A hobby of mine is homebrewing beer.  Which tastes better, a Big Mac or your own
hamburger?  The same with beer.  When you make it yourself you're assured the
freshest ingredients, the flavor you want, and no additives or preservatives.  Don't be
fooled by mass market American beers*  Visit a local brewpub or high end European
beer and you'll see.  Below is a general recipe for a beer.
 

The Ingredients
The main ingredients for beer are barley malt, yeast, water, hops, and sugar.  If you think
about it, there is a reason beer has been called liquid bread.  At the hombrew store it's
pretty cool, they have a big recipe book and you just pick whatever beer you want.  It
can be an original recipe or a copy of any of the commercial brands.  Prices for ingredients
range from $15 for a typical American rice beer to $40 for a fancy Heffeweizen, you get
enough for 4-5 gallons.  The picture below is what came with the Amber Bock recipe.
This consists of:
6.5 lbs Amber liquid malt extract (big tub)
1 lb. Crystal 40l + 1/8 lb. Black Patent + 1 oz. Chocolate malt grain (large bag)
1 oz. Eroica hops (bittering), 1 oz Fuggle hops (flavoring)
2 packets Wyest German ale yeast
1/2 lb priming sugar

Boiling The Wort
Of extreme importance is to sanitize all your cooking utensils!  Preparing hombrew is a hell of a lot
cleaner than preparing your typical dinner recipe.  You don't want to introduce any bacteria into your
beer as it will ruin it.  So the first step is to boil your malt grain, you put it in a porous bag, for
15 min. in 2 gal. of water.  Discard the grain and add the liquid malt extract.  Boil this for 60 min.
Note that at the start of the boil you add bittering hops and 15 min. before the end of the boil you
add flavoring hops.  Hops adds bitterness and aroma as well as balancing out the sweetness of
the unfermented sugars.

Pitching The Yeast
You've finished the boil and now are ready to add the yeast.  The wort (boiled malt & hops) needs
to cool down to <90 degrees F as that is the sustainable temperature for the yeast.  Pour the wort
into your fermentation bucket and add the yeast, stirring well.  The dry yeast packets this recipe
came with needed to be rehydrated by adding it to a cup of sterile water.

Fermentation

Bottling

My source for ingredients/supplies are the helpful zymurgists at  Austin Homebrew
 
 
 
 

Email: doctorkwak@yahoo.com
 
 
 

*Why is American beer like sex in a canoe?   They are both f---ing close to water :-)