How to Make Beer at Home as a Hobby?
Throughout history, beer has been used for the long-term preservation of food under inadequate conditions rather than as an alcoholic beverage. It is known that beer production was known and used as food in Hittites, Sumer and Egypt. Today, it is preferred as a beverage with many different varieties almost everywhere in the world.
Dear friends, I will tell you about a hobby in another Sunday article. Hobbies are activities that add colour to our lives and make us happy not only by buying and consuming with money but also by producing. While doing what you see as a hobby, you get away from the chaos and troubles of daily life, renew yourself and have the chance to be more useful to your environment. In this article, I will explain how to make beer from ready-made kits at home and the important points to be considered. For this reason, I find it necessary to remind you once again that what I have described should be seen as a hobby and never to encourage alcohol consumption.
Throughout history, beer has been used to preserve food for a long time under inadequate conditions, rather than as an alcoholic beverage. It is known that beer was brewed and used as food in the Hittites, Sumerians and Egyptians. Historical records show that beer was produced and used in churches in medieval Europe for the same purpose (to preserve food for a long time). Today, it is preferred as a beverage with many different varieties almost everywhere in the world.
Beer is a drink produced by fermentation (fermentation). Therefore, its alcohol content is lower than distilled spirits. In addition, since fermentation occurs at low temperatures, there is no risk of methyl alcohol formation, which can be seen in distilled drinks. The basic logic is that the malt is fermented in a fermentation vessel for a certain period of time, resulting in the formation of alcohol. As a person who has tried to brew beer by brewing my own malt a few times, I recommend using ready-made kits, because the other can be seen as a very laborious, long and unsuitable process for home brewing. In this process 1. The barley is washed and allowed to germinate in a certain period of time; 2. The germinated barley is dried in the oven; 3. The dried barley is roasted according to the desired colour tone; 4. The roasted malt is passed through a sieve and then crushed with the help of a mill; 5. The crushed malt is boiled with a certain amount of water for two hours; 6. The boiled wort is filtered; 7. After it drops below about 30 degrees, it is taken into the fermentation vessel and fermented; 8. Of course, there are many details of the process I have written in this order. For this reason, it is a very laborious process to be done as a hobby.
When making beer from kits, the processes in the first six rows listed above are skipped. This also prevents pollution and odours at home. The beer kits sold usually consist of malt extract mixed with hops. However, it is still possible to use additional hops for different flavours. Different types of hops are sold ready-to-use on different websites. However, it is not necessary to buy them together with the kit without a certain amount of experience. It is very important to have minimum materials in all processes and to observe cleanliness to the maximum. Now we can start to explain these step by step.
Ready-made kits are usually prepared for 23 litres of beer. Beer kits, where you can find very special flavours, offer the possibility to brew 9-10 litres of beer. In fact, about five years ago it was possible to find very high quality world beers. For example, Belgian beer kits with high alcohol content offered very different flavours. Or it was possible to get great flavours with New Zeland Pale Ale. However, there is currently a very limited pool of options in Turkey. We would like to be able to find kits that include malt extracts produced by Turkish farmers in the market and our farmers can increase their welfare thanks to value-added production. However, these seem to be very difficult problems to overcome, at least for the time being. Maybe one day Turkish farmers will understand why they are prevented from high value-added production.
We will continue our article on 23-litre ready-to-use kits. The kit in question consists of hop malt extract and yeast. Therefore, the first thing we need is a 23 litre fermentation vessel. It is possible to get this from ready-made containers. It is also possible to use two water carboys of 19 and 5 litres instead. However, a single container with a tap is more suitable. The fermentation vessel should be prepared odourless and clean by rinsing with drinking water. After the yeast under the kit has been separated, the malt extract package should be placed in a pot of heated tap water for 15 minutes. This will increase the fluidity of the dense malt extract. Meanwhile, two litres of drinking water should be heated in a large saucepan. Pour the malt extract over the heated drinking water. To remove the malt extract remaining in the chitin foil, pour one litre of boiling water into the foil a little at a time, shake it and add it to the mixture in the large saucepan.
After making sure that no malt extract remains in the foil, pour 5 litres of drinking water into the fermentation bucket. After emptying the water and malt extract mixture from the pot, the malt extract remaining in the pot should be dissolved with hot water (until the pot is thoroughly clean) and taken into the fermentation vessel. Unless otherwise specified in the kit, 1 kg. granulated sugar should be dissolved in hot drinking water and added to the fermentation vessel. Instead of granulated sugar, it is also possible to use dry/liquid malt extract or glucose recommended separately for each kit.
Drinking water must then be added to the fermentation vessel so that the mixture is completed to 23 litres. Thus, the mixture is completed. At this stage, the temperature of the mixture should be measured with a digital thermometer. If it is between 25-30 degrees, the fermentation vessel should be moved to a place out of the sun, the yeast package should be opened and sprinkled on the mixture, the lid should be closed and the air lock should be installed. At this stage, it may be useful to wrap the fermentation vessel with a blanket after one day to prevent sudden temperature changes. The fermentation temperature is different for each kit. Generally, it can be 16-22 degrees for lager and pilsener type beers and 20-25 degrees for stout type beers. Therefore, starting production without knowing the fermentation temperature may give wrong results. At the specified fermentation temperatures, fermentation is completed in 14 days under normal conditions. We understand that fermentation is completed after the movement in the airlock is over.
When the above conditions are met, we open the fermentation vessel on the 13th day, take the liquid into another container by siphoning method without removing the sediment remaining at the bottom, after cleaning the sediment, we rinse the fermentation vessel with drinking water and take our beer back into our container. If desired, hops can be added at this stage to increase the bitterness in the beer. To do this, you can wrap the hops in a tightly woven cheesecloth and leave them in the liquid for a day. Now our beer is ready for bottling.
The most important thing to be considered in bottling is cleaning as in other stages. Besides, the bottle preference is up to you. If you have accumulated bottles before, remember that you should rinse the bottle with water and remove it after drinking every beer you buy from outside. This is because beer residue leads to mould growth over time and does not come off easily. I prefer 33 cl bottles instead of 50 cl bottles, so that it is possible to consume it little by little and taste it according to the purpose of the hobby. But if you prefer 50 cl bottles, you will need about 46 bottles, if you prefer 33 cl bottles, you will need about 70 bottles.
To make bottling easier, a fermentation vessel with a tap can be useful. If you do not have one, use a jug and funnel to fill the cleaned bottles with one finger of headspace. Put two sugar cubes in each 50 cl bottle and one in each 33 cl bottle and cap. The tools and caps you need for capping are cheaply available on the internet. After keeping the capped bottles in a cool place for 10 days, you can put the amount you will drink in the refrigerator and drink it after cooling it. Generally, a waiting period of one month gives better results. Drinking these beers from a glass will also improve your taste against sediment formation.
Every stage that I have briefly explained to you here becomes easier with experience. For those who want to do this job for the first time, I recommend them to benefit from different sources. In conclusion, it should not be forgotten that this is a hobby that adds colour to our lives. The biggest risk is that the beer that is ready at hand can be consumed easily and in large quantities. If you are doing this not as a hobby but to drink beer cheaply, remember that the deterioration of your health can lead to much greater costs. I wish you a pleasant Sunday...
