BEER MAKING COMPLETE INSTRUCTION MANUAL

Introduction
Before starting please keep in mind the 3 basic requisites for making the perfect beer:
a) Ingredients: Always use good quality products, including the best quality water available.
b) Cleaning and sterilisation: Always clean, sterile and rinse every piece of equipment that comes
into contact with the wort. Dont cut corners and dont use the dishwasher!
c) Temperature: Initial and secondary fermentation temperatures are absolutely critical.
5 Easy Steps
Step 1 - Preparation of Equipment
It is very important to sanitise every piece of equipment that comes into contact with the brew.
While sterile equipment is virtually impossible to achieve in the home situation it pays to maximise
cleanliness. This is the best way to minimise the chances of infections which may cause off tastes in
your beer.
Pour 250mm of hot water into your fermenter and dissolve 3 to 4 teaspoons of steriliser in this water.
Place the airlock, grommet, spoon, can opener, hydrometer and immersion heater (if you have one), etc in
the solution and soak them.
Use the bottlebrush to swill steriliser around the inside of the fermenter and lid. It is a good idea to
leave everything soak together in the steriliser for a while.
Once sterilised it is very important to rinse all equipment off with hot water, particularly chlorine based
sterilisers. Rinse everything twice and make sure you cannot smell any steriliser.
Step 2 - Making the Brew or Wort
Remove the sachet of yeast and booklet from the top of the beer kit and put aside. Place the can in a
saucepan full of hot water for about 10 minutes to soften the contents.
While the can is heating, boil the kettle and fill out the brewing record. When the kettle has boiled pour
the kilogram of fermentable sugars into your clean fermenter.
Open the can and pour into the fermenter. Half fill the can with boiling water from the kettle and using
your spoon/paddle to scrape it out and pour this with the rest of the water from the kettle into the
fermenter. Dont worry, it wont melt the plastic. Give it a good stir until all the ingredients have
dissolved.
Top up the fermenter to the 20 Litre mark with cold water. Stir thoroughly using your spoon/paddle and
check temperature is within 21-27C.
Top up fermenter and stir again to the 23 Litre mark with cold/hot (even ice) to achieve 21-27C. (*See
Note 1 below).
Using your hydrometer, take a gravity reading and record it. (*See Note 2 below).
Pitch the yeast, screw the lid on, install the heater (if available) and fit the grommet and airlock (after
having put a small amount of water into it). Leave the fermenter in a warm place, ideally 23C.
Note 1: If the wort is not at an ideal temperature but within the range of 18-32C add the
yeast. At this point the wort is vunerable and prompt addition of the yeast is more
important than ideal temperature.
If you are unsure of the quantities of hot and cold water required, try filling the fermenter
with hot and cold water minus the ingredients to get a feel for what is needed to achieve
21-27C.
Note 2: Do use your hydrometer. It allows you to calculate your final alcohol content and
also can be used as a diagnostic tool.
It gives you a known starting point to check if fermentation is happening and it determines
when it has finished. Contrary to popular belief, the airlock is not a good indicator.
The hydrometer measures the specific gravity of the brew. This measure is the relative
density of the fluid to distilled water. Distilled water has a specific gravity of 1.000.
Your wort with malts and sugars dissolved in it will have a reading between 1.038 to
1.044 or more (depending on what you have put in). As fermentation progresses heavy
sugars are used up and lighter alcohol is produced. The specific gravity will drop to
between 1.005 and 1.012.
Step 3 - Fermentation
Fermentation can take up to 48 hours to visibly commence and will usually take from 7-10 days to
complete. You should notice bubbling through the airlock although fermenters have been known to leak.
Dont panic, the C02 generated by the fermentation process will keep the nasties out. You can check that
fermentation is proceeding by either testing the specific gravity or by looking for a dark brown crust
forming above the fluid line inside the fermenter.
To check that fermentation has finished, dont rely on airlock activity. Use your hydrometer to take
specific gravity readings a day apart.
If the reading is the same two days running then fermentation has finished and you will be able to
calculate the alcohol content. (*See Note 3 below). Once the Final Gravity reading is stable, allow 48
hours for it to clear thoroughly before proceeding to the next step.
Note 3: To measure the specific gravity you need to take a small sample of beer from your
fermenter taking care not to suck fluid through from the airlock (remove it if necessary).
At the end of fermentation the first fluid through will be cloudy with yeast. Discard this before
putting enough fluid in the test flask to ensure the hydrometer floats. The reading is taken at the
bottom of the meniscus (the bottom of the curve where the fluid lips up the side of the hydrometer
and flask).
The change in specific gravity is an indicator of the final alcohol content of your beer. As
mentioned previously, the yeast converts the heavier sugars into lighter alcohol and C02.
Therefore the wort becomes less dense as fermentation progresses.
To calculate your alcohol content you will need to have measured the starting or Original Specific
Gravity (O.S.G.) and the end or Final Specific Gravity (F.S.G.).
For example, if your brew starts off with an O.S.G. of 1.040 and an F.S.G of 1.010 then use this
simple formula:
1. Remove the decimal point to make life easier.
2. Subtract the F.S.G. from the O.S.G. ie. 1040 1010 = 30
3. Multiply the result by a factor of 0.14 ie. 30 x 0.14 = 4.2
(4.2% is the alcohol content generated in the primary fermentation in your fermenter).
4. Because you add sugar to each bottle to carbonate the beer you need to add a factor for the
alcohol generated by the secondary fermentation in the bottle.
i.e. 4.2 0.5 = 4.7%
In this example the final alcohol content in the bottles will be approximately 4.7%.
Step 4 - Bottling
Cleaning:
Clean and sterilise your bottles, sugar scoop, crown seals, funnel and Little Bottler.
The cleaning and sterilisation of your bottles etc, is as important as that of your brewing gear. When you
get your bottles you must make sure that there are no nasty growing things in them. This may require
soaking the bottles overnight with a solution of the bottlewash and steriliser provided with the homebrew
kit and much scrubbing with your bottlebrush.
Dont forget to remove all the labels and glue residue from the bottles as this is an ideal breeding ground
for bacteria.
After cleaning and sterilising it is also important to make sure that you rinse the bottles well with hot
water to remove all traces of the sterilising solution. Rinse everything twice and make sure you cannot
smell any steriliser.
It is good practise to sterilise and rinse out your bottles just before bottling to minimise dust and other
things from contaminating your bottles before filling.
Equally, as soon as a bottle is emptied, rinse it out and soak it overnight to make it easier to clean and
sterilise next time you bottle.
A 23 Litre brew will require 30 x 750ml bottles or 60 x 375ml stubbies.
Priming:
There are two different ways in which you can prime your bottles by either adding sugar or carbonation
drops. Use one method only.
With sugar, put a teaspoon into each (750 ml) bottle or 1/2 teaspoon per (375 ml) stubbie. This can be
done by using a funnel and teaspoon or a purpose made sugar scoop.
With carbonation drops, put 2 drops into each (750 ml) bottle or 1 drop per (375 ml) stubbie.
This small amount of sugar will activate a secondary fermentation. In this, the yeast still in the beer will
re-activate and generate some more alcohol and C02. The C02 cannot escape the sealed bottles and hence
will carbonate the beer.
WARNING. DO NOT PUT MORE SUGAR THAN IS RECOMMENDED IN THE BOTTLES AS THIS COULD
RESULT IN EXPLODING BOTTLES.
Filling the bottles:
Push the Little Bottler into the tap and turn the tap on. Push each bottle up over the bottler until the
valve hits the bottom of the bottle and releases the beer. When the bottle is full and about to overflow
lower the bottle to shut of the valve.
Be careful not to pull off the valve when you remove the bottle from the bottler. Each bottle should be
filled to about one inch from the top.
Capping:
Push the crown seals onto the bottles with a bench capper until you feel the crown seal crimp and seal.
Once the bottles are capped, gently shake each bottle (turning each bottle upside down twice should
suffice).
With a permanent marking pen, write on the cap the batch number and type of beer made using L =
Lager, B = Bitter, D = Draught, P = Pilsner. For example; if your first batch was a Lager then write 1L on
the cap.
Storage
Store the bottles out of direct sunlight and in a warm place (about 20C) for at least 7 days. After this you
can move the bottles to a cooler place for at least another 14 days.
The beer does mature with aging so if you can manage to hold off drinking it for at least 3 months then it
will taste even better.
Homebrew beer can last much longer in the bottle than commercial beers so it is very worthwhile
building up stocks so you dont have to drink green beer.
Always store beer in the dark. Light spoils beer very quickly giving it a ropey taste. Amber bottles
provide enough protection but if you are using clear or green bottles, they must be kept in a closed carton
or a dark storage area.
Step 5 - Serving
For a clear beer it is recommended that the beer is decanted from the bottle to a jug and from there to
glasses.
Pouring the beer direct from the bottle to the glass will upset the sediment in the bottle and result in later
glasses poured from the bottle to be cloudy.
While this may not look as good as a perfectly clear beer the sediment is quite harmless and is in fact rich
in vitamin B. The presence of the yeast (sediment) is actually one of the reasons why homebrewers dont
suffer from hangovers the way those who drink commercial beer do.