Home Brewery System

Category: Tips and Advice

  • Finding The Best Labels For Your Home Brewed Beer

    Finding The Best Labels For Your Home Brewed Beer

    Making your own beer is a hobby that is growing fast around the world. If you really want to know what is being put into the beer that you drink, making your own beer is going to give you all that information and so much more. There are no harsh chemicals needed to make beer, and all the natural ingredients are going to be easy for you to purchase online and offline to make your own beer. You can find any basic beer-making recipe, and then make changes to the process to change the overall final flavor and taste of the beer you make.

    After a few ‘tries’ at making your own beer, you are going to create a beer flavor that you can really enjoy. We each have our own personal favorites, and as you manipulate the recipes, you can create a beer that is just right for you. You can even control the alcohol content in the beer, by determining the amount of time you leave the beer to ferment and to ‘become’ beer after you have added the yeast to the mixture. Beer making is fun, and it is not difficult at all.

    To start in the hobby of beer making, it is suggested that you purchase a beer making kit. As you purchase the kit first, you will learn how all the pros make beer. You will learn more tips and tricks for making beer so that the beer you make is going to be better overall from the start.

    While you make beer, you may find that you like one type so much that you want to start making your own beer all the time. This is going to leave you with a problem that you need to label your beer. You want to know what date you made the beer and even what type of beer you made. The labels you purchase for your beer cans, beer containers or even for the barrels you use to make beer are going to be vital to your ongoing hobby.

    Labels that you use on mailing letters that have a sticky back are going to be great for making those first batches of beer. As you continue making your own beer, you will find paper labels are going to work better, as you start putting your beer in bottles and actually having them capped or stopped. Putting the labels on the beer bottles or containers before putting the beer in, and before you put them in storage is going to help you remember which beer you want to drink first.

    Home brewing is something that is found all over the world. From the far corners of the nation many are starting to make their own beer for many reasons. We are including these reasons here for your own use, so you can determine for yourself if making beer is something you want to try your hand at!

    In making your own beer, you become master of your own home. You create the drink that your family and friends love, and will enjoy as they sip that cold beer from a frosty mug. Being able to master this talent is something that will take a little patience, and determination as you continue making batches of beer as your friends continually drink it every time they come over to your home!

  • Basic Ingredients of Homemade Beer Recipes

    Basic Ingredients of Homemade Beer Recipes

    For any home beer brewer, it never hurts to spend a little time understanding the basics of homemade beer recipes. Since most recipes hold four key ingredients (water, fermented sugar, hops and yeast) the more you understand these ingredients, the better you’ll be at manipulating and brewing to produce the tastiest homemade beer possible.

    If you think about it, water is the basic ingredient in beer and yet too many people don’t consider the quality of the clear liquid when they add it to their brewery. If you don’t live in an area where the tap produces clear, safe water, then make sure you purchase gallon jugs of purified water to use in your homemade beer recipes. The purest ingredients will get you the best tasting results; you don’t want something as simple as water getting in the way of quality beer.

    Fermented sugar is also found in all beers but most beer brewers refer to this as malted barley. Barley is the actual seed of the barley plant, a grain that resembles wheat. There are different types of barley that will produce a unique taste when added to homemade beer recipes. Malted barley has been allowed to germinate for almost forty hours and then soaked in water to increase the amount of water found in the seed. After a draining process, it is slow-cooked for about thirty hours before it is ground into small pieces. After another round of heating, it produces a sweet liquid that is then ready to add to the beer mixture.

    Have you ever heard someone drink a glass of beer and comment, “Not too hoppy?” They are referring to the third and vital ingredient as hops. The actual hop is the flower of the hop plant that usually comes in compressed little pellets greenish in color. Because the fermented sugar that comes from malt barley is so sweet, hops are needed to balance out the sweetness. With a bitter taste, the amount of hop flower you add to the beer will determine the intensity of the sweet flavor.

    The final standard ingredient in beer is yeast. When thinking about yeasts remember this: not all yeasts are created equally! This will keep you from a common mistake among beginner beer brewers: using bread yeast. Beer yeast is made especially for use in homemade beer recipes and comes in two varieties: ale and lager. You need the yeast to convert the sugar into alcohol. Ale yeasts are referred to as top fermenting because during the fermentation process they will rise to the top. Lager yeasts are just the opposite (bottom-fermenting) and will settle at the bottom of your brewing container. Yeasts are essential to unique flavors of beer as they produce various aroma byproducts.

    Overtime you can make your homemade beer recipes your own by adjusting the levels of yeast, hops, malted barley and water that you use. Don’t be discouraged if it takes a while to get the right tasting beer – the rewards are definitely worth the struggle!

  • Why Make Your Own Beer At Home

    Why Make Your Own Beer At Home

    You can make your own beer at home. It can be a family project or just a new hobby for yourself. Many people do not understand why some make their own beer. They wander why they want the big mess and all the clutter of creating their own brew. They think that it is easier to go to the store and get what they want when they want it. However, it is not about the convenience or the cost of the beer stores.

    The actual reason why a lot of people are making their own beer is because they think it is fun and exciting. This is a way for them to do the hobby that they like and that keeps them busy. Some people create their own brew because they have never tried it before and now they want the opportunity.

    There are so many different recipes for beer that have been handed down through different families. They are using the recipes that their ancestors used and seeing if they can do what they did and that are creating great tasting beer. Many of the recipes are easy to follow and have an ingredient list that is easy to find. There are different things that people can buy to make their beer making experience more fun.

    With the right kit and the best beer-making recipe, anyone can try making great tasting beer. Even if it is a one shot thing, it will be worth seeing if they can create a beer that is just as good as the stuff that is purchased in the store. You can create anything with the supplies that you can find in the store.

    Buying the kits to brew your beer is going to make it easier for a lot of people to do. You can get everything that you need with this kit and it will make your beer brewing easier. Finding these kits will make the beer brewing adventure even more fun for someone that has not had the opportunity to try making their own beer yet.

    Finding out about making your own beer is easy. You can go online and get all the facts and the tips that you need to get started on making your own beer. Many tips and pieces of advice that a person can use when they are checking into all the beer brewing articles online, such as right here! You can use this information to get creative and find a new past time in making your own beer.

  • Is It Legal To Make Your Own Beer?

    Is It Legal To Make Your Own Beer?

    When you hear about people who brew their own beer it can easily conjure up prohibition images of speakeasies and moonshine distilleries. Perhaps it’s the puritanical past of American liquor laws that make many of us wonder about the legality of homemade beer in the USA. In an attempt to put your mind at ease, let’s discuss the laws surrounding homemade beer to get the liquor flowing freely again!

    For those of you interested in a little history you might remember that the 18th amendment to the US Constitution made home brewing beer illegal. Passed in 1919 the bill was enough to cause the prohibition era and also erupt an underground thriving black market of homemade brew. When President Carter signed H.R. 1337 in 1978 it officially ended the restrictions of the 18th amendment and allowed citizens to brew homemade beer without fear of taxation.

    The official statute that outlines federal laws regarding home brewing is United States Code of Federal Regulations Title 27, Part 25, Subpart L, Section 25.205 and Section 25.206. It’s an interesting document to read as it outlines how much beer an individual or family of two adults can produce in a year as well as what they can do with the beverage once it is made. In general, you can rest safe and sound that brewing beer for personal use is completely legal.

    Even though the federal government legalizes home brewing, individual states still have a say as to any specific laws. The only state left to completely ban home brewing is Alabama. Mississippi was also on this list until March 2013. So, unless you live in Alabama it’s best to research the legality of homemade beer in your specific state.

    If you currently live in Alabama, or you strongly believe in the legalization of homemade beer in the USA, you can take action steps to let political leaders know you want the laws to be changed. In Alabama be sure to reference homebrew legalization bills HB9 and SB171 in any correspondence as both have passed committee hearings and will soon come before the full House and Senate.

    You may be reading this and wondering why the legality of homemade beer in the USA is so important. What’s at stake if this right is limited? Some of the arguments against home brewers revolve around taxes and underage drinking. The reality is that there are not enough home brewers to even put a dint on the amount of taxes received from the sale of beer. It’s almost a non-issue to think that home brewers cause any type of financial crisis. Those accusing home brewers of promoting underage drinking typically don’t understand the slow, steady process of brewing a batch of beer. If minors are set on finding alcohol chances are they won’t wait three weeks until the supply is ready!

    For most of you, rest assured that you are safe and protected under US law to brew your own beer at home. If you still have questions after reading this article then do your homework to make sure you understand any expectations when making homemade beer.

  • The Many Paths to Great Home Made Beer

    The Many Paths to Great Home Made Beer

    Before you really get oriented to what home brewing is all about, it’s easy to think it is a process that is set in stone and there is only one right way to do it. And it is true that the brewing and fermenting process has some steps that must be followed with some discipline if you wish to enjoy a great home made beer. But one of the reasons that home brewing is such a passion to many people who enjoy this way of making beer is that there as so many varieties of recipes and styles of making.

    You can easily get a feel for what a huge variety there is in ways to brew beer and in recipes for ingredients when you visit your local beer supplies retailer, go to home brewing web sites or sit in at home brewing club meetings in town. And the great thing about the social side of the home brewing culture is that you will come home with a notebook full of ideas of things you can try on upcoming batches of beer. The odds are you will have months of ideas to try out and you may never run out of new approaches, blends and recipes to try to make your home made beer interesting and tasty for yourself, your family and your friends.

    For that first time home brewing recruit, one of the best ways to help him have the fun of making beer at home without so much investment and mess that will come in due time is to go with a home brewing kit or machine. Beer making machines literally take all of the thinking and planning and risk out of trying out home brewing to see if you want to make the investment in a full set up. The machine comes with a full set of ingredients for one batch of beer and the equipment is automated so the novice home brewer can make the beer and move it through the fermentation and aging process and know the fun of having real home made beer a few weeks later.

    Similarly kits simply the process of buying and using the equipment and ingredients to get started in home brewing. Unlike the beer making machine which is used once and discarded, the beer maker’s kit gives you the basic equipment which will be the beginning of your collection of the tools of a beer maker to be used over and over many times. But the kit provides the ingredients and the instructions to make the process of learning to make your own beer easy and fun to learn.

    Even for seasoned home beer makers, there are variations on the home brewing method that will give you more flexibility and range of choices that will affect how unique your beer will be. But each may have a greater investment of work and effort to use effectively so it’s worth getting familiar with them in advance so you know your investment of time and effort and what you might expect with a new brewing method.

    Probably the most common brewing method most amateur brewer’s use and the one that is taught in most home brewing guides is the extract method. And even though it is well known, because you are truly brewing beer yourself as opposed to using a kit or a machine, you can alter the consistencies and flavors of your beer and get a wonderful brew each time you use this approach.

    You can settle on the extract method for a long time or perhaps use it exclusively for your brewing career and get great beers with it every time. But if you want a greater challenge and the possibility for even more unique beers as a result, you can explore the Mini-Mash method and the Full Mash Brew styles of home brewing. Each is more complex and takes longer to finish the brewing process. But they also give you a lot of flexibility and even more ability to make your own beer unique and distinctive.

    It’s up to you where to start in your beer brewing hobby and the paths you take. You can explore new approaches through networking with other brewers. But you will never get bored brewing beer at home because the variety of methods and ingredients are virtually limitless.

  • A Home Beer Making Kit Will Improve Your Popularity!

    A Home Beer Making Kit Will Improve Your Popularity!

    It is a well known fact that Americans love their beer and desire nothing but the best from their beer. No doubt the large commercial beer manufacturers hold a considerable chunk of the beer making pie, but the number of home beer makers too has steadily been rising.

    In fact, the popularity of home brewed beer has risen dramatically during the past twenty years or so, and custom made beers are more popular now than ever before.

    Only Need a Few Hundred Dollars to Get Started

    The American taste for beer is quite sophisticated and faced with an inexpensive as well as easy method of making home brewed beer has only stoked the fire of brewing beer at home. You may only require a few hundred dollars investment to purchase the required home beer making kits along with ingredients before you are well on your way to preparing homemade beer.

    You can easily source home beer making kits from homebrew supply stores who stock not only the kits, but also the required ingredients as well. Before you actually get stuck into brewing beer at home you should be well acquainted with the different home beer making kits available that each comes with different supplies.

    At the very least, your home beer making kit must include vital items such as the brewing kettle that is usually made from stainless steel and is used to make the wort. You should select a brewing kettle size that can hold at the very least twice the amount of beer you wish to brew.

    Another important piece of equipment that your home beer making kit should have is the fermenting container which holds the brew at the same time as the yeast performs its function. In addition, the container should allow the brewer to check the fermentation that is going on, and it should also have an airlock to let gases escape.

    Your home beer making kit should also have a hydrometer which is a tiny probe whose function is to measure the wort’s specific gravity while fermentation is taking place, and also before the fermentation process begins. A good thermometer is also necessary to check the temperatures between a low of sixty degrees Fahrenheit and a high of two hundred twelve degrees Fahrenheit at which point water begins to boil.

    A very important facet of brewing beer at home is cleanliness and so you should ensure that your home beer making kit also has a sterilizer and it should also come with a racking cane, associated tubing as well as racking bucket – all of which help in transferring the fermented beer into a temporary location before it is actually bottled.

    It is not unusual for home beer making kits to not contain bottles, caps as well as cappers which you will require for storing the fermented beer from the racking bucket into the bottles. With these pieces of equipment you should have no difficulty in brewing your beer at home.