Home Brew Beer - Putting Down Your Brew

Now that you've got the kit, you'll want to make some beer!

You'll need some consumables.  I'll list the stuff I use for a popular recipe I use.

1 x tin of Coopers brand Pale Ale malt extract

1kg of sugars - Homebrewers Warehouse 'Goodies Pack' (or Coopers 1kg Brew enhancer Nr. 2)

1 x 450g jar of no name honey

1 x jar of sterilizer (you'll get several cleans out of 1 jar)

2L of ice cubes

I buy all this stuff from Homebrewers Warehouse, they give out free replacement yeast that works better for tropics, their prices are cheaper than the supermarket, and they are just nice guys.

Putting down a brew only takes a few minutes once you're organised and know what you are doing.

STEPS

STERILIZE EVERYTHING.  Really, everything.  If you keep everything super clean your brew won't get infected.  Do this just before you brew by following the instructions on the sterilizer you bought, the sterilizing solution will get on your hands and ensure you don't infect the brew with your hands.  Rinse everything really well.  Sterilizer will give your brew a nasty flavour if you don't rinse properly.

MAKE SURE YOU CLOSE THE TAP!

PREPARE YOUR WORKSPACE.  Prepare a workspace where you have access to water, I do it outside near a tap with a hose.  Open the tin of malt extract and jar of honey.  Boil up some water in your kettle and measure out your 2L.  

ADD CONSUMABLES.  Pour the malt extract and honey into the drum.  Pour about 1L boiling water into the empty malt extract tin and the remaining boiling water into the drum.  Carefully, using a towel or oven mitt, pour the water from the malt extract tin into the drum.  Doing it this way gets as much of the malt extract out of the tin and into your brew.  Add the sugars (Goodies Bag or brew enhancer Nr. 2). Mix gently until all the lumps are gone.

ADD WATER/ICE TO 20L. For the water temperature out of the tap here, I've done some math and figured out that for 2L boiling water, I add 2L of ice cubes and fill to the 20L mark.  This gets me right into the middle of the 21 - 27 degrees for adding the yeast. I worked it out by making the assumption that 2L of boiling water close to 100 degrees, plus ice at 0 degrees would give me 4L @ ~50 degrees.  Water out of the tap here is 18 - 22 degrees. 16L @ 20 degrees + 4L @ 50 degrees will give a final temp of about 26 degrees.  In reality, some temperature is taken out by the 1.25L of malt extract and the 1kg of sugar so I'm pretty happy with the math.  Plus I tried it many times and it works fine.

ADD YEAST. After you've added the tap water to the 20L mark there will be foam on top.  For this reason, we mix the yeast into a little under 2L of water.  When you pour the yeast water into the drum, it will pour through the foam.  If you just sprinkle the yeast on top, it just sits on the foam.

TOP UP TO 23L. Using tap water.

PUT THE LID ON.  Using the water filled environment seal in the lid, put the lid on and seal it up tight.

WAIT.  About 7 days or so.  Best to store your brew somewhere out of the sun, where it will sit between 20 - 30 degrees.  I store mine in an old, very large esky. You will know it's finished when the water seal stops bubbling.  I check mine before and after work each day.