How To Home Brew

Are you new to brewing beer at home? Or maybe your New Year's resolution is to begin home brewing? If so, this three-part series is awesome for you. My how-to guide will take you through the basics from beginning to end including what hardware you'll want, how to brew & ferment your beer, and how to bottle and age it.
contrary to public opinion, it's not necessary to spend lots of money on fancy, overpriced hardware to brew your own beer.
Here's a checklist of what you'll need:
o Large Pot - will need to hold at least 3 gallons. Go even bigger if you can because a larger pot will hold more, causing significantly less spillage.
o Tubing & Clamp - to pour beer from one container to another & to poor beer into bottles. A 5 foot section of 5/16-inch ID (inner diameter) food grade tubing will do. The larger the diameter, the more rapidly you can siphon your beer. You need to make sure the clamps you get match the ID (inner diameter) or OD (outer diameter) of your tubing.
o 5-Gallon Carboy - A carboy is simply merely a glass bottle. A 5-gallon airtight bucket will also do, will also do the trick, although I have a preference for a glass carboy with a rubber stopper because never have I seen an airtight seal break on a carboy (that's happened to me with plastic buckets).
o An Air Lock and Stopper - dimensions will differ; you want to purchase one that suits your fermenter (carboy or plastic bucket).
o A Bottle Filler - be certain that the tubing & clamps are measured to suit the bottler.
o A Thermometer - You need a thermometer with a range of 0-100 C or 32-220 Fahrenheit. Floating thermometers certainly are a good option.
o Bottles - 5 gallons of beer should fill almost 54 12-ounce bottles or 27 24-ounce bottles so plan appropriately. Don't skimp here, aim for high-quality bottles that aren't fastened with a plastic twist-off top. What you want is the bottles you actually need a bottle opener to open.
o Bottle Brush - Hygiene is important! This may not be needed, but I recommend it and I generally suggest taking every step to make certain your home brewing equipment is as clean as it possibly can be!
o A Bottle Capper - a hand powered device to cap your bottles
o Bottle Caps - this is somewhat self-explanatory, but you'll need as many caps as beer bottles. Furthermore, the vast majority of beer caps will fit a lot of beer bottles so if you can't see any measurements on the bottles you're buying then they will most likely work. You should verify in case something goes wrong.
o Sanitizing Solution - Beer is incredibly prone to to infection or contamination so it's definitely significant to totally wash before & after brewing. You can also use household bleach although you will need to rinse thoroughly to avoid bleach contamination. I recommend iodophor or starsan. Personally, I use iodophor.
In the remainder of Part 1 we'll walk you through the distinct ingredients you'll need and also take you through an outline of the brewing process. In the remaining segments we'll take you through home brewing step-by-step, but you'll have to stay tuned!

By: Jack Etach

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Visit www.backyardbeer.com/2011/01/beginners-guide-to-home-brewing-part-1/ for the whole article & for the continuation of this series. Come back often!