How to Homebrew Beer from Grain and Hops (Full Mash)

So you've tried brewing homebrew beer from kits and they were ok but they could be better? The next step is to move to brewing from grain and hops. A full mash method can yield beer as good as any pub and once you start creating your own recipes, you'll discover you can do it better than them as you aren't brewing to the lowest cost / gravity, ie a return to proper "real ale".

What do you need to get started?

Assuming that you have brewed before and have the basic equipment then in addition you will want:

	A Boiler A burco boiler is ideal, which can be purchase on ebay or via amazon new . The boiler is used to prepare your water, heat it to the correct temperature for the mash and then the sparge and finally for the boil with the hops
	A Mash Tun You can make a mash tun yourself. Just take two 5 gallon fermenting buckets (same brand size etc) then drill holes ~4mm all over the bottom of one fermenter. Fit a tap to the bottom of the other fermenter as close to the bottom as possible. Now place the fermenter with holes inside the other fermenter. Finally, get some loft insulation that you can wrap around the mash tun while in use to keep the mash at a constant temperature.
	A Good Homebrew Book I recommend Brew Your Own British Real Ale (Camra) which includes all the basic information on the process plus a range of recipes for mild, pale ale, bitter and stouts. If you're interested in making lager and continental beers, you might also like Brew Classic European Beers at Home which covers a wide range if continental beers.
	Watering Can Use the watering can to "sparge" the remaining sugars off the grains at the end of the mash.

Your First Brew

I recommend starting with a stout. Stout is more forgiving so if it's not crystal clear you won't notice, don't start with a recipe that has a high alcohol content as this makes the mashing process more difficult. There are a whole host of recipes in books for stout, I'm using my own recipe here:

Simon's Stout OG 1044 (makes 40 pints)

My first stout was Guiness from Brew Your Own Real Ale at Home (CAMRA Guides) which is an earlier edition of Brew Your Own British Real Ale (Camra) but over the years I've altered it until it bears virtually no relation to the original recipe, infact this doesn't taste like Guiness at all, instead it tastes like Guiness ought to with a rich nutty taste but still with that bitter white head.

In the Mash Tun: (all crushed grains) 4kg Pale Malt (recommend Maris Otter) 500g Flaked Barley 250g Roasted Barley 500g Amber Malt 250g Chocolate Malt 200g Black Malt

In the boiler (start): (use brupak hops) 50g Challenger Hops 40g Goldings In the boiler (last 15mins) 25g Goldings teaspoon of irish moss

1. Clean and sterlise your equipment
2. Boil and Burtonise your water by adding by adding 2 teaspoons of gypsum (calcium sulphate) and 1/2 a teaspoon of salt to you boiling water (5 gallons)and then after 15 minutes boiling adding 1 teaspoon of magnesium sulphate and allow the salts to precipitate before use
3. Weigh out your mash tun ingredients
4. Heat your water to 77 degrees C
5. Add 14 litres of the water to the mash tun which should reduce the temperature of the water to 72 degrees C. Now stir in the ingredients ensuring everything is properly wetted
6. Check the temperature, you are aiming for 66 degrees C, adjust as necessary with cold or boiling water from the kettle NOTE: temperature is critical here, we are trying to convert the starch in the grains into fermentable sugars, an enzyme in the grain does this at about 66 degrees C, if the mash is too hot, it will kill the enzyme and the mash will fail, if it is too low you will get unfermentable sugars resulting in a sweeter, lower alcohol brew
7. Now Cover and insulate the mash tun so it stays at 66 degrees C for 90 minutes
8. Next crack open the tap on the mash tun and begin collecting the liquor slowly (NOTE: if you open to much then mash will pack down preventing it from draining out, should this happen add some more water, stir it up and remash for 15 minutes before trying again).
9. At first it will be cloudy, return this to the top of the mash tun, when the liquid is running shiny and clear begin collect it, once about half the liquid is collected, use a watering can to sprinkle water at 77 degrees C onto the top of the mash to rinse the sugars off the grains, don't let water build up on the surface as this can cause a set mash, so it slowly and carefully collect until you've used all the water or until you can see that the liquor coming off is pale in colour with a low gravity (sub 1010) NOTE: DO NOT TIP THE MASH TUN UP WHILE COLLECTING, this will cause cloudly liquid to be collected
10. Now add all the liquor to the boiler and add your hops, ideally put these in a "hop bag" which any homebrew shop can supply.
11. Boil for 1:45 mins, after about an hour and a half the hops alpha acids will isomerise producing the bitter taste.
12. Now add the second hop bag, this will add a hop aroma to the beer and the irish moss will remove excess protein from the brew
13. after a further 15 minutes, turn off the boiler and cool the brew as quickly as possible
14. Get it down to 30 degrees C, if you can get your brew started at 25-30 degrees and then keep it warm (I like to ferment in the kitchen wrapped in some loft insulation) it will ferment more quickly and cleanly producing a more consistent result, a normal 1040 OG beer can ferment out in 3 days in the right conditions, if it start cooler or isn't properly aerated it can take up to 10 days.
15. Now aerate your liquor, this helps the yeast to work. The yeast needs oxygen, sugar and the correct temperature to work (20-30 degrees) the best way of doing this is to pour the liquor from one fermenting bin to another, I like to use one fermenter with a tap and then let the liquor run into another fermenter slowly sprinkling the yeast in as I go,use Safale S-04 Yeast which is a good all round dry ale yeast. Note: aeration must be done when the temperature has reached pitching temperature as at higher temperatures oxgen doesn't stay in suspension
16. Put you fermenter somewhere at a comfortable room temperature, ideally low 20's and wrap it up to keep it warm, loosely cover and leave to begin ferment. It is important that the beer is not infected by any natural yeasts as this will spoil the tastes so make absolutely sure that everything is properly clean from this point on.
17. After 2 days, carefully syphon the brew into another fermenting bin, this called "dropping" and aids getting the trub (dead yeast) out of your beer. Note: When ever syphoning your beer avoid getting air into the beer and be prepared to lose a bit, when you get down to the trub stop as soon as cloudy liquid is being syphoned, it's better to have 38 pints of fantastic beer than 40 pints of cloudy ropey beer
18. Once fermentation is complete carefully syphon off the trub into a barrel and leave for a couple of weeks. At this point you could drink it from the barrel (best left for a month to age) or syphon into bottles and leave to naturally condition for a couple of months, if you are in a hurry for your bottled beer, you can add a spoon full of sugar to the beer before syphoning to reaactivate the yeast and quickly prime but this adds more trub to your bottle, if you can wait, patience is the best policy. Personally I like to transfer to a Cornelius Keg though at this point for a more professional result

The Process in Pictures

 

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