter 17: Mixed-Style Recipes 233

Cream Ale (6-a) 234

Blonde Ale (6-b) 236

American Wheat (6-d) 238

California Common Beer (7-b) 240

Düsseldorfer-Style Altbier (7-c) 242

Weizen/Weissbier (15-a) 244

Dunkelweizen (15-b) 246

Weizenbock (15-c) 248

Fruit Beer (20) 250

Herb, Spice, and Vegetable Beer (21-a) 252

Christmas/Winter/Specialty Spiced Beer (21-b) 254

Smoked Beer (22-b) 256

Wood-Aged Beer (22-c) 258

Specialty Beer (23) 260

Fun Label Ideas 262

Part V: Alternative Brewing 263

Chapter 18: In-Cider Information 265

Exploring the Cider Option 265

Comparing apples to apples 266

Sorting cider styles 267

Making Cider 269

Cider Considerations: Recipes 270

Common Cider (27-a) 270

New England-Style Cider (28-a) 271

Specialty Cider (28-d) 272

Chapter 19: A Meading of the Minds 273

Mulling Over the Mead Option 273

The honey bunch: Appreciating honey 273

The honey-brew list: Mead styles 275

Sweet Success: Making Magnificent Mead 277

Choosing your honey 278

Mead-iocre? Not! Fermenting your Mead 278

I Mead a Drink: Mead Recipes 280

Traditional Mead (24-a) 280

Open Category Mead (26-c) 281

Pyment (grape melomel) (25-b) 282

Chapter 20: Going Green: Being an Eco-Friendly Homebrewer 283

Brewing Green Beer: It’s Not Just for St. Patrick’s Day Anymore 283

Reduce 284

Reuse 285

Recycle 286

Organically Speaking 286

Why use organic ingredients? 287

Tracking the trend 288

Certifiably nuts: Determining what’s really organic 289

Chapter 21: Gluten-Free Brewing 293

Getting to Know Gluten 293

From Intolerant to Tolerable: Brewing Gluten-Free Beer at Home 294

Readying your equipment 294

Substituting safe ingredients 294

Brewing gluten-free beers from all grain 296

Last, but not yeast 297

Part VI: Putting your Brew to the Test 299

Chapter 22: Storing and Pouring 301

Storing Your Suds 301

How do I store it? 302

Where do I store it? 302

How long do I store it? 303

Pouring Procedures 303

Out of the bottle. 303

. . . and into the glass 304

Dirty Deeds: Cleaning Beer Glassware 307

Storing Your Steins 308

Chapter 23: You can’t Judge a Bock by its Cover: Evaluating Beer 309

Tuning In to Your Beer 309

Evaluating One Sense at a Time 310

The nose knows 311

Seeing is beer-lieving 313

In good taste 314

From Observations to Reflections 317

Relaying the Results: Homebrew Lingo, Jargon, and Vernacular 317

Chapter 24: Troubleshooting 319

Fermentation Lamentations 319

No fermentation 320

Stuck fermentation 321

Never-ending fermentation 321

In Bad Taste: Off Flavors and Aromas 322

Butter/butterscotch flavors 322

Sour/tart flavors 323

Medicinal/plastic/smoky flavors 323

Papery/cardboard/sherry-like flavors (oxidation) 324

Dry/puckering mouthfeel (astringency) 324

Harshness/hotness 325

Metallic flavor 325

Skunk aroma 325

Sulfury odors 326

Vegetal flavors and aromas 326

Flavor and Aroma Therapy Quick References 326

Conditioning and Appearance Problems 329

Flat out of gas 330

Thar she blows! Overcarbonated beers 330

In a haze: Cloudy beers 331

Poor head, bad body 331

Chapter 25: Homebrew Competitions 333

What’s Involved in Homebrewing Competitions? 334

How are the entries judged? 334

How do I enter a homebrew competition, and what are the rules? 336

How do I send my beer? 337

Becoming a Barrister of Beer 337

What it takes to become a beer judge 337

Advancing to supreme quart justice 339

Part VII: The Part of Tens 341

Chapter 26: Ten (or so) Ways to D.I.G.I.B.I.Y. (Do It, Grow It, Build It Yourself) 343

Banking Yeast 343

Preparing to open your own bank 344

Creating yeast 344

Handling Grain 345

Roast-a-rama 345

Smoke ’em if you got ’em 346

Di-vine Intervention: Growing Hops 346

Here we grow! 347

Pick a hop, any hop 347

Drying and storing your hops 348

Building Brewing Equipment 348

Chillin’ out: Immersion wort chillers 348

Tuns of fun: Lauter tun 349

Pot o’ plenty: Large-volume brewpot 351

Cold feat: Lagering cellar 351

Chapter 27: Ten Gizmos That Can Make Your Brewing Easier 353

Digital Thermometer and pH Meter 353

Wort Aeration System 354

Auto Siphon 354

Counterpressure Bottle Filler 354

Beer Filter 354

Germicidal Lamp 355

Wort Transfer Pump 355

Refractometer 355

Mashing Sparge Arm 355

Counterflow Wort Chiller 356

Chapter 28: Just the FAQs: Ten (or so) Frequently Asked Questions 357

How Much Is Taking Up Homebrewing Going to Cost? 357

How Much Does the Average Batch of Beer Cost? 358

Where Can I Buy Homebrewing Supplies? 358

How Long Does Making a Batch of Homebrew Take? 358

Is Homebrewed Beer Better Than Commercially Made Beer? 359

How Do You Carbonate Homebrew? 359

How Do I Add Alcohol to Homebrew? 359

Can I Distill Homebrew into Whiskey? 359

Can I Sell Homebrew? 360

Why Shouldn’t I Age Beer in the Plastic Primary Fermenter? 360

Do I Have to Worry About Things Blowing Up in My House? 360

Appendix: Ingredients: The Building Blocks of Beer 361

Malt: Grainy Names and Extract Excerpts 361

Producers of grains 362

Types of grains 363

Malt extract brands 369

Top Hops: Hop Varieties and Descriptions 370

Yeast: Dry and Liquid 379

Liquid top-fermenting yeast (Ales) 380

Liquid bottom-fermenting yeast (Lagers) 382

Advanced liquid yeast (Ales) 384

Liquid top-fermenting yeast (Ales) 386

Specialty/Belgian yeast 388

Bottom-fermenting yeast (Lagers) 390

Suggested strains for specific beer styles 391

Mead and cider yeast 393

Index 395