Brewing Process

We have a common language, equipment, recipe, and materials. Now what? I am explaining the beer brewing process without any dependency on a beer type or equipment.
You can use the same equipment to brew any beer (just do not forget to clean and sanitize it before and after each brew day, ok, at least clean it after).
Still, you must adjust the recipe according to your equipment (batch size, type of beer brewing).

  • Grinding the malt

    When buying the malt (according to the recipe), we need to allow the water more accessible access to the content of the grains. We do that by grinding the malt. Most shops will give you the option to either grind it yourself (you will need a grinder for that) or get it to grind and ready. If you have a grinder and plan to brew after a while (month plus), keep the shop from grinding it for you, as the malt will start losing its content and quality. You want it as fresh as possible.

  • Step 1 - Sugar extraction (Saccharification)

    We put the malt in water and boil them. The malt will extract the sugar within it to the water (creating what we will call wort). The wort is a vibrant liquid (with natural) color. I love drinking it as is.

  • Step 2 - Pitching hops

    During the second boil of the wort, we will introduce the hops to the wort, extracting the natural preserving quality of the hops and oils of smell and bitterness. I mentioned before that we might have two steps of pitching hops depending on the recipe and what we want to get from the hops.

  • Step 3 - cooling down

    This a very critical step as the wort is cooling down. It is a great food source for unwanted micro-organisms, so we want to cool it down as fast as we can and, if possible, seal it to air completely. There are several ways to achieve it, and I am talking about them in the Q&A section.

  • Step 4 - adding yeasts

    The wort is cold down to pitching the yeasts (each strain has its best pitching temps). We will move the wort to a fermentation container (cleaned and sterile) and add the yeasts at the right temperature for the yeast.

  • Step 5 - First Fermentation

    Now we leave the yeasts to do their part and convert the sugar in the wort into alcohol and CO2. Depending on the beer type, environment, and equipment, the waiting period can be between a few days to a few months.

  • Step 6 - Dry hopping

    This step is not a must, and most recipes I did, did not include it. At this step, we add hops at the end to utilize the smell of the hops in the beer.

  • Step 7 - Bottling/kegging

    Now is the time to pack and chill the beer before enjoying it. There are two main ways: Bottles and Kegs. Bottles: Before filling the bottle, we usually add corn sugar (or any other form of sugar) to start a secondary fermentation in the bottle (unless the beer was filtered or sterilized). The secondary fermentation will add CO2 and a richer head to the beer. Kegs: Kegging is another way to pack the beer; the idea is the same. Add more CO2 and head to the beer, but we will not add sugar (in most cases) but use different methods (pack the green beer with pressurized CO2).

  • Step 8 - Second Fermentation

    This step is done in bottles. We let the beer age (first aging) and let the refreshed yeasts clean up and create the CO2 in the beer; this step also ensures we will have the wanted head for this type of beer.

  • Step 9 - The most important one!

    We cool the beer down and enjoy our own home brew beer.

    Cheers! Prost! Skul!

Brewing Methods

When discussing home brewing, we usually split it into two main methods: Extract, Full Grain. The difference (mostly) is the equipment, what we use, and how much control we have over the final beer (look, taste, smell). Each way has its pluses and minuses, but I won't go in there as it will need a section of its own (maybe one day I will add it, depending on the reader's demands and requests).

Extract

The easiest and fastest way to start, and most home brewers start with that method. Think of it like making a sweet drink. You take the extract, add water, and are done, ready to drink (almost as you can see above). No special equipment is needed, and no special investment. Some equipment does require, but it is cheap to buy.

All Grain

Once again, we have two sub-method (if we can call it that way). Here we make our extract. Another thing is that specialized equipment is needed, but we gain more control over how the beer looks, tastes, and smells.
BIAB - Brew In A Bag
Using this sub-method, we do all the brewing in the same pot. It saves space (mostly) and time (as you only have one or two pots/containers to clean and sanitize).
Mash Tun
Using this sub-method, we have a pot or container for each step: 1 for boiling, 1 for the extract (mash tun), and 1 for fermentation.