How to make Beer

Brewing your own beer at home is not difficult, it's easy. You can do it too and will be amazed at the results! This page will explain to you briefly how to make beer. Brew kits come with manuals and brew guides, that will explain it in detail to you.

Ingredients:
To brew beer, you'll need quality ingredients:

• Hopped malt extract or
• Unhopped malt extract (UME)
• Water
• Brewer’s Yeast

Mr. Beer offers a collection of beer making kits, supplies, and merchandise.

Beer is about 96% water. It's often recommended to use bottled spring water. However some users claim to get good results with tap water as well.

Yeast: without yeast there is not beer. Yeast ferments barley malts and sugars into alcohol while releasing carbon dioxide.

Hops are delicate and impart the necessary bitterness required to balance the sweetness of the malt.

Your First Brew

There are many recipes, techniques and processes of brewing which use the Mr. Beer® Microbrewery System. These instructions will acquaint you with the basic principles of brewing. Our first recipe following instructions makes 8 quarts, equivalent to 20-12 oz. beers. This recipe produces a beer with the strength and caloric content of a typical American lager. Once you are familiar with the basic principals of the Mr. Beer(r) MicroBrewery System, you can make a huge range of beer styles, according to your personal preferences.

Sanitize

Sanitizing is an essential step in the beer making process. It kills microscopic bacteria, yeast, and molds that may cause off flavors in your beer. Use One Step No-Rinse Cleaner at the rate of 1 tablespoon per gallon of warm water. Open and close the tap several times to allow sanitizing solution to flow through it. Alternatively, sanitize by soaking in a solution of 2 tablespoons of unscented household bleach to 1 gallon of cold tap water for 10 minutes. If bleach is used, rinse the bleach solution off with tap water until there is no chlorine odor. If One Step is used, allow pieces to drain on a sanitized surface. No rinsing is required with One Step.

Now, let’s Brew!

FILL the Keg with four (4) quarts cold tap water. NEVER pour hot (above 140ÁF) or boiling liquid directly into the Keg. Volume markings in quarts are on the back of the Keg. Soak the beer mix can in hot water for 10 minutes to soften contents.

PLACE exactly four (4) cups of cold water into a 3-quart or larger kettle. Pour Booster in cold water, slowly while stirring until desolved, then heat the water to a BOIL. Boiling more than six (6) cups water may make the wort too hot for the yeast. Remove from the heat source and stir in the whole can of beer mix. Omit Booster(tm) for lower alcohol beer or add Booster(tm) and up to an additional 1/2 cup of table sugar for higher alcohol beer. POUR the wort into the Keg. ADD additional cold tap water to bring the volume to the 8.5-quart mark on the end of the Keg. Wort temperature should be between 70-103ÁF when yeast is added, but the cooler the better.

SPRINKLE the yeast from the packet on top of the wort, allow to sit for 5 minutes, then stir the wort vigorously. The brewer's term is to "pitch" the yeast, meaning to add the yeast to the wort.

SCREW the lid onto the Keg. Fermentation will start within 24 hours. While the wort is fermenting, carbon dioxide will be released through the vents on the Keg neck and escape down the screw threads preventing contaminants from entering the Keg. The best conditions for fermentation are out of direct sunlight, in a room with a stable temperature.

Allow your beer to FERMENT a minimum seven (7) days at room temperature between 68-76ÁF. During fermentation foam will develop on top of the fermenting beer. As they consume the fermentable sugars in the wort, the yeast cells will slowly become inactive and most will settle to the bottom, building up sediment below the tap. Avoid the urge to peek into the fermenter as you do not want to introduce any beer souring organisms.

It typically takes 7 days at room temperature to ferment your beer. Due to variances in temperature, yeast vitality, and age of beer mix, fermentation may take longer. It is ready to bottle when there are no floating colonies of yeast, a good layer of sediment is visible on the bottom of the Keg and the beer has cleared of particulates. The beer will taste yeasty, but not sweet when it is ready to bottle. Bottling beer in less than a week may result in burst bottles due to over pressurization, or over carbonated beer.

This is how to make beer! More detailed information and instructions come with the microbrewery.