Brewing beer is not rocket science and it can be done at home by anyone.
What’s best about it, you can brew the exact quality beer you enjoy at pubs or even a better one, all at your home!
I’ve been brewing for quite some time and tested many homebrewing techniques, and this is the time I want to share the best way for a beginner to brew a beer in the comfort of their home!
I’ll explain everything you need to know about brewing a beer at home, including the step-by-step processes which I’ll back up with photos!
Although the methods and recipes differ, the step-by-step process I’ll show you will hold all fundamentals you’ll need, so you can easily adjust later based on it.
Brewing methods and what’ll you need
You have two options for brewing beer at home. The first is the all-grain method which includes malts, hops, yeast, and water along with equipment such as a fermenting bucket, sanitation solution, a bowl for boiling, and a siphon or a tube.
Brewing with all-grain means the full process of beer brewing without skipping any fundamental part. It means you’ll need to boil and soak the malts along with hops before you get to the point where you pitch yeast.
The second method is brewing with a beer extract kit. This method allows you to skip the boiling stage with the malts and hops and instead all you have to do is to mix the extract with warm water in a fermenter before pitching the yeast.
After pitching the yeast, you’ll let the wort ferment for some time (usually 7-10 days) and then bottle it. After bottling, the beer will condition at both room temperature and in the fridge (or any cold place) for a few more weeks.
Now that you know what the process of brewing at home looks like, let me explain each step in detail!
The guide will contain an explanation of everything you’ll need to know to brew your first beer at home and we’ll start with the all-grain method. If you plan to brew with an extract kit, skip to the end.
I recommend that you first read the entire guide twice before you start brewing along with following it. If you are unsure which method is best for you, check my article on brewing methods.
All-grain recipe ingredients – American Amber Ale
To show you how to brew beer at home, you can use any recipe you want, but I will take on the recipes I recently used for purposes of making an example.
If you can find all the ingredients that’s great, but if you don’t, just pick another similar recipe that you can find in local stores, or can order via the internet. The steps and the general guidelines I will mention will apply to every recipe.
However, remember to check specific instructions that come with your recipe because some parts may differ such as different fermentation temperatures or boiling duration.
Pale Ale (Weyermann) malt ((7.72 lb, 3,5 kg)
Munich II (Weyermann) malt (11 lb, 0,5 kg)
Cara-Pils/Dextrine malt (8.82 lb, 0,4 kg)
Crystal (Pauls Malt) malt (8.82 lb, 0,4 kg)
Roasted Barley (Weyermann) malt (0.13 lb, 0,06 kg)
Cascade hops (2,82 oz, 80 gram)
SafAle US-05 yeast (1 package)
We should end up with a 5.1% ABV, 5-gallon (23 liters) beer batch with this recipe.
1. Start with mashing
For the beginning, you’ll need only around 40% of the total water, which is in this case 2.7 gallons (10 liters). This amount of water will be enough for the mashing process and will allow for room needed once you soak the malts in a muslin bag.
This process will be done in a primary kettle that can hold 5 gallons, but you should also warm up 4 gallons (15 liters) of water to 167°F (75°C) in a secondary kettle for the next step when we’ll wash the malts. After you do it, just let it stay at the side before we finish this step.
You should use some kind of thermometer to know the temperature because it will be important to control it throughout the entire process.
Heat water to 150°F (66°C) degrees and add the malts to a muslin bag, you’ll want to soak the malts at 150°F66 degrees for an hour.
To ensure the temperature is constantly around 150°F (66°C) degrees, be prepared to adjust the heat or add cold water if the water heats too much from the anchor point.
Stir the malts within the bag to let the water in because the middle of the bag is usually blocked and water can not enter. Once you are sure everything is wet, close the bag by tightening it or let it rest on the sides of the kettle. It’s important that the grain doesn’t escape from the bag into the water, but if some do it’s not a big deal.
It is important to keep the malts at around 150°F (66°C) degrees for an hour because at this temperature the malts will release the enzymes properly.
If the heat goes below 140°F (60°C) or above 158°F (70°C), do not panic, it’s alright and it happens to everyone. However, try to keep it close to 150°F (66°C) degrees for an hour as an anchor point.
2. Wash and squeeze the malts
At this stage, you’ll need gloves because the muslin bag will be hot. Moreover, unless you are brewing a small batch, you’ll need a helping hand to hold the bag or hang it on the rope.
Raise the muslin bag over the bowl and wash it with the remaining water. At this stage, you want to get out the trapped juices in a bag to get the most out of it. You should leave some room in the kettle, so do pour in all the water you prepared. We’ll want to squeeze the bag and get some water with juice from it and you can easily later add more water to fit the 5-gallon amount.
After you slowly pour the water over the bag and let the water and juices pour into the bowl, you should get the rest of the juice out of the bag by squeezing it from the sides.
You don’t have to squeeze it super hard or drain it completely, but try to drain most out of it.
This process can be annoying for the first time and messy, so if you have to protect the floor from spilled wort, do it.
Once you are done, add the remaining water to fit the recipe’s needs if it’s missing (sometimes some water gets lost in the process).
With this recipe, we should have 5 gallons of wort at this stage before we proceed to the next part.
3. Boil it up and add hops
For hopping, we’ll need two sacks of hops, one with 1.76 oz (50 grams) for boiling and one with 1.06 oz (30 grams) for the last 15 minutes.
Turn on the heat and reach the boiling point of 212°F (100°C) degrees and keep it up for another hour.
Right when you reach the boiling point, add the muslin bag with hops (1.76 oz) and let them stay in for a full hour as the wort is boiling.
It is important to add the hops only once the boiling point is reached and to count the 60 minutes from that moment, so do not add hops before that.
At this stage, hops will realize bitterness to your beer.
Some recipes may call for only 30 minutes or some other time of boiling hops, so there’s nothing fixed.
Usually, the more hops and the longer you boil them, the more bitter the beer is going to end up.
4. Turn off the heat and add more hops
Turn off the heat, remove the bowl from the heat and remove the muslin bag with hops.
Add a second bag with hops and let them soak for 15 minutes while the heat is turned off.
At this stage, hops are used to release the flavors instead of bitterness. This is achieved by turning off the heat and only letting the hops stay in for a limited time. In this case, this is 15 minutes, but it can be less than that.
In conclusion, hops react differently to the temperature and time you are soaking them. Depending on the method we use they will release either more bitterness or aroma.
There are many ways how we can use hops to bitter or add aroma to the beer and in this article, I only mentioned two which are during the boil and after.
5. Cool the wort
At this stage, you’ll need to chill the wort before we can pitch yeast and start fermentation. There are multiple methods to cool the wort, so choose one that is available to you.
Once the wort is at the right pitching temperature (below 71.6°F (22°C)) you can pitch the yeast.
Warning: It is super important that you do not pitch the yeast before the wort has cooled down. Otherwise, you may damage the yeast and you won’t have good fermentation.
I like to use a thermometer to check the temperature before pitching, and I recommend that you do it too.
Every yeast has a temperature tolerance and it’s written on the back of the package. This will also be important for the next step.
Tip: Cooling the wort in a fermenter is a better option than cooling it in a bowl because it makes it easier for the next step when you’ll be pitching yeast. Moreover, fermenters are perfectly sealed for the whole duration and have an airlock that will release the gas and heat without the risk of contamination.
For this reason, I recommend that you immediately transfer beer from a bowl while it’s still hot into a sanitized fermenter, close it, put an airlock filled with the right liquid and cool it.
6. Time to pitch yeast
If you haven’t cooled the wort in a fermenter but in a bowl, you’ll need to transfer it to the fermenter before you can pitch yeast.
Simply open a fermenter (don’t have to remove the whole lid, just a side) then use scissors, and open a yeast package.
Sparkle the yeast into the wort and close the lid. It’s also important to put some liquid such as vodka or StarSan/water mixture in an airlock to create a barrier that will allow Co2 to escape, but not allows air to enter the fermenter.
Now, give the fermenter a good shake to mix the yeast and oxygenate the wort. Remember you must not shake it once fermentation kicks in, but it’s important to shake it straight after pitching yeast!
I like to give it a good 20-second shake until I feel my arms die in pain. (You’ll also grow some muscles while brewing!)
Also remember, at this stage, it is important that everything is perfectly sanitized and kept under control! Take care of environmental dangers, and keep it super clean.
Once the wort is cooled, it no longer has natural protection from the heat.
When you transfer it from the bowl to the fermenter, you may accidentally infect it if you are not careful.
Due to this reason, I like to cool my wort in the fermenter, so I do not have to worry about this.
However, even if something goes wrong, by pitching the yeast as soon as possible (when the temperature is right, not before it) the yeast colonies can battle and overcome the bacteria.
This is yet another proof that yeast is man’s best friend!
7. It’s time for fermentation
It’s time for the yeast to do its magnificent job, telling the yeast how good of a boy they are might hasten the process and in some cases, praying may also help.
After pitching the yeast, it is time for the wort to ferment for 10 days.
Keep the fermenter out of the sun in a dark place at 64.4°F to 71.6°F (18°C to 22°C).
If you use different yeast, know that the temperature range is always written on the package and mentioned in the recipe.
Once the fermentation hits (usually within 24 hours after pitching yeast, sometimes a bit longer) you’ll see bubbles coming out of the airlock.
This is a sign that fermentation has begun and now you got to wait until it’s done.
During this process, the yeast will convert sugars from malts into alcohol and Co2.
You can check my article on fermentation progress to know whether it started and when will it be completed.
8. Bottle the beer
Bottling is our last step before we let the beer condition and finally enjoy it.
You’ll need clean beer bottles (these bottles are darkened and protect beer from light) and prior to bottling, you’ll need to sanitize them.
I am once again taking the opportunity to vocalize how important sanitation is, so if you are unsure whether something is sanitized, it’s better to overdo it than to lack this step.
Moreover, sanitize the spigot, a pipe, or any other instrument or piece of the gear you’ll use.
You can do bottling with a siphon or directly from the spigot if you attach a pipe to it.
You’ll have some sediment in bottles, but it will mostly be the last couple of bottles. However, sediment is not necessarily bad for your beer and it will fall to the bottom of the bottle while conditioning in the fridge.
It’s difficult to fully filter out sediment unless you do second fermentation and let the sediment fall down a couple of times. However, this makes the process a few weeks longer, so it’s entirely optional.
I suggest that for more instructions you take a look at my how to bottle a beer guide, but I will mention the process here in short.
You’ll need some sugar for priming (building the Co2 and trapping it within the bottle), so you will need 0.14 oz (4 grams) of sugar in this case. I recommend corn sugar because it works great with yeast and is also inexpensive. It is possible to prime it with other sugars, but at this stage forget about it.
If you need help with calculating priming sugar for beer your are brewing, I have created a priming calculator that will give you accurate amount, so you don’t under prime or over prime.
This sugar will kick in another fermentation because once we feed sugar to the yeast, it will awake and eat it.
As a result, We will get that desired carbonation that makes the beer a real deal.
Add 0.14 oz (4 grams) of sugar to each bottle and slowly pour in the beer by sticking the pipe to the end of the bottle. It is important to reduce the oxygen entry as much as we can, so minimize splashing.
Some oxygen will naturally get in, but by filling the bottles slowly it will be minimum.
Firmly cap the bottles one by one with a capping machine or if you use those flip-top bottles you won’t need a machine or additional caps. This should be done as soon as possible, so I like to fill a bottle and immediately cap it before I get to fill the next one.
Beer will need to prime at room temperature for 7-10 days. At the end of the week put one in the fridge and let it stay there for 36 hours and crack it. If you like the carbonation levels, bring the rest of the bottles to the fridge and continue conditioning.
9. Conditioning the beer
Beer will go through a conditioning phase and the taste on the day one will greatly differ after it had its time to condition. Put bottles in a fridge or any cold fridge-like place with a temperature of as close to 50°F (10°C) and that’s it!
Lagers are usually kept below 46.4°F (8°C) while ales are at 50°F. If you can’t match the exact temperature while conditioning it doesn’t matter, but be as close as you can.
You can easily cool it for extra few degrees in a cooler before serving it.
We can say that it’s not even beer yet before it had its time to sit in a bottle.
It can take only two weeks for the beer to condition and reach the highest of its potential, but it can also take months.
In this case, you should have a great beer after only 1-2 weeks of conditioning, but it will get even better with the next weeks.
I have dedicated an article on how should beer taste in the process of making, so if you ever feel discouraged if your beer doesn’t taste well, check it out.
How to brew with beer extract
Brewing with extract cuts most of the steps shown above, so forget the steps before step 5. Cooling the wort and every step afterward is common for brewing with any method.
I will now show you how to brew with extract by simply showing two simple steps that replace the otherwise first 4 steps of all-grain brewing.
It’s important to sanitize the entire gear you’ll be using, including the fermenter and airlock. Also do not forget to fill the airlock with a liquid such as Star San mixture or vodka.
Mix water with extract
- You should get 5 gallons of water to the boiling point to kill bacteria and to make it pure.
- Now pour 40% of that water into the sanitized fermenter and open the beer extract can with a can opener.
- Add the extract to the water in the fermenter and use some water you prepared to rinse the extract can because lots of it will be stuck to the walls and the bottom.
- Once the entire extract is in the fermenter, add 36 oz (1 Kg) of corn sugar and stir until you no longer feel any lumps and the sugar has dissolved in the water (around 3-5 minutes).
- Add the remaining water, close the fermenter and cool it (Step 5. mentioned above).
- You can continue following above mentioned steps for pitching the yeast and the rest of the process.
After you follow the rest of the steps, you are done. The result should be identical to the beer brewed with all grain, but of course, there is less room for making a mistake.
Final take on
In this article, I tried to give you a comprehensive guide that mentions important steps and techniques, so you could form a clear picture of how to brew beer at home.
However, this article would need to be 10,000 words+ long if I were to mention everything in detail, so check my other articles if you have any questions or if you encounter problems.
Important: This guide is made to show steps that apply to every recipe, but recipes can differ, so the instructions in this guide are not universal.
This guide will make it easier for you to understand how to brew beer using the mentioned methods but always check the recipe instructions.
Some recipes will ferment at different temperature ranges, require less or more brewing time, demand special techniques like dry hopping and so.
If you wish you can brew with the recipes I provided in this article, but you can use any other recipe that you like! This is something that I encourage after all, because you shouldn’t brew something you are not excited about.
Have a good brewing time, and I bet you are about to make the finest homebrew beer and surprise everyone from the first attempt!