How To Make Beer from an Ingredient Kit
Posted by Courtney Schatz on Jan 12th 2022
How To Make Beer
There are four basic steps to making beer from an ingredient kit. These steps are preparation, brewing, fermentation, and bottling. All our ingredient kits come with a set of detailed instructions on how to make the beer, but here is a brief run down of how to make beer from a kit.
Step 1: Preparation
Get all of your equipment and ingredients ready. Here are the items you will need:
-Brew Pot
-Cleaner & Sanitizer
-Fermenter
-Airlock
-Stirring Spoon
-Scissors
- Beer Ingredient Kit
Make sure you have read through the included instructions & checked to see that you have all of the contents that are listed in your ingredient kit.
Clean & sanitize all the equipment that will come into contact with your brew. Our recommended cleaner is PBW & sanitizer is Star San.
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Check Out Our Beer Starter Kits
Step 2: Brewing
Fill your brew pot with water & heat.
Steep your grains, then remove grain bag from liquid.
Bring your brew pot to a boil & add your malt extracts, and at specific times according to the instructions, any hop additions or other adjuncts such as fruits, spices, or herbs.
When the boil is done, the liquid is now called wort. Cool your wort down using ice or a wort chiller.
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Step 3: Fermentation
Transfer your wort into your sanitized fermenter.
Seal with a drilled bung and airlock & store in a temperature stable environment.
For most ales this should be in an area around 68 degrees so as to keep the yeast alive and doing it's job of fermenting properly.
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Step 4: Bottling
After your beer has fermented, which usually takes around two weeks, it's bottling day.
If you are new to brewing, you will likely be using bottles to carbonate your beverage.
You can also keg your beverage, but that takes more equipment, so this article will just focus on the bottling process.
Make sure to clean and sanitize all of your equipment & bottles.
Boil your priming sugar in water and let it cool before adding it to your bottling bucket.
Siphon the beer into your bottling bucket using an auto-siphon. Use the auto-siphon and tubing attached to a combination bottle filler to fill your bottles.
Cap your bottles using kit provided crown caps and a capper. Store your bottles in a stable room temperature area for around two weeks, during which time the beer will carbonate. After two weeks, refrigerate your beer.
You did it! Kick back, relax, and pour yourself your very own homebrew.
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If you'd like to see an example of a full brew day, you can watch this video.