Homemade Beer Recipe – How to Make Beer at Home

Congratulations! You have decided to learn how to make beer at home. Now, you will be engaged in this rewarding task for a few days. Though there is no reason to be scared of preparing homemade beer, you will experience something new and exciting whose end result will definitely be appreciated.

Whether you are fermented a beer for the first time or you have tried it before, but for having a perfect glass of water, you must be familiar with some fundamentals and must have some essential equipment that is mentioned further in the post. You are going to make your own beer to enjoy something that will give you a delicious bonus.

For a homemade beer recipe, you just need four traditional ingredients, such as water, malt syrup, hops and yeast, and some materials that are covered in another section. When it comes to yeast, you must know that bread yeast won’t work in beer brewing. You need to use either ale or lager yeast. You can choose the yeast-based on what end result you want. Lager yeast is light, crisp, and golden and if you want a darker and more alcoholic beer, use ale yeast.

Are you ready to brew? Are you ready to try this homemade beer recipe? Are you looking for the easy to follow and understandable steps for how to make beer at home? 

Homemade Beer Recipe

Let’s start and have fun brewing beer.

Ingredients:

• 1 and a half gallons of water
• 6 pounds of pre-hopped malt syrup
• 1 ounce of hop pellets
• Ice to pour into a water bath
• 3 gallons of cold water
• 7-8 grams of ale yeast
• 1 cup of warm water
• 4 ounces of dry corn syrup
• 4 ounces of iodine solution
• 1 tablespoon of bleach
• 1 bottle of household bleach or an iodine solution to sanitize all equipment or materials (To make a bleach disinfecting solution, add one tablespoon of bleach into one gallon of water)

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Materials Required for Brewing a Beer

The equipment or materials can be found in the restaurant supply stores or home brewing stores.

Large boiling pot – This pot must be either of stainless steel or ceramic-coated steel. Make sure to get a large pot that can easily hold 3 gallons of water.

Carboy – It must be of 5-gallon capacity and made of glass for brewing a beer.

Funnel – It must be of large size so that you can easily transfer the wort into the carboy.

Plastic bucket with lid – It must hold at least 5-6 gallons and can be found cheap or even free at many restaurants.

Siphon hose – It is a plastic tube that must be of 6-feet and will be quite helpful in transferring beer from the carboy to the plastic bucket and then into the bottles.

Racking cane – This hard plastic tube will be used to connect with the siphon hose to transfer the beer from one container to another.

Fermentation lock – It will help in sealing the beer containers to prevent them from outside contamination. Make sure to get the one that fits perfectly in the lid of your carboy.

One spoon with a long handle – It will help in stirring the mixture without getting burned.

Bottles – They must be of a sealable type like beer bottles or champagne bottles.

Bottle capper – it will be used to secure the caps onto bottles and you can get bottle cappers of any style.

Bottle caps – They will be used to cap your bottles.

Household bleach/iodine solution – It will be used to sanitize all the equipment.

Thermometer – It must be of a range from 40 degrees F to 150 degrees F. it would be good to use a stainless steel dial thermometer.

How to Make Beer at Home

Part 1

In the first part, you will make and cool the wort.

• Take a pot, spoon, and fermenter and sanitize the equipment using the sanitizing solution. After this, rinse them in boiling water.

• Now, boil at least one and a half gallons of water in a pot. Once it starts boiling, remove the pot from the heat and add malt syrup into it and stir until it dissolves completely. Make sure that there should be no residue left anywhere inside the pot.

• Again, put the pot to the heat and boil the mixture for about 50-55 minutes and stir it frequently. Don’t let the mixture boil over.

• After this, add hop pellets in the mixture and it will create a form on the mixture. Make sure to lower the heat as adding hops may cause a boil-over and let it cook for another 15-20 minutes.

• In the meanwhile, take a small bowl and add one packet of yeast in one cup of warm water. Stir them properly and cover it for 10-15 minutes. Check if yeast is forming a foam and if this does not occur, you have to throw away this yeast solution and again make another one.

• Now, it’s time to prepare an ice-cold water bath in a large tub so that you can cool the wort quickly. Once the wort is cooked, keep the wort pot in the water bath. Stir it frequently to cool the wort. If you feel that the water bath is getting warm, you can add more ice to maintain the cooling of the water bath. The cooling process of wort will take around 20 minutes; it must be approximately 80 degrees F.

Part 2

In the second part, you will ferment the wort.

• Take a sanitized carboy and add 3 gallons of cold water and pour it into the pot with warm wort with the help of a funnel. Now, add the yeast solution into the carboy. Cover the mouth of the carboy with a plastic wrap and then with a lid. Hold the carboy tightly with hands and shake it properly to mix the yeast into the solution. Now, remove the plastic wrap and secure it with a fermentation lock.

• Now, you need to keep the carboy at a place away from the direct sunlight. It must be stored at a place where you can easily clean or drain the foam that may form into the carboy. The best place is the bathtub for this fermenter only if the room has no windows. Make sure to check the temperature of the room where you have placed the fermenter. The fermentation process will be started within 24 hours. The best sign of this is the foam production and air bubbles inside the fermentation lock.

• When the fermentation starts, the air bubbles will increase with the passing of days. You have to keep the beer to fermentation for around 14 days. In the meantime, if the fermentation lock pops out of the fermenter, make sure to sanitize it again before placing it back into the fermenter.

Part3

In the third part, you will learn the steps to pour the beer into the bottles.

• For this part, first of all, you have to sanitize all the bottles by keeping them in the sanitizing solution for at least 1 hour. After this, rinse all the bottles in the boiling water. Along with these bottles, also sanitize a cooking pot, plastic bottling bucket, siphon hose and racking cane. For bottle caps, you have to follow the sanitizing instructions come with the caps and let them air dry.

• Now, take a cooking pot and add corn syrup and one cup of water in it and boil the mixture for 10 minutes. Once it is done, transfer this mixture into the bucket. But, make sure that you should not add too much corn syrup into the bucket. Because it can over-carbonate the beer and your bottles may explode.

• Now, keep the fermenter onto the counter of the kitchen and the bucket on the ground just below the fermenter.

• Now, connect the racking cane to the siphon hose. Fill the tap water in the siphon hose and tweak both ends of it to stop the water from running out of the siphon. Keep one end into the iodine solution and another end into an empty bowl. When you see that solution starts running into the siphon hose and all the water has been dispersed into the bowl, again tweak both ends and allow the iodine solution to rest in the siphon for around 5-7 minutes. It will sanitize the siphon again.

• Next, put one end of the siphon hose into the fermenter and another end into the bowl. Once you find that beer starts running through the siphon, immediately transfer another end into the plastic bottling bucket. You can maintain the speed by tweaking and releasing the siphon using your fingers to prevent the beer from splashing.

• When the whole beer is transferred into the bottling bucket, cover it and let the sediments sit at the bottom of the bottling bucket, it will take approximately 30 minutes.

• Now, pour the beer into the bottles from the bottling bucket using the siphon hose. When all bottles are filled, cap them all with the bottle capper. Make sure to check all bottles have been capped securely.

Final Words

Yes, you made beer. So, keep these bottles in the refrigerator and enjoy a chilled beer with your friends and family. This homemade beer recipe will definitely turn out to be the best experience you ever had. It’s really tasty homebrewing.