Homebrewing For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Get hoppin' with this guide to microbrewing your own beer Thinking of brewing your own beer or want to know how it's done? Homebrewing For Dummies is for you. If you're ready to take a crack at making your own brew, you'll need this guide to the supplies, ingredients, and process of crafting the perfect beer. Follow our recipes for lager, porter, stout, and other brew types—or invent your own. When you've tasted your perfect creation (and after the hangover wears off), we've got you covered with ideas for entering your beer into homebrewing competitions and selling your beer. This new edition keeps pace with the exciting world of small-batch beer, introducing you to new flavors and varieties that are popular on the microbrew circuit. We've also got the details on the latest at-home brewing equipment, software and apps, and resources you can tap (get it?) to make a better beer. Not an IPA person? Not to worry! You can also make your own hard seltzers, flavored malt beverages, and juice drinks with this handy how-to. Get recipes and instructions for brewing lagers, porters, and other beers at home Enhance the quality of your small-batch brews and make your operations more eco friendly Enter homebrewing competitions with your beer, hard seltzer, and malt beverages Discover new gadgets, apps, and resources that can make home brewing even easier Homebrewing For Dummies is for anyone looking for a fun and easy-to-use guide to the exciting, rewarding, and refreshing hobby of beer brewing. Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Introduction About This Book Foolish Assumptions Icons Used in This Book Beyond the Book Where to Go from Here Part 1 First Things First Chapter 1 Welcome to the Wonderful World of Wort Homebrewers Abound! All the Right Stuff Gathering the equipment you need Tracing the homebrewing timeline Adding ingredients galore! Preparing wisely All done — now what? Chapter 2 Setting Up Your Beeraphernalia Sniffing Out Sources Square One: Equipment for the Beginning Brewer So much equipment, so little time . . . What do I do with all these gadgets? Square Two: Equipment for the Intermediate Brewer Now what do I need? What do these gizmos even do? Square Three: Equipment for the Advanced Brewer I need even more stuff? What else could I possibly need another doodad for? Chapter 3 Creating Your Own Department of Sanitation No Dirty Words: Sanitation Lingo Battling Bacteria (and Fungi) Soaps for Suds: Cleansers and Sanitizers Cleaning Up Your Act: Equipment Cleaning Practices Bottle Cleanliness Is a Virtue Part 2 It’s in There: The Nuts and Bolts of Beer Chapter 4 Malt: A Tale of Two Sources (Grain and Extract) Going with Grain Malting Mashing Mixing it up with other grains Manipulating grain: Kilning and milling Enjoying the Ease of Extracts Graduating to other malty methods Comparing liquid versus dry malt extract Chapter 5 Hop Heaven Seeing the Hop Flower Up Close Hopping with Variety Selecting the Best Hops Freshness is fundamental Bittering potential is important too Taking Note of Top Hops Chapter 6 Yeast and Fermentation There’s a Fungus among Us The Magic of Fermentation It’s cyclical Factoring in fermentation variables Liquid yeast versus dry yeast: A foamenting debate Propagating yeast Yeast energizers and nutrients Yeast Sources Considering Alcohol Content ABV versus ABW N/A (nonalcoholic) beer is n/a (not achievable) Chapter 7 On the Water Front H2OH: Understanding How Water Chemistry Affects Your Homebrew Something Is in the Water pHundamentals of pH balance Antibacterial agents Hard facts, fluid concepts Mineral ions Trace metals Buying Brew-Friendly Bottled Water Distilled water Reverse osmosis water Chapter 8 Adjuncts and Flavorings Adjuncts: Sugar, Sugar. . . Aw, Honey, Honey Flavoring Your Brew with Flavorings Funky flavorings: The exotic and the esoteric Herbs and spice and everything nice Chapter 9 Making Your Brew Bionic: Additives, Preservatives, Finings, and Clarifiers To Add and Preserve A Little Clarification, Please The Acid Test Part 3 Ready, Set, Brew! Chapter 10 Beginner Brewing Directions Gathering the Tools You Need Brewing Your First Batch Taking Hydrometer Readings Chapter 11 Intermediate Brewing Directions Taking Control of Your Beer Fooling Around with Ingredients Grain and strain Hop to it Yeasty beasties Conditioning for Better Beer Secondary fermentation Tertiary fermentation Chapter 12 Advanced Brewing Directions Yes, We Have No Potatoes: Mashing Procedures Three important variables Gimme some water: Simplified water treatment for mashing And then there were three: Mashing types The mash-out It’s in the bag Easing into Mashing with a Partial Mash Going All Out with All-Grain Brewing Increasing Your Batch Size Harvest Time: Reusing Your Yeast Chapter 13 High-Tech Brewing Is it Bigger Than a Breadbox? Out of the Kitchen and Into the Garage Bigger Is Betterer? A Primer on RIMS and HERMS Part 4 Packaging Your Brew Chapter 14 Bottling Your Brew Picking Out Bottles Ready, Set, Bottle! Tanks a Lot! Bottling Kegged Beer A Primer on Priming Getting ready to prime Deciding which and how much primer to use Exploring alternative primers Crowning Achievements Chapter 15 Doing the Can-Can: Canning Your Beer Kicking the Can Down the Road A Canning We Will Go . . . It Seams Simple Enough Canned Beer and Homebrew Competitions Chapter 16 Kegging: Bottling’s Big Brother Roll Out the Barrel: Buying Your Kegging Equipment Getting Your Keg Up and Flowing Clean ’em out and fill ’em up: Sanitizing and racking procedures Making bubbles: Carbonating procedures Enjoying Your Brew: Tapping and Lapping Procedures Part 5 BJCP Beer Style Guidelines and Homebrew Recipes Chapter 17 Beginner Suggestions and BJCP Beer Style Guidelines American Amber Ale (19-a) American Brown Ale (19-c) American Porter (20-a) Baltic Porter (9-c) Best Bitter (11-b) Belgian Blond Ale (25-a) California Common (19-b) English Barley Wine (17-d) British Brown Ale (13-b) British Strong Ale (17-a) English Porter (13-c) Irish Red Ale (15-a) Irish Stout (15-b) Oatmeal Stout (16-b) Old Ale (17-b) Weizenbier (10-a) Weizenbock (10-c) Chapter 18 Intermediate Recipes American Barley Wine (22-c) Imperial Stout (20-c) American IPA (21-a) American Pale Ale (18-b) American Wheat Beer (1-d) Belgian Dubbel (26-b) Belgian IPA (21-b) Belgian Tripel (26-c) Black IPA (21-b) Dark Mild (13-a) Dunkelweizen (10-b) English IPA (12-c) Fruit Beer (29-a) Saison (25-b) Spiced, Herb, or Vegetable Beer (30-a) Smoked Beer (32-b) Sweet Stout (16-a) Wee Heavy (17-c) Witbier (24-a) Chapter 19 BJCP Beer Style Guidelines and Advanced Recipes American Lager (1-B) Altbier (7-B) Belgian Dark Strong Ale (26-D) Berliner Weisse (23-A) Bock (6-C) Cream Ale (1-C) Czech Dark Lager (3-D) Czech Pilsner (3-B) Doppelbock (9-A) Double IPA (22-A) German Pils (5-D) Gose (23-G) Hazy IPA (21-C) Helles Bock (4-C) Kölsch (5-B) Märzen (6-A) Munich Dunkel (8-A) Munich Helles (4-A) Classic Style Smoked Beer (32-A) Schwarzbier (8-B) Vienna Lager (7-A) Part 6 Alternative Brewing Chapter 20 In-Cider Information Exploring the Cider Option Comparing apples to apples Sorting cider styles Making Cider Cider Considerations: Recipes English Cider (C1B) Rotten to the Corps New England Cider (C2A) Pride and Jay Specialty Cider (C2F) Big Apple Punch Chapter 21 A Meading of the Minds Mulling Over the Mead Option The honey bunch: Appreciating honey The honey-brew list: Mead styles Sweet Success: Making Magnificent Mead Choosing your honey Mead-iocre? Not! Fermenting your mead I Mead a Drink: Mead Recipes Traditional Mead (M1) Lindisfarne Libation Specialty Mead (M4) Winter Holiday Sweet Mead Pyment (grape melomel) (M2B) Concord Grape Sweet Mead Chapter 22 Hard Seltzers Making Seltzer Hard is Easy? Spotlight on Ingredients Water Sugar Yeast Flavorings So, What About All Those Minerals and Nutrients? The Bottom Line Step-by-Step: How to Make Hard Seltzer Chapter 23 Going Green: Being an Eco-Friendly Homebrewer Brewing Green Beer: It’s Not Just for St. Patrick’s Day Any More Reduce Reuse Recycle No-Chill Brewing Organically Speaking Why use organic ingredients? Tracking the trend Certifiably nuts: Determining what’s really organic Chapter 24 Gluten-Free Brewing Getting to Know Gluten From Intolerant to Tolerable: Brewing Gluten-Free Beer at Home Readying your equipment Substituting safe ingredients Brewing gluten-free beers from all grain Last, but not yeast Chapter 25 Barrel Aging and Souring Beer Barrel-Aging Beginnings Old World barrel usage and New World barrel usage In wood vs. on wood Oak Is Oak-kay Old Barrel Flavors Create New Beer Flavors Over a Barrel Oxidation and Bacteria Good vs. Evil? Extraction in Action Souring Beer Acidic Does Not Always Equal Sour Simple Sours vs. Complex Sours The “Bugs” in Sour Beer Beer Souring Processes Pre-fermentation Fermentation Post-fermentation Part 7 Putting Your Brew to the Test Chapter 26 Storing and Pouring Storing Your Suds How do I store it? Where do I store it? How long do I store it? Pouring Procedures Out of the bottle . . . . . . and into the glass Dirty Deeds: Cleaning Beer Glassware Storing Your Steins Chapter 27 You Can’t Judge a Bock by Its Cover: Evaluating Beer Tuning In to Your Beer Evaluating One Sense at a Time The nose knows Seeing is beer-lieving In good taste From Observations to Reflections Relaying the Results: Homebrew Lingo, Jargon, and Vernacular Reinventing the Wheel Chapter 28 Troubleshooting Fermentation Lamentations No fermentation Stuck fermentation Never-ending fermentation In Bad Taste: Off Flavors and Aromas Butter/butterscotch flavors Sour/tart flavors Medicinal/plastic/smoky flavors Papery/cardboard/sherry-like flavors (oxidation) Dry/puckering mouthfeel (astringency) Harshness/hotness Metallic flavor Skunk aroma Sulfury odors Vegetal flavors and aromas Flavor and Aroma Therapy Quick References Conditioning and Appearance Problems Flat out of gas Thar she blows! Overcarbonated beers In a haze: Cloudy beers Poor head, bad body Chapter 29 Homebrew Competitions What’s Involved in Homebrewing Competitions? How are the entries judged? How do I enter a homebrew competition, and what are the rules? How do I send my beer? The Best of the Best Master Championship of Amateur Brewing Master Homebrewer Program Becoming a Barrister of Beer What it takes to become a beer judge Advancing to supreme quart justice Part 8 The Part of Tens Chapter 30 Ten (or So) Ways to D.I.G.I.B.I.Y. (Do It, Grow It, Build It Yourself) Banking Yeast Preparing to open your own bank Creating yeast Handling Grain Roast-a-rama Smoke ’em if you got ’em Di-vine Intervention: Growing Hops Here we grow! Pick a hop, any hop Drying and storing your hops Building Brewing Equipment Chillin’ out: Immersion wort chillers Tuns of fun: Lauter tun Pot o’ plenty: Large-volume brewpot Cold feat: Lagering cellar Cold feat, Part II: Keezer Chapter 31 Ten (or So) Gizmos That Can Make Your Brewing Better and Easier Digital Thermometer and pH Meter Wort Aeration System Auto Siphon Counterpressure Bottle Filler Beer Filter Germicidal Lamp Wort Transfer Pump Refractometer Mashing Sparge Arm Counter-flow Wort Chiller Stir Plate Hop Spider Tilt Hydrometer Chapter 32 Just the FAQs: Ten (or So) Frequently Asked Questions How Much Is Taking Up Homebrewing Going to Cost? How Much Does the Average Batch of Beer Cost? Where Can I Buy Homebrewing Supplies? How Long Does Making a Batch of Homebrew Take? Is Homebrewed Beer Better Than Commercially Made Beer? How Do You Carbonate Homebrew? How Do I Add Alcohol to Homebrew? Can I Distill Homebrew into Whiskey? Can I Sell Homebrew? Why Shouldn’t I Age Beer in the Plastic Primary Fermenter? Do I Have to Worry About Things Blowing Up in My House? Can I Turn My Homebrewing Hobby into a Business? Index EULA