Beer crafting is a fun and rewarding hobby that can help you learn how to make your own unique brews. The process of making beer involves converting grain starches to sugar, extracting those sugars with water, and fermenting them with yeast to produce the alcoholic, lightly carbonated beverage we know as beer. You can do all of this at home using a readily available kit that will give you all the equipment and ingredients you need to get started.
The first step in brewing is to clean and sanitize all of your equipment. This includes anything that will come in contact with your wort (beer) including the brewing bucket, mash tun and fermentation jug. It is best to use a no-rinse cleaning solution, such as Five Star Star-San, which will not leave an unpleasant residue on any of your brewing equipment.
Once you have all of your equipment cleaned and sanitized, it is time to start the actual beer brewing process. The most important thing to remember is that your brewing temperature needs to be consistent throughout the entire process, so make sure you use a thermometer or stick-on thermometer that will stay on the side of your mash tun or brewing bucket.
If you follow a good recipe, after a few batches you will be making beer that is comparable to what you would buy at the store, and with practice you can make beer that is truly spectacular. You can even tinker with your recipes to see what you can come up with, and push the boundaries of what is possible for brewing at home.
