Recommended Procedures for Brewing Beer

from “Pints O’ Plenty” in Forest, Virginia

Before beginning any brewing it is strongly suggested that you read all instructions provided with your kit
and the book “The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing” by Charlie Papazian. (Note: this book is
available at Pints-O-Plenty). In addition review the sanitation procedures of all brewing equipment as this
is very critical to the success of your brewing, sanitize everything that comes in contact with your
ingredients or beer.

Steps in the brewing process:

In a 5 gallon stainless pot (NO ALUMINUM or your beer will taste like a bud can) put 10 quarts (2.5gals)
of fresh water and insert the grain bag with grains (where applicable, not all kits have special grains) and
begin to heat. Bringing the temperature to 155 +/- 5 degrees, DO NOT allow the temp. to go to 170you’re
your temperature of steeping your grains goes above 170 your beer will taste very medicinal and astringent
because you will leach tannins from the grain husk into your unfermented beer (called wort). Tannins are
great in a red wine but really suck in your beer. Begin timing the steeping of the grains once the
temperature has reached 150F. This will be 20-30 minutes for kits that are identified as EASY and 45
minutes for kits identified as INTERMEDIATE. The difference is that INTERMEDIATE kits or recipes
that contain cereal grains like rye, wheat, and oats require the extra time to convert their starches to sugars.
It is critical that these temperatures are kept between 150F-160F for BEST results.

Gentle stirring is OK during this steep but it is very important to remember NOT to stir vigorously or
splash your “wort” at ANY time above 80F. Doing so could result in hot side aeration which means your
beer will taste and smell like bandaids!

After prescribed time remove grains still in the grain bag and let the bag drain back into the pot but do not
squeeze the grain bag or allow draining to splash into your “wort”. Squeezing your grain bag will also
leach out those tannins from the grain husk. We want the inside sugars from those grains and not the
outside tannins.

Now bring the mix to a boil. DO NOT use a top on your pot at any time of your steeping or boiling! Doing
so will trap Dimethylsulfide (DMS) in your beer and it will taste like cooked corn!

Once the boil is reached add it is time to REMOVE THE POT FROM THE HEAT SOURCE and add the
malts to your wort. Malts in kits and recipes vary. LME stands for liquid malt extract. DME stands for
dried malt extract. Review your kit and add these according to the instructions. TIP: For light golden
recipes you will only add part of the LME or DME in at the beginning of the boil and add the rest the last
15minutes. This will keep your beer lighter in color. Your recipe may also have maltodextrin, candy sugar
and other special fermentables that are require to add at this time, refer to the instructions with kits.
Remember it is best to make these additions of any malts when your pot is off the main heat source. Adding
malts when your pot is directly on your burner could result in scorching and undesired caramelizing when
they hit the bottom of the pot.

Stir your wort with the new additions gingerly!

Add back to the heat source after this gentle mixing after approximately 5 minutes and bring back to a boil.

Now that you batch of wort has the backbone of malts in it you will more that like have your wort FROTH
up once the boil is re-achieved! Watch for frothing of the mix and when it occurs immediately add ice
cubes to counteract the frothing and adjust the heat of the boil down slightly. Also, once the boil occurs,
(See notes on the “Clock”) the goal is to end up with a rolling boil for the time indicated on your
instruction sheet. Normally this is a total time of 55-60 minutes of total boil time. Now refer to your
instruction sheet on the front called BREW DAY SCHEDULE.
Follow the schedule and additions accordingly until boil is terminated.

After boil is terminated turn off the heat to the pot. Using the “wort chiller” helps (suggested) bring the
mixture down to 80 degrees. After reaching 80 degrees or lower it is now OK to splash your wort and pour
the mixture into the fermenter briskly so as to oxygenate the mix. NOTE: This is really the only time that
splashing/frothing the batch is acceptable. Since we are below 80F and we have not created alcohol yet we
can and NEED to splash at this point.

A wort chiller is a copper tube that connects to a water supply in your house. We are able to run water thru
the inside of this tubing to cool down very quickly, usually 15-20 minutes. If you do not have a wort chiller
to immerse in your pot you will need to put you hot pot in the sink and pack the outside of the pot with an
ice water bath. DO NOT pour ice into your pot to cool! Adding ice at the beginning of the boil was ok
because we went thru at least 55 minutes of boil time and have killed any harmful creatures or bad odors
that may be frozen in the ice. You may add ice to zip lock bags that have been sterilized on the outside and
insert these inside the pot. Ice melts inside thes bags but will not come in contact with the wort. Regardless
of how you cool wort down our objective is to do it as quickly and safely as possible. Our goal is to be able
to add our good yeast before any other greedy creature can start eating our wort and causing bad things to
happen. (No you should not just let your wort cool overnight by sitting!)

Once your wort has been splashed over into your primary bucket (or 6.5gal carboy) you are ready to top-
up your batch to the 5 gallon mark with regular tap water. I like to use the spray nozzle from a dish pan
washer at our sink. Lots of good frothing is perfect at and only at this time.

Your target temperature should be between 65F-72F before you add your yeast. Some kits that contain
lager yeast create a much better beer if your temp is between 55-60F. Do not add your yeast to the top of
the froth in your primary above 72F. Do not allow you fermentation temp exceed 75F or your beer could
have the undesired flavor and smell of green apples from acetaldehyde.

Mix water and wort well and check your original specific gravity at this point. Now you are ready to add
your yeast and let frothy fermentations begin!

Add airlock filled with water to the top of your primary and place it in an area where your temps will be
consistent for your style of beer.
Most ales 65-72F
Lagers 55-60F

Let sit for 7 days then transfer to the secondary carboy. Transfer gingerly and DO NOT SPLASH! Your
wort is now fermented beer and splashing now will create those bandaid smells and aroma. Add beer to the
secondary carboy from the bottom up.

Let beer sit in the secondary for prescribed time (normally an additional week)

Follow kit instructions for your secondary and bottling and or kegging.