DIY time begins!
First, add 5 liters of drinking water to the cauldron, heat it to 74 degrees Celsius, and put a clean filter bag on the edge of the cauldron.
Pour all the barley into the pot and stir it evenly to make sure that each wheat can absorb water.
Cover the pot and let it stand for one hour. Check whether the temperature is maintained between 64 C and 67 C every ten minutes. If the temperature drops, turn on a small fire to heat it up. This stage is the first step "saccharification" in brewing beer. The starch in malt is gelatinized by hot water, and then transformed into fermentable sugar by released enzymes.
You don't have to stare at the pot all the time while waiting, just remember to come back and check the temperature. You can pick up the filter bag after one hour and try to squeeze out the wort from the bag, but be careful not to get burnt.
The filtered wort is still cloudy, and the color is not quite the same as the beer that everyone remembers. At this time, it is necessary to heat the wort in the pot until it boils, but remember not to cover the lid.
After boiling, turn the fire to low heat and keep the wort in a low boiling state for one hour. At this time, the matters needing attention are the same as those in the previous step. When heating, it is not necessary to cover the pot, and the fire should be controlled in a state of small fire, because the water in the wort will evaporate continuously at this time. If the fire is too big, there will be not much beer left.
During this one-hour process, two hops, fragrant and bitter, can be added at any time. This is the second step of brewing beer, boiling/boiling flowers, and the decisive flavor of beer is formed at this time. As for when to add hops, it is the key to control the fragrance and bitterness. On the plateau, the bitter flowers will become more and more bitter with the increase of boiling time, while the fragrant flowers will become less fragrant as they are cooked. No matter whether you want to drink sweet or bitter, you can freely mix them. Every brewing process is a kind of growth, and finding out your favorite flavor is also one of the greatest pleasures of brewing.
Then, we begin to enter the third step of brewing beer, "cooling". You can choose to cover the lid and let the wort cool down to a suitable temperature, or find a water tank and put cold water and ice cubes in it to speed up the cooling. The key to the success of home-brewed beer lies in all the processes after brewing, because wort is boiled to sterilize and evaporate impurities. When the pot is out of fire, you should pay attention not to pollute wort. Not only all utensils should be cleaned and sterilized, but even the saliva may affect it, so you need to be especially careful.
As mentioned just now, "cleanliness" is an absolutely important condition for brewing wine, and it is the 75% medicinal alcohol sold in major pharmacies that can be quickly volatilized without residue! As long as the containers and utensils that wort will come into contact with need to be disinfected with alcohol first, whether it is poured directly or sprayed in a spray can.
Then filter the wort to filter out the coarse impurities.
Put into a fermentation bottle which has been cleaned and disinfected.
The fourth step of brewing beer is fermentation, which is also the reason why beer can become "wine". The ideal temperature of yeast is below 27 degrees Celsius. If the temperature is too high, it will produce too much metabolism and produce many unpleasant smells.
Finally, plug the clean and dry "silicone bottle stopper+three-piece air check valve" into the bottle mouth. This prop can help the carbon dioxide produced during fermentation out of the fermentation bottle, and also prevent the outside air from entering it. The key point is not to let the fermentation bottle explode because of too much carbon dioxide.
Open the upper cover of the air check valve, pour in rice wine, and finally just close it and everything is done!
The process that the air one-way valve discharges the carbon dioxide produced during fermentation, "only can't get in" explains the operation principle of the little helper. By the way, you can already smell the delicious beer aroma at this time!
On the first day, the liquid in the fermentation bottle will be slightly turbid. On the second day, when the fermentation is most active, a large amount of carbon dioxide will be produced, and the sediment under it will be washed up, which will be bubbling and super turbid. Next, when the yeast eats enough sugar to go to sleep, impurities will begin to precipitate and the liquid will gradually become clear, but this method of brewing beer can not be as clear and transparent as common commercial beer.
After bottling, the fermentation bottle needs to be placed at room temperature of about 20 degrees to ferment slowly (that is to say, the weather is the most suitable now! ), can not be directly exposed to the sun, let stand for more than 7 to 10 days, then cover the bottle cap and put it in the refrigerator for drinking! You can put the brewed beer directly into the cup, or you can take it out by extraction, which will make the beer clearer and less likely to drink impurities.
Although everyone has a different definition of good taste, generally speaking, the beer brewed in this way can feel the sweetness and sweetness of barley, and the unique bitterness of beer can also be adjusted according to one's own preferences. As far as the editor is concerned, the degree of good taste is completely higher than that of beer bought by everyone in supermarkets! However, we should remind you that after the above-mentioned brewing process, the brewed beer has no familiar bubbles, because carbon dioxide has almost been discharged, and if you want to drink that familiar taste, you have to go through "secondary fermentation." As for the steps of secondary fermentation, maybe I will explain them to you again in the future. If people can't wait, they can also look for relevant information on the Internet, which should not be too difficult to find.
Brewing beer is a technology that has been passed down for thousands of years. Related brewing knowledge can be found in many places, whether in books or on the Internet. However, for most people, knowledge of brewing is not the most troublesome place, but it takes a lot of effort to obtain materials and props, so the Brewers Paradise team will come up with this simple and convenient combination of brewing beer at home, hoping to let more people know about the fun of brewing beer. If you like beer as much as them and want to experience the fun and romance of brewing beer at home together, maybe you can take this set as a starting point and enter the profound beer world together!