For those who like great tasting beer, homebrewing is the way to go. It lets you control the taste of your beer, it saves money, and it is a great way to impress your friends. The actual brewing process isn’t that hard once you know how to do it. However, you do need certain equipment and ingredients to get started. Ingredients such as hops, grain, and extract can be purchased at a brewing retailer. Necessary equipment such as a fermenter, capper, and siphon must be purchased before you begin your homebrewing hobby.

Homebrewing Hints:

A mistake that people who are new to home beer making is that that they drink it too quickly. When you are too impatient and don’t let your brew age long enough you are often disappointed in the results. Depending on the recipe you used, most home brew beers require, after fermentation, you let the beer age for a period of at least two and as much as six weeks. Please note that these are the minimum recommended times. If you let your home brew beer alone for longer periods you will get better results.

While it looks like nothing is going on during this period nothing could be further from the truth. During the aging process the yeast continues to ferment with the sugars that remain in the beer after the bottling process. This naturally adds to the carbonation of your brew. This is what gives your beer bubbles. The other thing that’s going on is the yeast will begin to settle out of the brew itself. This helps the taste to be smoother and further enhances the flavors of the recipe you chose in the first place.

This aging process will vary widely depending on the recipe brewed. The reason for this is that the flavor ingredients in each recipe are different and require different amounts of time to mature. You can easily find some beers recipes that are ready to drink in as little as two weeks and others that are recommended to age for four months.

After you have bottled your beers, preferably in brown or amber colored glass bottles to protect the beer from Ultra Violet radiation, you will need a safe, undisturbed place to store them while they age. Your new home brew beer should be kept in a cool, dark place where they won’t get moved around and the temperature never goes above the limit recommended for the recipe you used. Different yeasts require different temperatures. This is usually 72 to 74 degrees and is never higher than 76 degrees.

Once your new brew has aged and you are ready for the first sample be sure you record the length of time you let the batch age before sampling. In fact, good record keeping about what happens with each batch you brew is a very good idea. As you try different things and get different results, you will be building a written record of what works best for you and your home brewery. These records will help prevent you from repeating mistakes and are also a great resource for additional ideas on what to try on your next brewing adventure.