Brew Own Beer-Brewing and Bottling

1. 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 three gallons of hot water around 150 degrees F (66C) for about 30 minutes. Remove the grains and allow the water to drip out of the grain bag. Do not squeeze the bag, because you may extract tannins that will give your beer an astringent flavor.

2. Add the malt extract and bring everything to a boil. The hops are usually added at various intervals to add flavor, bitterness, or aroma and the times will be spelled out for you in the kit's instructions for your style of beer. For more details visit to www.greateducationonline.com .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.

3. after you have boiled the liquid (called wort - pronounced wert), you need to cool it as quickly as possible. The easiest way is to put the whole pot in a sink or bathtub that has a nice cold bath of ice water in it. You can gently stir the wort to help expedite the cooling, but try not to splash or aerate the wort while it's still hot (it can make for some funky flavors). Once it's around 80 deg F (27C) you are ready to transfer it to the fermenter.

4. Pour the cooled wort into your fermenter. After the wort has cooled and before fermentation starts is the one and only time that splashing is encouraged. Yeast need oxygen, and splashing the wort as you pour it into the fermenter will help. Once fermentation has started, though, you want to minimize exposure to air, as it will lead to off flavors and aromas. Using a large strainer (usually cheapest at restaurant supply stores) will help to get most of the hops out. You've already got all the good stuff out of them, so leave them out of the fermenter if you can. Add water to make five gallons. You are now ready to "pitch" (add) the yeast. Some yeast requires that you "bloom" (stir with warm water to activate) them prior to pitching, others do not. You may find that even those that don't require blooming will start working faster if you do bloom them first, but it's usually no big deal. Put the lid on your fermenter (or stopper in your glass carboy) and affix the air-lock to the top. Put the fermenter in a dark area that stays a fairly consistent room temperature (for ales...lagers need refrigeration to ferment properly). Within about 24 hrs or so you should notice the air-lock happily bubbling away, if it hasn't started doing anything in 48hrs or so, you might have a problem (like dead yeast).

Bottling

1. After a week or so, the activity from the airlock will slow to a crawl. The beer is now ready for bottling! Your kit probably came with some priming sugar or DME (dried malt extract). This is used to provide carbonation to your beer once it is in the bottle. Boil the sugar in a little water and cool it. Then, add it to the empty, cleaned and sanitized bucket with the spigot or to your fermented beer.
2. Use your cleaned and sanitized plastic tubing as a siphon to transfer the beer as quietly as possible (little or no aeration) from the fermenter to the bottling bucket with the priming sugar solution in it - try not to get any of the sediment (trub) from the fermenter into the bottling bucket.
3. Attach your cleaned and sanitized bottle filler to your clean and sanitized plastic tubing, the other end of the tubing attaches to the bottom end of the spigot. (If you are only using one bucket, first it is important to let the fermented beer settle after stirring in the priming sugar solution (there is sediment on the bottom (trub) that will lend an off flavor to your beer).
4. Get your thoroughly cleaned and sanitized bottles ready. If you are using a bottling bucket, just open the spigot and put the bottle filler in a bottle. Push the bottle filler to the bottom and that will let the beer flow. To know more logon to www.ebook-secrets-revealed.com .If using the one bucket method, fill the tube (attached to the bottle filler) with water and put the open end in the fermented beer and place the bottle filler in a glass, or a bottle or the sink, press down to let the water flow out and start the beer flowing in the tube like a siphon. Fill each bottle just to overflowing, remove the bottle filler and this leaves an almost perfect airspace at the top of the bottle. Cap the bottle with your handy bottle capper. Repeat until all the bottles are full.
5. Store the bottles for at least a week preferably two at about room temperature.
6. Refrigerate.
7. Open, 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).
8. Enjoy!

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