Making your own beer is easy. People have been brewing at home for several thousand years, and they did it with much less education and resources than you now possess.
The beer we are going to make is known as an extract beer. It is slightly more complex than beer kits, where you just add water, but it will have a much more refined taste. Plus, it's much easier than mashing your beer the old-fashioned way, and with the quality of ingredients now available, it's hard to tell the difference.
You may discover simpler how-to guides than this, and that's fine. I've decided to err on the side of quality rather than simplicity.
Beginning homebrew kits can be bought from homebrew supply shops for about $40 to $60, but they rarely include all the essential equipment. They are still a good deal, however, because they're cheaper as a package, rather than buying everthing seperate. If your kit doesn't contain all of the items listed below, make sure you pick them up as well. Some items can be found in your kitchen, and others you can borrow from a fellow brewer.
This is a basic recipe for an American style ale. I've left some decisions up to you, so it might end up as a pale ale, and amber ale, or something else. If your beginner's brewing kit includes ingredients (as many do), by all means use it! Just check to see that all the ingredients listed below are included in some variation or another. Above all, get the freshest fixings available.
Three to four days before the big brew day, you need to "smack" your yeast. Read the directions on the smack pack for how to do this. Make sure you shaike it vigorously for several minutes afterwards. Put the smack pack in a cool place, like your pantry, until brew day. By then, the pack will have swollen to about two inches thick. If it hasn't, it probably wasn't fresh enough, so postpone brew day an extra couple of days to give it more time.
On brew day, organize your brewing area. Make sure your equipment is clean. Sanitize your carboy, racking cane, airlock, stopper and siphon tubing. Re-read these directions so that you'll know what to do next at any given time.
If you haven't bought your specialty grains pre-crushed, you'll need to crush them now. Place them on a cutting board, and use a rolling pin to crush them to grit sized pieces. They should not be ground or chopped. Put the crushed grains into your cheesecloth bag.
Set the brewpot on the stove and add four to five gallons of non-chlorinated water, but not so much that it would be apt to boil over. Turn up the heat and put in the bag of grains. Monitor the temperature and move the bag often to prevent scorching. When the temperature is 170 degrees, turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let it sit for ten to twenty minutes. (now is a good time to put your malt syrup in a sink of hot water so it will flow easily during the next step). Pick up the bag, let it drain, then pour two or three cups of hot water over it slowly to rise out all the good stuff.
Bring the brewpot up to a boil and stir in your malt extract. Be sure to stir the bottom of the pot so the extract won't burn. This addition of extract will lower the temperature, so bring it back up to a full rolling boil. Note the time and add one ounce of hops. Keep a close eye on the mixture, because as every experienced brewer can tell you, "an unwatched pot always boils over!"
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