Brew Your Own Beer

Enlarge Image Image Gallery If you enjoy drinking flavorful beer, why not make your own? It’s cheap, fun and delicious! ISTOCKPHOTO/CARLOS ALVAREZ

The revolution has happened. Chances are good that you live within a short drive of a brew pub, microbrewery, or — at the very least — a store from which you can purchase quality beer. In fact, the craft brew industry is so strong right now, you may wonder, “why even bother trying to brew my own beer?”

There are a few compelling reasons. First, you are in full control of the ingredients you put into your brew. This leads naturally to the second: Given that you have full control, you can brew beers to completely suit your own tastes, beers that commercial breweries would never risk brewing. Want to brew an American pale ale? Sure. Want to brew a chocolate cherry ancho pepper-flavored porter? Hey, I’m not here to judge. Third, while the initial cash outlay — though minimal — may intimidate some, it is far cheaper in the long run to brew your own beer than to buy microbrewed beer.

Brew Tools

To get started brewing your own beer, you’ll need a few essential pieces of equipment. You can find all kinds of brewing supplies at local homebrew supply shops, or mail order online at sites such as Northern Brewer and William's Brewing.

The brew kettle. This can be a regular stainless steel, enameled iron or aluminum stockpot, preferably 12 quarts or larger. For advanced brewing, the kettle must be at least 6 gallons in size, but for the purposes of this article, 12 quarts will do. This is the most expensive piece of brewing equipment, but you can get it for about $40. Altogether the rest of the equipment may run you another $50 or $60.

A soup spoon. This can be plastic, wooden or steel; it doesn’t matter.

A candy thermometer, or other thermometer that can be put into hot liquids.

Strainer and/or funnel. This will be used to strain the spent hops out of your wort (raw beer) as you pour it into the primary fermenter.

An alternative to a strainer is a hop/grain bag. These are reusable cotton or nylon bags that will retain the hop cones/solids while allowing the enjoyable properties of the hops to flow into the wort during the boiling process. They may also be used to hold specialty grains for those who use the “extract with specialty grains” method, which this article covers.

The fermentation vessel(s)/bottling bucket. These should be food-grade plastic or glass vessels, also called carboys, in which the wort will ferment and mature. Homebrew stores sell them — the ones with spigots are especially convenient — or you can scavenge them (plastic ones, at least) from the bulk foods section of your local hippie food store. If you scavenge, be sure to clean the vessel thoroughly to remove residual food and oils, and drill or puncture a hole in the lid (you’ll absolutely need a lid) for the airlock.