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Get hoppin’ with this guide to microbrewing your own beer
Thinking of brewing your own beer or want to know how it’s done? Homebrewing For Dummies is for you. If you’re ready to take a crack at making your own brew, you’ll need this guide to the supplies, ingredients, and process of crafting the perfect beer. Follow our recipes for lager, porter, stout, and other brew types—or invent your own. When you’ve tasted your perfect creation (and after the hangover wears off), we’ve got you covered with ideas for entering your beer into homebrewing competitions and selling your beer.
This new edition keeps pace with the exciting world of small-batch beer, introducing you to new flavors and varieties that are popular on the microbrew circuit. We’ve also got the details on the latest at-home brewing equipment, software and apps, and resources you can tap (get it?) to make a better beer. Not an IPA person? Not to worry! You can also make your own hard seltzers, flavored malt beverages, and juice drinks with this handy how-to.
Homebrewing For Dummies is for anyone looking for a fun and easy-to-use guide to the exciting, rewarding, and refreshing hobby of beer brewing.
Marty Nachel has been involved in the craft beer industry for over 30 years as a homebrewer, homebrew supply shop owner, book author, professional beer judge, brewery salesperson, corporate beer trainer, and beer educator. Few people have the same level of expertise and experience in the field.
Introduction 1
About This Book 2
Foolish Assumptions 3
Icons Used in This Book 4
Beyond the Book 4
Where to Go from Here 5
Part 1: First Things First 7
Chapter 1: Welcome to the Wonderful World of Wort 9
Homebrewers Abound! 10
All the Right Stuff 10
Gathering the equipment you need 11
Tracing the homebrewing timeline 11
Adding ingredients galore! 12
Preparing wisely 13
All done — now what? 14
Chapter 2: Setting Up Your Beeraphernalia 17
Sniffing Out Sources 18
Square One: Equipment for the Beginning Brewer 19
So much equipment, so little time 19
What do I do with all these gadgets? 21
Square Two: Equipment for the Intermediate Brewer 26
Now what do I need? 26
What do these gizmos even do? 28
Square Three: Equipment for the Advanced Brewer 29
I need even more stuff? 30
What else could I possibly need another doodad for? 31
Chapter 3: Creating Your Own Department of Sanitation 35
No Dirty Words: Sanitation Lingo 36
Battling Bacteria (and Fungi) 36
Soaps for Suds: Cleansers and Sanitizers 38
Cleaning Up Your Act: Equipment Cleaning Practices 39
Bottle Cleanliness Is a Virtue 40
Part 2: It’s in There: The Nuts and Bolts of Beer 43
Chapter 4: Malt: A Tale of Two Sources (Grain and Extract) 45
Going with Grain 46
Malting 46
Mashing 47
Mixing it up with other grains 47
Manipulating grain: Kilning and milling 49
Enjoying the Ease of Extracts 49
Graduating to other malty methods 50
Comparing liquid versus dry malt extract 52
Chapter 5: Hop Heaven 55
Seeing the Hop Flower Up Close 56
Hopping with Variety 59
Selecting the Best Hops 61
Freshness is fundamental 61
Bittering potential is important too 62
Taking Note of Top Hops 65
Chapter 6: Yeast and Fermentation 67
There’s a Fungus among Us 67
The Magic of Fermentation 69
It’s cyclical 69
Factoring in fermentation variables 70
Liquid yeast versus dry yeast: A foamenting debate 71
Propagating yeast 73
Yeast energizers and nutrients 75
Yeast Sources 76
Considering Alcohol Content 76
ABV versus ABW 77
N/A (nonalcoholic) beer is n/a (not achievable) 77
Chapter 7: On the Water Front 79
H2OH: Understanding How Water Chemistry Affects Your Homebrew 80
Something Is in the Water 81
pHundamentals of pH balance 81
Antibacterial agents 82
Hard facts, fluid concepts 83
Mineral ions 83
Trace metals 84
Buying Brew-Friendly Bottled Water 85
Distilled water 85
Reverse osmosis water 86
Chapter 8: Adjuncts and Flavorings 87
Adjuncts: Sugar, Sugar Aw, Honey, Honey 88
Flavoring Your Brew with Flavorings 91
Funky flavorings: The exotic and the esoteric 92
Herbs and spice and everything nice 95
Chapter 9: Making Your Brew Bionic: Additives, Preservatives, Finings, and Clarifiers 99
To Add and Preserve 100
A Little Clarification, Please 101
The Acid Test 103
Part 3: Ready, Set, Brew! 105
Chapter 10: Beginner Brewing Directions 107
Gathering the Tools You Need 108
Brewing Your First Batch 109
Taking Hydrometer Readings 112
Brewing day reading 112
Prebottling reading 113
Chapter 11: Intermediate Brewing Directions 115
Taking Control of Your Beer 115
Fooling Around with Ingredients 116
Grain and strain 117
Hop to it 118
Yeasty beasties 119
Conditioning for Better Beer 119
Secondary fermentation 120
Tertiary fermentation 125
Chapter 12: Advanced Brewing Directions 127
Yes, We Have No Potatoes: Mashing Procedures 128
Three important variables 129
Gimme some water: Simplified water treatment for mashing 129
And then there were three: Mashing types 130
The mash-out 132
It’s in the bag 134
Easing into Mashing with a Partial Mash 135
Going All Out with All-Grain Brewing 139
Increasing Your Batch Size 144
Harvest Time: Reusing Your Yeast 145
Chapter 13: High-Tech Brewing 147
Is it Bigger Than a Breadbox? 148
Out of the Kitchen and Into the Garage 149
Bigger Is Betterer? 150
A Primer on RIMS and HERMS 153
Part 4: Packaging Your Brew 155
Chapter 14: Bottling Your Brew 157
Picking Out Bottles 157
Ready, Set, Bottle! 159
Tanks a Lot! Bottling Kegged Beer 165
Carbon-aid: Sharing kegged beer in plastic bottles 165
Counterintelligence: Flowing from keg to bottle for competition 166
A Primer on Priming 167
Getting ready to prime 167
Deciding which and how much primer to use 168
Exploring alternative primers 169
Crowning Achievements 170
Chapter 15: Doing the Can-Can: Canning Your Beer 173
Kicking the Can Down the Road 174
A Canning We Will Go 176
It Seams Simple Enough 177
Canned Beer and Homebrew Competitions 179
Chapter 16: Kegging: Bottling’s Big Brother 181
Roll Out the Barrel: Buying Your Kegging Equipment 181
Getting Your Keg Up and Flowing 183
Clean ’em out and fill ’em up: Sanitizing and racking procedures 184
Making bubbles: Carbonating procedures 187
Enjoying Your Brew: Tapping and Lapping Procedures 189
Part 5: BJCP Beer Style Guidelines and Homebrew Recipes 191
Chapter 17: Beginner Suggestions and BJCP Beer Style Guidelines 193
American Amber Ale (19-a) 194
American Brown Ale (19-c) 195
American Porter (20-a) 195
Baltic Porter (9-c) 196
Best Bitter (11-b) 197
Belgian Blond Ale (25-a) 198
California Common (19-b) 199
English Barley Wine (17-d) 199
British Brown Ale (13-b) 201
British Strong Ale (17-a) 201
English Porter (13-c) 202
Irish Red Ale (15-a) 203
Irish Stout (15-b) 204
Oatmeal Stout (16-b) 205
Old Ale (17-b) 206
Weizenbier (10-a) 207
Weizenbock (10-c) 208
Chapter 18: Intermediate Recipes 209
American Barley Wine (22-c) 210
Boobs Barley Wine 211
Imperial Stout (20-c) 211
Fountainhead Black Magic 212
American IPA (21-a) 213
Exchequer India Pale Ale 214
American Pale Ale (18-b) 214
Give Me Liberty, or Else 215
American Wheat Beer (1-d) 215
How Wheat It Is! 216
Belgian Dubbel (26-b) 217
Dubbel Trubbel 218
Belgian IPA (21-b) 218
Belgian Abbey 219
Belgian Tripel (26-c) 219
Tripel Play 221
Black IPA (21-b) 221
Juxtaposed 222
Dark Mild (13-a) 223
Pointon’s Proper English Mild 224
Dunkelweizen (10-b) 224
Slam Dunkel 225
English IPA (12-c) 225
Exchequer India Pale Ale 226
Fruit Beer (29-a) 227
Cherry Ale 228
Saison (25-b) 228
Sunday Saison 230
Spiced, Herb, or Vegetable Beer (30-a) 230
Wassail While You Work 231
Smoked Beer (32-b) 232
Smokey the Beer (Smoked Porter) 233
Sweet Stout (16-a) 233
Macke’s Son Stout 234
Wee Heavy (17-c) 234
A Peek Under the Kilt Ale 235
Witbier (24-a) 236
Jealous Wit 237
Chapter 19: BJCP Beer Style Guidelines and Advanced Recipes 239
American Lager (1-B) 240
Butt-Scratcher 241
Altbier (7-B) 241
League City Alt Part 3 242
Belgian Dark Strong Ale (26-D) 242
Brune Dream 243
Berliner Weisse (23-A) 244
Champagne du Nord 244
Bock (6-C) 245
Basically Bock 246
Cream Ale (1-C) 247
Colby’s Cream Ale 247
Czech Dark Lager (3-D) 248
Chubby Czecher 249
Czech Pilsner (3-B) 249
Bitter Pill(s) 250
Doppelbock (9-A) 251
Scintillator 251
Double IPA (22-A) 252
Hannah’s Ambrosia Imperial I.P.A. 253
German Pils (5-D) 253
Hasselhoffing 254
Gose (23-G) 254
Salt Lipsia 255
Hazy IPA (21-C) 256
NEIPA for the Summer 257
Helles Bock (4-C) 257
Hella Good Maibock 258
Kölsch (5-B) 259
Innocent Betrayal 259
Märzen (6-A) 260
(Unnamed) 261
Munich Dunkel (8-A) 261
Stu Brew 262
Munich Helles (4-A) 262
Helles 263
Classic Style Smoked Beer (32-A) 264
David’s Smoke in the Water 265
Schwarzbier (8-B) 265
Spirit of Stammtisch 266
Vienna Lager (7-A) 267
Proper Nomenclature 268
Part 6: Alternative Brewing 269
Chapter 20: In-Cider Information 271
Exploring the Cider Option 271
Comparing apples to apples 272
Sorting cider styles 273
Making Cider 275
Cider Considerations: Recipes 276
English Cider (C1B) 276
Rotten to the Corps 277
New England Cider (C2A) 277
Pride and Jay 278
Specialty Cider (C2F) 278
Big Apple Punch 279
Chapter 21: A Meading of the Minds 281
Mulling Over the Mead Option 281
The honey bunch: Appreciating honey 282
The honey-brew list: Mead styles 283
Sweet Success: Making Magnificent Mead 286
Choosing your honey 286
Mead-iocre? Not! Fermenting your mead 287
I Mead a Drink: Mead Recipes 289
Traditional Mead (M1) 289
Lindisfarne Libation 289
Specialty Mead (M4) 289
Winter Holiday Sweet Mead 290
Pyment (grape melomel) (M2B) 290
Concord Grape Sweet Mead 291
Chapter 22: Hard Seltzers 293
Making Seltzer Hard is Easy? 293
Spotlight on Ingredients 295
Water 295
Sugar 295
Yeast 296
Flavorings 296
So, What About All Those Minerals and Nutrients? 297
The Bottom Line 298
Step-by-Step: How to Make Hard Seltzer 298
Chapter 23: Going Green: Being an Eco-Friendly Homebrewer 301
Brewing Green Beer: It’s Not Just for St Patrick’s Day Any More 302
Reduce 302
Reuse 304
Recycle 304
No-Chill Brewing 305
Organically Speaking 306
Why use organic ingredients? 307
Tracking the trend 307
Certifiably nuts: Determining what’s really organic 308
Chapter 24: Gluten-Free Brewing 313
Getting to Know Gluten 313
From Intolerant to Tolerable: Brewing Gluten-Free Beer at Home 315
Readying your equipment 316
Substituting safe ingredients 316
Brewing gluten-free beers from all grain 318
Last, but not yeast 319
Chapter 25: Barrel Aging and Souring Beer 321
Barrel-Aging Beginnings 322
Old World barrel usage and New World barrel usage 323
In wood vs on wood 323
Oak Is Oak-kay 325
Old Barrel Flavors Create New Beer Flavors 326
Over a Barrel 327
Oxidation and Bacteria 327
Good vs Evil? 328
Extraction in Action 328
Souring Beer 329
Acidic Does Not Always Equal Sour 330
Simple Sours vs Complex Sours 330
The “Bugs” in Sour Beer 331
Beer Souring Processes 332
Pre-fermentation 333
Fermentation 335
Post-fermentation 335
Part 7: Putting Your Brew to the Test 337
Chapter 26: Storing and Pouring 339
Storing Your Suds 339
How do I store it? 340
Where do I store it? 340
How long do I store it? 341
Pouring Procedures 341
Out of the bottle 341
and into the glass 343
Dirty Deeds: Cleaning Beer Glassware 345
Storing Your Steins 347
Chapter 27: You Can’t Judge a Bock by Its Cover: Evaluating Beer 349
Tuning In to Your Beer 350
Evaluating One Sense at a Time 350
The nose knows 351
Seeing is beer-lieving 353
In good taste 354
From Observations to Reflections 357
Relaying the Results: Homebrew Lingo, Jargon, and Vernacular 358
Reinventing the Wheel 359
Chapter 28: Troubleshooting 361
Fermentation Lamentations 361
No fermentation 362
Stuck fermentation 363
Never-ending fermentation 364
In Bad Taste: Off Flavors and Aromas 364
Butter/butterscotch flavors 365
Sour/tart flavors 365
Medicinal/plastic/smoky flavors 366
Papery/cardboard/sherry-like flavors (oxidation) 366
Dry/puckering mouthfeel (astringency) 367
Harshness/hotness 367
Metallic flavor 368
Skunk aroma 368
Sulfury odors 368
Vegetal flavors and aromas 368
Flavor and Aroma Therapy Quick References 369
Conditioning and Appearance Problems 371
Flat out of gas 372
Thar she blows! Overcarbonated beers 372
In a haze: Cloudy beers 373
Poor head, bad body 373
Chapter 29: Homebrew Competitions 375
What’s Involved in Homebrewing Competitions? 376
How are the entries judged? 377
How do I enter a homebrew competition, and what are the rules? 379
How do I send my beer? 381
The Best of the Best 382
Master Championship of Amateur Brewing 382
Master Homebrewer Program 382
Becoming a Barrister of Beer 382
What it takes to become a beer judge 383
Advancing to supreme quart justice 384
Part 8: The Part of Tens 387
Chapter 30: Ten (or So) Ways to D.I.G.I.B.I.Y. (Do It, Grow It, Build It Yourself) 389
Banking Yeast 389
Preparing to open your own bank 390
Creating yeast 390
Handling Grain 391
Roast-a-rama 391
Smoke ’em if you got ’em 392
Di-vine Intervention: Growing Hops 393
Here we grow! 393
Pick a hop, any hop 394
Drying and storing your hops 394
Building Brewing Equipment 395
Chillin’ out: Immersion wort chillers 395
Tuns of fun: Lauter tun 396
Pot o’ plenty: Large-volume brewpot 398
Cold feat: Lagering cellar 398
Cold feat, Part II: Keezer 399
Chapter 31: Ten (or So) Gizmos That Can Make Your Brewing Better and Easier 401
Digital Thermometer and pH Meter 402
Wort Aeration System 402
Auto Siphon 402
Counterpressure Bottle Filler 402
Beer Filter 403
Germicidal Lamp 403
Wort Transfer Pump 403
Refractometer 403
Mashing Sparge Arm 404
Counter-flow Wort Chiller 404
Stir Plate 404
Hop Spider 404
Tilt Hydrometer 405
Chapter 32: Just the FAQs: Ten (or So) Frequently Asked Questions 407
How Much Is Taking Up Homebrewing Going to Cost? 407
How Much Does the Average Batch of Beer Cost? 408
Where Can I Buy Homebrewing Supplies? 408
How Long Does Making a Batch of Homebrew Take? 408
Is Homebrewed Beer Better Than Commercially Made Beer? 409
How Do You Carbonate Homebrew? 409
How Do I Add Alcohol to Homebrew? 409
Can I Distill Homebrew into Whiskey? 410
Can I Sell Homebrew? 410
Why Shouldn’t I Age Beer in the Plastic Primary Fermenter? 410
Do I Have to Worry About Things Blowing Up in My House? 410
Can I Turn My Homebrewing Hobby into a Business? 411
Index 413
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