Making your own beer is easy, inexpensive, and most of all, fun. The beer is made from 4 basic ingredients: water, malt (malted barley), hops, and yeast. Use filtered water instead of
plain tap water and ensure better taste. Don't use distilled water because it has been depleted of its oxygen. Malted barley is barley grain that has been carefully soaked in water until it sprouts and then dried, and this malting process develops the necessary sugars and soluble starches needed for fermentation. The malt is taken through a process called mashing which extracts the sugars and starches from the grain. You can accomplish this at home, although most advanced home brewers will buy the malted barley already mashed in a product called malt extract. Hops are green flowers that grow on a vine and look similar to pine cones, and they perform several roles in the beer making process, most notably to impart taste and aroma. Yeast is a living organism that feeds on the sugars in the malt, and it converts the sugars to alcohol and carbon dioxide in a process called fermentation. A specially cultured beer yeast is required in order to get the results needed for making beer.
Boil the
malt, hops, and water for a period of time. This mixture is called wort (pronounced wert), which is then poured into fermenter and allowed to cool. Pitch the prepared yeast into the fermenter and an airlock is placed over the opening. The yeast will multiply like crazy as it consumes the sugars in the brew, and usually within 7 to 10 days, the yeast will have consumed all that it can and fall to the bottom of the fermenter. Then the beer is bottled and set aside for a couple of weeks to mature and carbonate until it is ready to be served.
