This guide is written for would be Extract brewers to see what is involved in a basic extract brewing session. It is not meant to be a tutorial but just an overview of what is involved in brewing a good beer. In it's simplest form making an extract beer involves adding hopped extract to hot water, pouring into a fermenter, topping up with cold water and adding the yeast. Put an airlock on, wait 7-10 days. Bottle with a little sugar in each bottle, cap and wait 2 weeks. Your beer is then hopefully done and ready to drink. Will this give you good beer and the satisfaction of real brewing? Debatable. Lets look at a more satisfying involved method.
Lets assume that to make good extract beer you'll be be looking at one of the either steeping some speciality grains and using hops or doing a Partial Mash with hop additions.
Contents
Extract and Steeping
Equipment
The minimum equipment require for the following method is:
- Heat source (Stove/oven/propane burner)
- Stock pot (4 gallon minimum)
- 6.5 gallon fermenter (food grade bucket or glass carboy)
- Airlock
- Thermometer
- Mixing spoon
- Siphon tube
- Bottles
Additional beneficial equipment:
- Hydrometer
- 2nd fermenter
- Spare airlock
- Bottling bucket with spigot
- Auto-siphon
- Bottle filler
- Blow off Tube
Ingredients
The fermentables (sugars to be turned to alcohol) for the brew will come from the malt extract which comes in two forms, dry (DME) and liquid (LME). Speciality grains are steeped mainly for colour and flavour properties and not to add fermentable sugars. Hops are added for bitterness, flavour and aroma.
Recipe
Most home brew extract kits involve adding the malt extract to boiling water, adding hops at specified intervals during the boil (typical boil length is 60 minutes), and pitching yeast. If you want to get a recipe for a better extract beer, there are multiple books and internet sources available with thousands of recipes. You can then purchase your ingredients in small amounts from most Home brew stores. Many home brew stores and internet suppliers offer their own ingredient kits as well.
Basics Steps
- Steep the grain for 15 minutes
- Remove grain
- Bring to boil
- Remove from heat and add malt extract
- Return to boil and add bittering hops
- Add flavour and aroma hops at specified intervals
- Cool wort
- Add to fermenter
- Top up water
- Pitch yeast
Full Boil
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Equipment
Ingredients
Basic steps
Mini Mash
This isn't much different than steeping. Most of the fermentable sugars are still provided by extract, but mini-mash allows you to use any speciality grain.
There are two main factors: you need to have enough 2-row malt to convert the specialty grains and you have to keep the temperatures in the 148F-158F [65C-70C] range. The low end of the range is based on complete gelatinization of the barley starches and the upper on the destruction of the conversion enzymes.
We strongly recommend you aim for 152F/67C.
Equipment
You can start mini-mashing with no more additional equipment than a very large grain bag. It needs to be large enough to allow free circulation of water between the 2-row and the specialty grains.
Because maintaining the correct temperature is much more critical than for steeping, an insulated cooler is also a good idea.
Ingredients
Mini-mashes will have as much 2-row malt as all other grains combined.
Mini-mash and Partial mash are commonly used interchangeably.
Basic steps
Place your crushed grains in the bag and put the bag in your cooler or pot. Do not tie off the top.
Add 1.5 quarts of 168F [75C] water per pound of grain [3 L/kg]
Stir the grain until the temperature is uniform. Add hot/cold water in small quantities to adjust.
Let the grain sit for 60 minutes.
Stir it again and lift the bag out and let it drain.
If you are mashing in your boil kettle, add the extract and proceed as you would for an extract batch.
If you are using a cooler or a pot that is not your boil kettle:
Pour the wort into your boil kettle.
Put the grain bag back in the pot and add about the same quantity of hot water.
Stir the grain and wait 10 minutes.
Stir one last time and remove the bag, letting it drain.
Add the second batch of wort to your boil kettle.
Detailed How To Pages
Extract and Steep
Partial Mash
Further Reading
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