How do you make beer at home?

Answer 1

Beer and wine kits are available at many supermarkets and home brew stores as well as the bottles, caps and equipment to complete the job. Some home brew stores allow you to make up the kits on premises so you can keep the mess at their place and check your brew periodically while others just sell the kits and equipment to use at home. Check your yellow pages for a place near you.

Answer 2

I recommend you brew it at a micro-brewery that offers a service for you to brew and bottle at their location. When its done, you take the bottles home. Reason? The smell is overwhelming in your own home!

Answer 3

i can buy beer for less than it cost to make it and it taste better.

Answer 4

There are micro brewery kits you can purchase on line or in stores.

Answer 5

http://www.2basnob.com/making-beer.html

Answer 6

this is what i found....
Equipment Mixing Spoon
6-8 Quart Sauce Pan
Kitchen Funnel
Measuring spoons
Measuring Cup
2-3 gallon Pail
Unscented Bleach
A clean one gallon plastic milk jug
8-16 oz. PET Beer bottles

Ingredients 1 Cup White Table Sugar
1-1/2 Cup Dark Brown Sugar
2 tablespoons Malto Dextrin
1 tablespoon Root Beer Extract
1/4 teaspoon Champagne Yeast
1 Gallon of Cold Water


Clean all equipment with soap and water. Rinse very well.
Prepare a sanitizing solution in a clean utility pail by mixing 2 teaspoons of unscented bleach with 2 gallons of cold water. Soak all equipment including bottles and caps in this solution for at least 10 minutes. Remove your equipment and rinse it well with hot water.
Fill a one gallon container with cold water. Now remove 1 cup of water from the jug and discard it. All of the water required for the recipe is now in the gallon container. Measuring the water in this way will save time and prevent you from adding to much or to little water later.
Place 4 cups of water from the container into a sauce pan and begin to heat it. It is not necessary to bring the water to a boil. Heating this small amount of water will help dissolve the sugars and will make a better soft drink.
Add the white sugar, brown sugar and malto dextrin to the sauce pan and stir until the sugars are completely dissolved. Once the sugar is dissolved turn off the heat.
Add 1 tablespoon of Root Beer Extract to the sauce pan and stir it in.
Add the remaining water to the sauce pan and stir well. Check the temperature of the mixture by carefully touching the outside of the pan. It should be cool to slightly warm. It may be necessary to allow the pan to sit covered for a short time in order to cool.
Open the packet of champagne yeast by cutting off a corner. Measure out 1/4 teaspoon of yeast and add it to the sauce pan. Close the yeast packet by folding over the open corner and sealing it with tape. Store the remaining yeast in the refrigerator for the next batch.
Stir the sauce pan until the yeast is completely dissolved. You are now ready to bottle your root beer.

Bottling the Root Beer
Use a kitchen funnel to fill each of the E.Z-Cap bottles first. Pour the root beer into the bottles so that there is about 1-1/4 inch of air space left in the neck of the bottle. Leaving to little air space will cause the root beer to remain flat. Leaving to much air space will cause the root beer to over carbonate and may cause the bottles to gush when opened or even explode. Fill the used plastic soda bottle in the same manner. Seal the bottles tightly and store them for at least 2 weeks at room temperature. This will allow the yeast to eat some of the sugar and carbonate the soft drink. You can check the carbonation by squeezing the plastic soda bottle. When it is hard, the soda is done and must be refrigerated. Allow the bottles to chill for at least 1 week prior to serving. The root beer will improve in flavor with time but it must be stored in the refrigerator.
Notes About Natural Carbonation
The yeast used to carbonate your soft drinks will feed on sugars in the drink and produce carbon dioxide gas and a very small amount of alcohol. You should not be concerned about this alcohol production. There is more natural alcohol in fresh squeezed orange juice than that produced in your soft drink.
If your soft drink becomes over carbonated you can burp the bottles by carefully opening the lid and letting the gas escape. Put the lid back on and place the bottle in the refrigerator. The cold will stop further gas production. You may need to reduce the amount of yeast used in your next batch.
If your soft drink is not carbonated within 2 weeks of bottling you may have added the yeast while the soft drink was to hot. You can open each bottle and carefully add 3 or 4 grains of yeast. Close the bottle and leave them at room temperature for 1 more week. You may need to add more yeast in your next batch but never add more than 1/4 teaspoon of yeast regardless of the size of the batch being made.
You will notice that when a fully carbonates bottle is cooled in the refrigerator, the amount of carbonation is reduced. This is caused by the fact that the colder a liquid is, the more gas it can hold in suspension. Be sure that your plastic test bottle is very, very hard before refrigerating.
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Obtain a 3 gallon container in which to conduct the primary fermentation. It should be constructed of a material that will not leech out toxic chemicals in the presence of alcohol. It should have a lid to keep bugs from getting in but which will allow carbon dioxide gas to escape. I use a plastic garbage can with a faucet at the bottom and a lid with an airlock at the top (available from beer supply stores).

Pour in about 1.5 lb of hop-flavoured malt extract (most economically obtained at grocery stores). For strong beer, add about 6 cups of sugar. Optionally, add about 2 tsp of fruit acid (if you are making a low alcohol beer, the acid helps retard spoilage - which should not be necessary if you drink it all up as fast as I do). Any fruit acid will do; I have used citric, which is cheap. Lemon juice could be used. Do not use ascorbic acid, it will retard the fermentation. A tsp of di-ammonium-phosphate (yeast nutrient, fertilizer) will speed the fermentation, especially in high-alcohol beers, but is not necessary.

Now, add water, 60-90 degrees Fahrenheit, up to a few inches below the top of your container. Do not fill it too full, or the fermenting mess will come out. Stir it all up thoroughly. If you have a beer hydrometer, (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) check the specific gravity. It should be about 1.06, corrected for temperature. I suggest you buy a floating thermometer so you can correct for temperature. A beer hydrometer will also tell you what the alcohol content will be in the finished brew. The more sugar, the denser the liquid will be now (higher specific gravity) and the more alcohol the yeast will make. Six cups of sugar will give you about 7% alcohol (most commercial beer in the US is about 3.5%). Do not go above 9 or 10%, or you will kill the yeast and end up with a sweet, uncarbonated beverage. Also, do not drink 7% beer like 3.5% beer and don't drive after drinking a pint or more! If using a hydrometer, it is best to start out with less sugar than you think you will need and then adjust the specific gravity by adding more.

Now you are ready to add the yeast. I use dry yeast, available in beermaking supply stores. You could use bread yeast, but I don't recommend it. It gives the beer a yeasty taste and does not stand up to high alcohol contents. If you can't wait to get beer yeast, wild yeast (bound to be there unless you used sterilized ingredients) may do for low alcohol beer. If you have already made beer before, the sediment from the bottom of a freshly opened bottle contains enough yeast to start your new batch. Add the yeast, put the top on the container, place in a warm place (70-90 degrees F), and wait a week or two.

If you have a hydrometer, you may want to monitor the specific gravity. When it drops to 1.005, it is ready to bottle. I let the beer go to draught, when the fermentation (bubbling) stops entirely - no sugar left. At that point, the specific gravity will be a bit below 1.000 (alcohol being less dense than water). I "rack" the beer at this point, that is, siphon (or use faucet) it off of the inch or so of yuck at the bottom of the container. I rack it into a second 3 gallon container with faucet.

At this point, you need to add more sugar for the secondary fermentation, which carbonates the beer (and raises the alcohol content yet more). I use about 10 tbsp sugar. Start with less and check the gravity. You want the gravity to be 1.005. Be sure to correct the gravity for temperature (instructions with the hydrometer will tell you how). DO NOT allow the gravity to exceed 1.005! If there is too much sugar, your bottled beer will EXPLODE, which could be FATAL (I'm not kidding - I've seen exploding bottles drive pieces of glass through wooden cabinets!). Now, bottle the beer (use siphon or faucet). Do not use disposable bottles, they can't stand the pressure and are dangerous. I use one pint returnable soft drink bottles which I collected while they were still in common use. You can buy similar bottles from stores that sell beer making supplies. You need bottle caps and a capper. Alternatively, use the European beer bottles which have reusable caps and don't require a capper. Keep the beer at 70-90 degrees F. in a safe place for a week or so. Then put one bottle in the refrigerator. When cold, give it a try to see if it is adequately carbonated yet. If not, let the rest of the beer ferment in the bottles a few days longer. It yes, move it all into the refrigerator (I got a second refrigerator to hold all of my beer).

When you pour the beer out of the bottle (don't drink from the bottle), do it in one continuous movement. Watch the crud (spent yeast, cream of tartar) at the bottom of the bottle and stop pouring before it comes out. While there are lots of B vitamins in this crud, it looks nasty, does not taste good, and is a mild laxative (generates flatus too). This crud is not in commercial US beer because they artificially carbonate their beer. They also add all sorts of chemicals - detergent to make a head, for example. By the way, soft drinks can still legally contain 0.5 % alcohol, because that is the amount produced during a natural carbonation fermentation, as used to be done by the industry.

Cheap folks who refuse to buy a beer hydrometer can use this alternative method: Put the draught beer (no sugar left, fermentation completely stopped) into bottles and add sugar to the bottles. Use 0.5 to 1 tsp per bottle (12 to 16 oz), or use 0.5 tbsp of a 50% sugar solution (one cup sugar in one cup water). I do not recommend this method, given the great danger of explosion, great frustration of an undercarbonated batch, and cheap price (about $4 and up) of a hydrometer.

Keep your bottles, containers, etc. clean to avoid microorganisms that cause spoilage (you don't want 3 gal. of malt vinegar, do you?). Some folks routinely sterilize equipment with boiling water or chemicals, but I find that unnecessary except after having had a spoilage problem.

There are various laws regulating homemade beer production. An adult can make 100 gal. (200 per household) a year under federal law. I used to register as a wine producer with the Dept. of Firearms, Tobacco, & Alcohol, but I don't bother anymore, the law may not even require that any more. N. C. State law is fuzzy (says you must use native N. C. fruits). In any case, if you keep it at home, don't sell it, and don't give it away to narcs (alchs?, revenuers), you should not get in any trouble.

Supplies (including kits for beginners) are available by mail from E. C. Kraus, P. O. Box 7850, Independence, MO 64053 and from other places. I have no connection with this firm, but I have been so pleased with their products, prices, and service that I buy all of my supplies from them, excepting things I can get cheaply locally.

This has been a brief introduction to home brewing. Once you are into it, you may want to modify the recipe and try fancier methods. Think of the money you will save and the chemical-free delicious beer you will have.

You may wonder what a statistician is doing brewing beer. Well, modern statistics got its start in German astronomy, American agriculture, and European beer brewing. Famous statistician Gosset used the pen name "Student" because his employer, Guiness Brewery, didn't want competitors to know what statistics they were using to fine-tune their brewing process. Another explanation involves a more personal bit of history. I attended the University of Salzburg in Austria one summer, and having spent more time in the beer halls than in the lecture halls, I acquired a taste for strong, dark beer. As a poor graduate student in the southern and then the midwestern U. S. I could not afford to buy such beer, so I learned to make it myself. In fact, most of the ingredients could be bought with food stamps at grocery stores! I can better afford to buy such beer now, but I still make several batches a year.

GOOD LUCK!!!!