Once you have the right equipment and ingredients, you're ready to make delicious, handcrafted beer using the following time-honored process!
1. Bring at least three gallons of water to a boil.
2. Dissolve the water treatment salts.
3. If your kit contains cracked grain, begin by adding grain to a saucepan of hot water. Allow to steep at approximately 150° F for the time indicated, generally 45 minutes. Strain, rinse with hot water (about 160-170° F), and collect the liquid in your boiling kettle, discarding the grain.
Add cracked grain
4. Stir in the Malt Extract (and Dried Rice Extract or Dextrin Powder if called for in your kit).
Stir in dried malt extract
5. Bring to a boil.
Drop in hops to boil
6. Add hops as recommended in your kit instructions (usually after 5 minutes).
7. Complete the one-hour boil.
8. Cool (if possible, use a Wort Chiller).
9. You now have unfermented beer, or "Wort". Transfer your Wort to a sanitized Primary Fermentor. When the temperature approaches 70° F, add the Yeast.
10. Fermentation usually starts within 24 hours. Keep the Fermentor tightly covered, with a Fermentation Air Lock attached. The Air Lock should be filled half full of water, and the lid should be on it.
11. After three to seven days of active fermentation, or when bubbling has virtually stopped in the Lock and the foam has receded to the surface of the Wort, the beer is ready to transfer to a sanitized Secondary Fermentor. Siphon carefully, splashing the beer as little as possible. Fill up to the carboy neck, and attach a Fermentation Lock.
12. Give the beer three days, or more, of settling (as directed in your kit instructions).
13. Prepare to bottle or keg the beer.
