How to Make Your Own Beer

Brewing your own beer at home is easy, inexpensive, fun, and will most likely produce a brew far superior to that watery canned stuff you’re probably used to. You'll also score serious points with your friends (or fellow beer buddies) if you turn into the kind of guy or gal who shows up at the party with a custom 6-pack to share! We'll lay out the basic steps to get started, and show you how you can grow your skills and expand the varieties of beer you produce.

How to Make Beer

Clean, sanitize, and then clean and sanitize again. It’s impossible to understate how important clean materials and surfaces are.
Homebrewing requires a kettle, fermenter, funnel, and siphon. Boil water in the kettle, soak your grains, add your malt, and transfer the liquid to your fermenter.
It’s essential that you ferment your beer in total and utter darkness for at least 2 weeks. Sunlight will destroy brews as they ferment.

Part 1

Part 1 of 4:

Prep

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1
Acquire the tools and containers you need to homebrew. You may have some of this stuff lying around, but the odds are good you’ll need to pick up a few of these things.^{[1]
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Research source} You’ll need:
- Brewing kettle (you can use a 5 US gal (19 L) stainless steel pot if you have one, but it must be on the newer side)
- Fermenter & airlock
- Funnel (any funnel is fine, but it has to be big enough to fit in the opening of the fermenter)
- Auto-siphon
- Digital thermometer
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Purchase the ingredients you need for your beer recipe. It’s best to follow a specific recipe if you’re new to homebrewing. You can either purchase a homebrewing kit or buy the ingredients you need separately.^{[2]
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Research source} You need:
- Grains (you can use a combination of different grains if you’d like to make a custom brew)
- Malt (you can buy dry or liquid malt—we recommend the liquid stuff since it’s easier to measure and work with)
- Hops (these will be optional depending on the recipe you’re following)
- Yeast (buy yeast for the style of beer you’re trying to make)
- DME or priming sugar (these help preserve the beer after bottling)
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Sanitize everything, then sanitize it again (and again). Every experienced brewer will tell you, the secret of success is cleanliness. Thoroughly clean and sanitize everything that is going to come in contact with your beer. The easiest way to do that is to use an electric dishwasher set at the high heat setting or use a powdered cleanser such as PBW (Powdered Brewery Wash).^{[3]
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- Do not use a scrubber that will scratch the surface of whatever you're scrubbing—pathogens love to grow in the grooves left behind, and they're almost impossible to sanitize. Rinse well, then soak briefly in a bleach or iodine solution.
- Pro tip on sanitization: Think you might have brushed against a sanitized surface? Clean it again. Worried about dust? Clean it again. When in doubt, clean it again.
- Why is cleaning so important? Even a single speck of contamination will, at best, destroy the flavor of your beer. Some contamination can also prevent fermentation from taking place. At worst, contaminated beer can make you sick.
- Rinse everything off after thoroughly to keep cleaning solutions and trace chemicals out of your brew. Use very clean potable water, distilled water, or bottled water.^{[4]
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Part 2

Part 2 of 4:

Brewing

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1
Fill your brewing kettle with 5 gallons (19 L) of water. Heat the water to 150 °F (66 °C) over high heat. Check the water temperature with a thermometer periodically until you reach the temperature you need.
- Take notes as you work to learn and improve over time! It’s fun to experiment with each brew, but tracking everything you do will make it a lot easier to reproduce any recipes you’re especially fond of.
2
Steep your grains in the water for at least 30 minutes. Put any specialty grains into a grain bag (a mesh bag to contain the grains—like a tea bag, only a lot bigger) and steep them in the large stock pot in 5 gallons (19 liters) of hot water (150 °F (66 °C)) for about 30 minutes.^{[5]
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- Remove the grains and allow the water to drip out of the grain bag, into the pot. Do not squeeze the bag! Squeezing will extract tannins from the grains and give your beer a gnarly, astringent flavor.
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Add the malt extract and bring everything to a boil. Pour your malt into the grainy water. Use a sterilized slotted spoon to gently whisk the liquid as it heats until the consistency and color is uniform and even.^{[6]
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- Consider dry hopping your beer if you are looking for a brighter and less bitter flavor.^{[7]
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4
Let the liquid boil for an hour and add any optional grains or hops. Continue to let the malted grain water boil for at least 1 hour. Then, add any additional ingredients or hops to add flavor, bitterness, or aroma. The times will be spelled out for you in the kit's instructions for your style of beer.^{[8]
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- You know how craft brews will say things like, “Brewed with sea salt, coriander, and lime!” on the label? This is the point where they’re adding those ingredients. You have basically an infinite amount of choice here when it comes to additional flavors or ingredients, so follow your heart.
- In general, hops added early in the boil will contribute more bitterness, but at the expense of flavor and aroma. Hops added at the end of the boil will have a more pronounced flavor and aroma, but will not contribute significantly to the bitterness of the beer.
5
Chill the liquid (now called wort) until it’s 80 °F (27 °C). After you have boiled the grainy, malted liquid (called wort—pronounced wərt), cool it. The easiest way is to put the whole pot in a sink or bathtub that is filled with ice water. Set your pot in the water and wait.^{[9]
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- A note on wort: This is probably the most sensitive point in the homebrew. Don’t let anything get into the wort, make sure you monitor the wort carefully and don’t let it over-cool as you work. Minor missteps here can make your beer taste…questionable.

Part 3

Part 3 of 4:

Fermenting

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Pour the cooled wort into your fermenter with a funnel. After the wort has cooled to 80 °F (27 °C), put a funnel in your brewing kettle and transfer the wort. Work slowly to ensure you don’t accidentally spill any of that delicious grain water.
- Top it off if you need to! Most recipes call for a specific amount of wort (usually 5 gallons (19 L)). If you’re not close to the 5 gal. mark though, add some water. It won’t hurt your beer’s flavor.
- Want to test the ABV? If you have a hydrometer, check the specific gravity of the liquid n the fermenter. An ABV around 1.045-1.05 indicates a 5% ABV.
2
Open the yeast with sterilized scissors and add it to the fermenter. Remember, sterilize and sterilize again! With pristine scissors, open the yeast packet. With a (very sterilized and clean!) funnel, add your yeast to the fermenter.^{[10]
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- Read your yeast packet! Some yeasts need to be "bloomed" (stirred with warm water to activate it). Some yeast packets need to be smacked to release a water balloon and bloom it in the packet.
3
Gently shake the fermenter and seal the lid. Yeast needs oxygen, so lightly splashing the wort as you pour it into the fermenter will help it grow. Once fermentation has started, you want to minimize exposure to air, as it will lead to off flavors and aromas. Put the airtight stopper on the mouth of the fermenter and secure it.^{[11]
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- Optional step on filtering: Using a large strainer (usually cheapest at restaurant supply stores), scoop the hops out—you've already got all the good stuff out of them. (If using a carboy, strain the wort as you pour it into the carboy).
4
Leave the fermenter alone in a dark space for two weeks. Put the fermenter in a dark area that stays a fairly consistent room temperature. In about 24 hours, you should notice the air-lock happily bubbling away, if it hasn't started doing anything after 48 hours, you might have a problem such as dead yeast. If you see bubbling and there’s yeast at the bottom of the fermenter, it’s working. Wait another 2 weeks.^{[12]
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- What kind of a dark place? When we say “dark” we mean “unfathomably dark”. Like…zero light. So dark that it’d convince Darth Vader the Sith have gone too far. If you don’t have a pitch black space, cover the fermenter in large panels or cardboard boxes.

Part 4

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Bottling

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Add DME or priming sugar to your bottles. After two weeks, the activity from the airlock will slow to a crawl. This is a sign you’re ready to go. Add a touch of priming sugar or DME (dried malt extract) to each bottle you’ll use.^{[13]
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Research source} This is used to provide carbonation to your beer once it is in the bottle.^{[14]
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- Priming sugar and DME do not add flavor. They kick off a second fermentation cycle once you’ve bottled the beer. This prevents the beer from spoiling and ensures it will taste fresh after it has been bottled.
2
Transfer the brew to the bottles with your (ultra-clean) siphon. Use your cleaned and sanitized siphon to transfer the beer as gently as possible (so that there's little or no aeration) from the fermenter to each bottle.^{[15]
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- Attach your cleaned and sanitized bottle filler to your clean and sanitized plastic tubing, the other end
3
Age the bottles for at least 1-2 weeks at room temperature. Remember how dark you needed the fermenter to be? That’s how dark you want to keep the bottles. Store the bottles for at least a week preferably two at about room temperature, then refrigerate them.^{[16]
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- Should I box the bottles? Yes! It’s not mandatory, but it’s a really good idea. If you accidentally over-fermented the beer, it can explode in the bottle. Boxing the beer will keep the glass from flying all over the place.
When you're ready, open a bottle, and pour carefully into a glass. Leave about a quarter inch in the bottle—the sediment tastes a little yeasty, and will give you serious beer farts.

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Question

Where can I get beer bottles?

Community Answer

Specialty brewing shops will have both bottles and caps. The sealer shown is a fancy one, but simpler cheaper versions are also available. Typically the people operating specialty brewing shops will advise you sensibly!

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How much stuff do I need? How much yeast, malt extract, and hops?

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It depends on how much you are going to make. Look for recipes to determine how much you need.

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Do I have to dry my homemade malt once germinated or can I mash with moisture in it?

Community Answer

You need to dry it to stop the fermentation and make your finished product taste better.

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Things You’ll Need

Tips

Start collecting non-screw top bottles well in advance of beginning this hobby, you will need about 50 to bottle a standard batch. This is a good excuse to start buying premium brands. Also, old recyclable glass soft drink bottles and some champagne bottles are outstanding (a dark beer in a Coke bottle is stealthy, to say the least), and can often be found at yard sales.

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Don’t use bleach to sanitize! Use a brewery-specific sanitizer like StarSan, or an iodine-based food-grade sanitizer.

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A bottle brush will be handy for cleaning the bottles.

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Warnings

Do not use “Brewer's Yeast” supplements that are sold in health food stores. These are dead yeasts you’re supposed to take as a vitamin.

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You don’t need a permit to brew your own beer, but you would need a permit to distribute it or sell it. Keep your beers to yourself (and your close friends), in other words.

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