The Real Beer Page
Introduction Acknowledgements Glossary Equipment Descriptions
Section 1 - Brewing Your First Beer With Malt Extract
Chapter 1 - A Crash Course in Brewing 1.0 What Do I Do? 1.1 Brew Day 1.2 Fermentation 1.3 Bottling Day 1.4 Serving Day 1.5 Read On! Brew On! Chapter 2 - Brewing Preparations 2.0 The Road to Good Brewing 2.1 Preparation 2.2 Sanitation 2.2.1 Cleaning Products 2.2.2 Cleaning Your Equipment 2.2.3 Sanitizing Your Equipment 2.3 Record Keeping Chapter 3 - Malt Extract and Beer Kits 3.0 What is Malt? 3.1 Beer Kit Woes 3.2 Shopping for Extracts 3.3 Finding a Good Kit 3.4 How Much Extract to Use 3.5 Gravity vs. Fermentability Chapter 4 - Water For Extract Brewing 4.0 The Taste of Water 4.1 Home Water Treatment 4.2 Water Chemistry Adjustment for Extract Brewing Chapter 5 - Hops 5.0 What Are They 5.1 How Are They Used 5.2 Hop Forms 5.3 Hop Types 5.4 Hop Measurement 5.5 Hop Bittering Calculations Chapter 6 - Yeast 6.0 What Is It? 6.1 Yeast Terminology 6.2 Yeast Types 6.3Yeast Forms 6.4Yeast Strains 6.4.1 Dry Yeast Strains 6.4.2 Liquid Yeast Strains 6.5 Preparing Yeast and Yeast Starters 6.6 When is My Starter Ready to Pitch 6.7 Yeast from Commercial Beers 6.8 Support Your Local Micro 6.9 Yeast Nutritional Needs 6.9.1 Nutrients 6.9.2 Oxygen 6.9.3 Aeration is Good, Oxidation is Bad Chapter 7 - Boiling and Cooling 7.0 First Recipe 7.1 Beginning the Boil 7.2 Hop Additions 7.3 The "Hot Break" 7.4 Cooling the Wort Chapter 8 - Fermentation 8.0 Some Misconceptions 8.1 Factors for a Good Fermentation 8.1.1 Yeast Factors 8.1.2 Wort Factors 8.1.3 Temperature Factors 8.2 Re-defining Fermentation 8.2.1 Lagtime or Adaptation Phase 8.2.2 Primary or Attenuative Phase 8.2.3 Secondary or Conditioning Phase 8.3 Conditioning Processes 8.4 Using Secondary Fermentors 8.5 Secondary Fermenter vs. Bottle Conditioning 8.6 Summary Chapter 9 - Fermenting Your First Beer 9.0 Choosing Your Fermenter 9.1 Transferring the Wort 9.2 Location 9.3 Conducting the Fermentation 9.4 How Much Alcohol Will There Be? Chapter 10 - What is Different for Brewing Lager Beer? 10.0 Yeast Differences 10.1 Additional Time 10.2 Lower Temperatures 10.3 Autolysis 10.4 Yeast Starters and Diacetyl Rests 10.5 When to Lager 10.6 Aagh! It Froze! 10.7 Maintaining Lager Temperature 10.8 Bottling Chapter 11 - Priming and Bottling 11.0 What You Need 11.1 When to Bottle 11.2 Bottle Cleaning 11.3 What Sugar Should I Prime With? 11.4 Priming Solutions 11.5 Using PrimeTabs 11.6 Bottle Filling 11.7 Priming and Bottling Lager Beer 11.8 Storage 11.9 Drinking Your First Homebrew
Chapter 2 - Brewing Preparations
Chapter 3 - Malt Extract and Beer Kits
Chapter 4 - Water For Extract Brewing
Chapter 5 - Hops
Chapter 6 - Yeast
Chapter 7 - Boiling and Cooling
Chapter 8 - Fermentation
Chapter 9 - Fermenting Your First Beer
Chapter 10 - What is Different for Brewing Lager Beer?
Chapter 11 - Priming and Bottling
Chapter 12 - What is Malted Grain? 12.0 Barley Malt Defined 12.1 Malt Types and Usages 12.2 Other Grains and Adjuncts 12.3 Extraction and Maximum Yield 12.4 Extract Efficiency and Typical Yield 12.4.1 Table of Typical Malt Yields 12.5 Mash Efficiency 12.6 Planning Malt Quantities for a Recipe Chapter 13 - Steeping Specialty Grains 13.0 Why? Why Not! 13.1 Understanding Grain 13.2 Mechanics of Steeping 13.3 Example Batch
Chapter 13 - Steeping Specialty Grains
Chapter 14 - How the Mash Works 14.0 An Allegory 14.1 Mashing Defined 14.2 The Acid Rest 14.3 Doughing In 14.4 The Protein Rest and Modification 14.5 Starch Conversion/Saccharification Rest 14.6 Manipulating the Starch Conversion Rest Chapter 15 - Understanding the Mash pH 15.0 What Kind of Water Do I Need? 15.1 Reading a Water Report 15.2 Balancing the Malts and Minerals 15.3 Residual Alkalinity and Mash pH 15.4 Using Salts for Brewing Water Adjustment Chapter 16 - The Methods of Mashing 16.0 Overview 16.1 Single Temperature Infusion 16.2 Multi-Rest Mashing 16.3 Calculations for Boiling Water Additions 16.4 Decoction Mashing 16.5 Summary Chapter 17 - Getting the Wort Out (Lautering) 17.0 Aspects of Lautering 17.1 A Good Crush Means Good Lautering 17.2 Getting the Most From the Grainbed Chapter 18 - Your First All-Grain Batch 18.0 Preparation 18.1 Additional Equipment 18.2 Example Recipe 18.3 Partial Mash Option 18.4 Starting the Mash 18.5 Conducting the Mash 18.6 Conducting the Lauter 18.7 Options For Next Time
Chapter 15 - Understanding the Mash pH
Chapter 16 - The Methods of Mashing
Chapter 17 - Getting the Wort Out (Lautering)
Chapter 18 - Your First All-Grain Batch
Chapter 19 - Some of My Favorite Beer Styles and Recipes 19.0 A Question of Style 19.1 Ales vs. Lagers 19.2 Style Descriptions 19.3 Ale Styles 19.4 Lager Styles Chapter 20 - Experiment! 20.0 Just Try It 20.1 Increasing the Body 20.2 Changing Flavors 20.3 Using Honey 20.4 Toasting Your Own Malt 20.5 Developing Your Own Recipes Chapter 21 - Is My Beer Ruined? 21.0 (Probably Not) 21.1 Common Problems 21.2 Common Off-Flavors
Chapter 20 - Experiment!
Chapter 21 - Is My Beer Ruined?
Appendix A - Using Hydrometers Appendix B - Brewing Metallurgy Appendix C - Chillers Appendix D - Building a Mash/Lauter Tun Appendix E - Metric Conversions Appendix F - Recommended Reading
All material copyright 1999, John Palmer