It’s finally here! My first e-book and you bet your ass it was about beer! What else would it be about? Birds?

Seriously though, this has been a bit of a journey for me. When I started to think about brewing my own beer over 2 years ago, I was nervous, didn’t want to spend the money, had no idea what I was in for and had no one to really ask without feeling stupid about it. I figured, if I felt that way, there has to be a bunch of other people out there feeling the same way. So, if you are thinking about starting to homebrew, this is for you.

Watch the video to find out more or read on.

My free e-book, “Start Brewing Beer with Extracts” lays it all out for you. We discuss everything you’ll need to know about that first batch of homebrewed beer, that you make and enjoy. It is a lot easier and cheaper than you think. All you need is some time. This book covers it all.

• Why I Decided to Homebrew
• Homebrew Start Kits, who sells them, how much and what you get
• Extract Kits – what’s in them and why they are a good place to start
• Brewing Day – step by step what is to be expected of you along with some tips

• Fermentation – what’s going on inside that fermentor and what you can occupy your time with
• Bottling Day – what you’ll have to do, sanitation practices, tips and more
• Drinking that first beer
• Readings
• Checklists and recipe forms
• And some words from other first time homebrewers.

I’m not going to ramble on about it. If you are thinking about starting to homebrew, this is a great place to start! Check it out!

Also, if you need any assistance, questions, comments, concerns or whatever, shoot me a message and we’ll tackle it together!

Good luck and I’ll be checking up on you!

Cheers!

Your house smells of a fantastic brew, boiling a way in your kettle. Your primary is awaiting the glorious pour of freshly brewed wort and you are anxiously awaiting pitching your yeast and watching fermentation take off. What, wait…your smack pack is not inflating or you accidentally knocked your starter over and spilled all of your yeast on the floor…Your wort is almost ready to go…what do you do?

Rehydrate yeast. Rehydrating yeast is a pretty simple thing to do that can maintain quality in your beer. Dry yeast is not always the first yeast of choice. The strains of yeast are somewhat limited, but there is no reason you can’t and shouldn’t use them. I prefer to use them in standard beers like a Pale Ale. But the main advice I can give to anyone who brews, is to keep a package or two of dry yeast on hand. They are small and keep really well in a fridge. If it just so happens that one of the above scenarios or something else should happen, you can still get your beer fermenting without skipping a beat.

It’s not always the main consideration, but dry yeast is cheap. Less than $2 a package, which can save you a few bucks every batch of beer. You sacrifice choice, as I mentioned before because of the lack of different strains, but if your recipe is simple or doesn’t need something special, dry yeast is a good choice.

Why Do I Need To Rehydrate Yeast

In my first batch of beer I ever made, I had a package of Muton’s dry yeast. When I was ready to pitch, I just sprinkled my yeast on top of the wort and waited. Waited, waited and waited. I waited 6 days before anything happened. Sure there are other factors involved with this. My brewing practice at the time, outdated ingredients or yeast could be the culprit as well. But what I do know is had I rehydrated my yeast, I would have either known they were no good or would have had a quicker starting fermentation.

In dry form, yeast are dormant awaiting to be awakened to help you make some beer. By rehydrating the yeast, you wake them up and get their metabolism going. When you just pitch into the wort you run the risk of the yeast not being able to rehydrate because the high concentration of sugars in the wort can make absorbing water difficult. That is probably part of the reason my first brew took 6 days to get started fermenting.

Rehydrate yeast, they will thank you for it.

How To Rehydrate Yeast

What the heck is this little do-hicky that came with my homebrewing starter kit and what does it do, and WORST yet, how the hell do I use it?

This interesting little tool is called a hydrometer and comes in real handy for beginner, novice, advanced and expert homebrewers. The hydrometer has two main purposes. It tells you when your beer is done fermenting and it tells you how much alcohol is in your new beer. But how do you use a hydrometer? Let’s discuss.

How To Use A hydrometer

First things first. We need to learn how to take a reading. With a little direction, you’ll be an expert scientist in no time!

Drink you sample or discard it, but never put it back into the fermenter. Now what do you do with that reading?

Use it to find out when your fermentation is complete.

1. Take a sample of beer and place it in the tube that your hydrometer came in after you are done brewing and aerating your wort. This is done before pitching your yeast. Make sure you use a sanitized wine thief or other tool to acquire your sample. Mark that number down in your brewing notes. You will use this number to figure out ABV and if your fermentation is complete.

2. When you start to think fermentation is complete, take another sample. Again, be sure to use a sanitized wine thief or other tool to acquire your sample.

3. Measure that sample and note the number. Do not put the sample back into your fermenter!

4. Twenty-four hours later, take another sample and note that number.

5. Another 24 hours later, take another sample, note that number. If your number has not changed over 3 days your fermentation is complete and you are ready to bottle.

Use your hydrometer to tell how much alcohol by volume is in your beer.

1. Remember that first reading you took when you brewed up your batch of beer? Bring that number out because you’ll need it to figure out the final alcohol content.

2. Take a final sample from your bottling bucket. Once you moved your brew over go ahead take a sample right out of the spigot or use the number from step 5 where you determined your fermentation was complete.

3. Take a reading like describe above.

How to Calculate Alcohol By Volume

Calculating the alcohol content of your beer can be pretty easy if you just follow the following formula.

(Original Gravity – Final Gravity) X 131 = ABV%

There you have it. You can now not only take an accurate hydrometer reading, but you can use this tool to find out when your fermentation is complete and how much alcohol is in your beer!

Congratulations and happy brewing!

Side note:

Some people don’t bother using hydrometers and that is perfectly fine and dandy. They just like to brew and have done it enough to know when their beer is done. On top of that, they have a pretty good idea of approximetly how much alcohol is in their beers or just plain do not care. However, if you are like me, you like to know these things for future reference as you tweak and formulate recipes. Regardless, any new homebrewer should pay attention and use their hydrometer until they are comfortable with knowing when fermentation is complete. Otherwise, you may end up with some bottle bombs and those are no fun.

Just remember, have fun and enjoy!

Bottle cleaning for your homebrew can be a tedious process and really no matter how you cut it, it is going to be a time commitment. I know when I was a beginner, I was wondering how I could save all these bottles I was drinking of craft brew for my homebrew. I started with some Dawn and water and spent a lot of time scrapping labels off with a knife and then sanitizing the bottle before filling it. As I searched the internet for help and, tried a couple of things on my own, I found the following to be a great process for cleaning bottles for my homebrew without spending a bunch of money on fancy tools like a bottle tree or a bottle rinse head for my faucets, plus I saved a lot of time with labels and pretty much guaranteed no stuck on gunk in my bottles or chlorine flavors from bleach.

The following is one avenue on how to clean bottles for your homebrew. If you have other ways that work really well, I’d love to hear about them. So please feel free to comment or send me a message on twitter.

I know a lot of people hate cleaning bottles, but I rather enjoy it. I find that no one wants to help me so its a time for me to grab a beer, turn on some tunes and have some me time doing something extremely easy.

How To Clean Bottles For Your Homebrew

Siphoning Wort Into a Fermenter

Siphoning wort into a fermenter can be a really difficult task for people new to brewing beer. Transferring beer or wort is a delicate process because you are now in a temperature zone that you really want to protect from outside bacteria. That means that every time you open your beer up to the air or stick something into the beer you put it at risk of being infected. So one way to minimize this risk is to siphon your beer quickly from one vessel to the next. There are a few different options and some are better than others.

By Hand

When I first started brewing beer I siphoned by hand. I’m very tight with my money and I didn’t want to add an expense to something if I could do it myself. There is a lot of steps to starting a siphon when compared to other methods.

How To Start A Siphon By Hand

1. Fill the siphon hosing with sanitized solution making sure to get all of the air out of it.
2. Plug both ends of the siphon hose and proceed to your containers.
3. Place your “from” container (the container you want to move liquid from) up higher than the “to” container (the container you are siphoning the beer to). The liquid will stay in the tube as long as you keep your finger on the other end.
4. Once that siphon end is in place, unplug the other end of the siphon tube, drain off the clear liquid sanitizer into a cup or something, then plug the siphon hose again.
5. Put the end into the container you would like to siphon your wort into and unplug the end.
6. Congratulations! You have started a siphon.

I have found this way to be a huge pain in the ass though. If you lose the siphon, and believe me it can happen, you have to pull the siphon hose out and start from scratch again. All the while your beer is exposed and you are creating an opportunity for infection by taking your hose in and out of your beer.

How to Start a Siphon Using a Carboy Cap

This is a pretty cool invention that, in theory works really well. I used these same procedure a couple of times before moving onto something else.

Basically all you have to do is stick your racking cane in the end that your airlock was in. After you get the cane in place you take the white cap off the end and blow into it very lightly. The carbon dioxide layer that sits at the top of the fermenter allows you to easily push your beer out. I was not a big fan of the Carboy Cap.

There are drawbacks though. The first is if you lose your siphon, it is nearly impossible to start a siphon again without having to blow harder than you have ever blown before. Not only does it really not work, but you are now blowing your mouth bacteria into your brew. Another draw back is that these caps don’t fit all fermenters. They only fit carboys and only certain tops, so it isn’t guaranteed it will work. Last but not least, if you forget to use that as your top when you pitch your yeast and put your carboy a way for 2 weeks, you are stuck without this option and forced to manually do it.

How to Start a Siphon with an Auto Siphon

Starting a Siphon with an Auto Siphon is extremely easy to do and has become my favorite piece of equipment. They are cheap, don’t get me wrong, it could easily break if not taken care of, but they are cheap as well. So replacement isn’t going to break the bank. As you can see in the video, you basically sanitize, pull the end up half way, place it in the wort, and pump. It is that easy. If you lose your siphon, you just adjust and pump again. Your siphon is started that easily.

I highly recommend starting your siphons with an Auto Siphon. It will save you time and minimize the amount of time your beer is exposed to organic yeasts and bacteria.

Do you use one of these methods and find it to work better than the other? I’d love to hear your methods. I know there are more than just these 3, but these are the most straight forward and the most common. So what is your method?