Making beer.

Yesterday I made a batch of beer, and I thought "maybe I should do a little 'how to' blog" so here it goes. There are a few different types of home brewing; All grain, partial mash, and extract. Extract brewing is the most basic, all grain is the more time consuming and more difficult, and partial mash is an amalgam of the two.
I'm making an extract beer so my ingredients are; malt extract, grain (malted barly that has been roasted to different degrees of color and flavor), hops, yeast, and water.

First I weigh the grain, this recipe calls three types of grain.

Second, I steep the grain in the water for about 20 minutes. The water should not be boiling but should be about 170 F, usually I steep the grain as the water is getting hot, it takes a long time to boil 6 1/2 gallons of water. After removing the grain bring the water to a boil.

Step three, when the water is boiling I add and stir in the malt extract. Always turn off, or reduce the heat when adding the extract. It will sink to the bottom and burn. Return to a boil.

Step four, add the hops. These are the bittering hops, they are added to give that distinct hop flavor and as a preservative. Sometimes I will add the hops at three different intervals for different flavor characteristics.

Step five, boil and wait. Boil for 60 minutes (a good rolling boil) watch out for boil overs. At the end of the boil I add a small amount of hops, these are the aromatic hops. At this point its called wort (pronounced like word but with a 'T') it should be cooled as quickly as possible, either with a wort chiller ( a copper coil immersed in the wort, with cold water running through it) or by transferring the wort to a sanitized bucket and immersing the bucket in ice.

Transfer a small amount of wort to a beaker and measure it for sugar content (specific gravity).

Add the yeast and an airlock (lets CO2 out but won' let anything in) and place somewhere the temperature wont fluctuate too much. Wait... I like to rack the beer after about a week (move from one container to another) because it helps to clarify the beer. Wait about another week, then bottle or keg the beer (it's beer now). If I bottle it, it will be ready in about 2 weeks. If I keg it, it's ready in a few days.

Well,I know this was a long blog and I probably won't get many comments but I thought some people might be interested in how to homebrew. If you are interested in homebrewing, check out www.morebeer.com

I'll let you know how this batch turns out.