Beer Lover? Tips For Brewing At Home Your Own Beer
The craft beer revolution has changed our way to drink and think about one of the oldest and most widely consumed alcoholic drinks in the world. New breweries pop up constantly like mushrooms everywhere, everyday. For this reason, I bet that every beer fanatic, at least once in his life, thought how it could be cool brew his own booze. Indeed, home brewing is attracting always more people.
Whether you want to produce your own beer for fun or for starting a possible business in the field, brewing at home will be a satisfactory activity for filling up your spare time. Don’t you know where to start? Check these tips out!
1. Be informed, precise and patient
Brewing at home great beer is part a creative art and part a rigorous science. For this, before starting, read a lot for getting know ingredients and how to use them at the best. Learn methodologies in detail and be prepared to invest time for perfecting your craft skills. It’s also an act of patience and precision. Indeed, temperatures and times are very important for the process. A little mistake could prejudice your success. If for novices could result all this boring and frustrating, once you got the theory down and you become confident with the entire process, you can start to give off all your creativity.
2. Never overlook sanitation
Bacteria is the main enemy for new brewers. Although you scrupulously do everything else perfectly, if you don’t sanitize properly your equipment, you will end with a bad beer as result. Not so cool, isn’t it? For avoiding this unpleasant inconvenience, sanitize all your instruments as well as the environment. On top of that, it is very important to choose carefully your fermenter, the sealed container that will not allow air and bacteria to contaminate your brew. In fact, it’s that the most critical moment since your product is very vulnerable at that stage. Generally speaking, according to most sources, glass fermenters are always preferable than plastic.
3. Choose your ingredients with care
Doesn’t matter how a chef could be talented, if he uses poor qualitative raw materials, his food will be inexorably affected. In the same way it’s valid for cooking, your ingredients are everything also concerning brewing at home. For this reason, opt for fresh and qualitative products. You will need to know them too for exploiting all their properties at the best. It’s also essential storing your compounds at the right temperatures and conditions. Plus, bear in mind that hops, dry malt, yeast, liquid malt and crushed grains have a limited shelf life and must be used quickly!
4. Start with easy recipes
As said before, brewing at home is not so easy at the first approach. In fact, it’s so simple make mistakes and even a small error could ruin your final product. For this reason, till you became confident with all the process, avoid difficult types of beer. Regardless your tastes, the best place to start is surely with the dark stuff. Indeed, darker beers are perfect for covering up mistakes. It’s better brew your own IPA when you are able to create a drinkable and tasty product. What do you reckon?
5. Don’t be too stingy when you buy your equipment
As soon as you start, it’s understandable that you opt for a cheap off-the-shelf kit. But, if you enjoy doing it, you should buy better and more durable tools. Unfortunately, for a qualitative result you always need to spend more. This concept is easy applicable in lots of cases, as well as when you are brewing at home. It’s an investment. Therefore, you must always think in a long-term perspective. Saving a handful of quid today can cost you more tomorrow!
