Homebrewing your own beer or wine is a lot of fun and a lot easier when you know the most important home brewing tips, collected from experienced home brewers over the years. If you are wondering how to start home brewing, check out these general tips and home brewing tips for beginners. For more information on the ingredients, equipment, and the process, check out our Guide to Home Brewing for Beginners.
General Home Brewing Tips
Keep your initial home brews simple. It is easier to add to a simple recipe than to remove an ingredient from a more complex recipe.
- Keep track of all your home brews. Writing down the date, the recipe (even if it is a simple one) and how well you liked it will help you learn how to tweak your recipes in the future or repeat your favorites with ease.
- While your pot is boiling, be sure to keep the lid off or at least allow the steam to escape. The boiling process allows unwanted chemicals to vaporize and evaporate out of your home brew.
- Water is at least 90% of your home brew, using good tasting water helps to achieve the taste you are looking for.
- Always use fresh, quality ingredients. Make sure your yeast is fresh, your hops are nice and green and that the extract is within the date range. The quality of your ingredients will affect your final product.
- Be sure to fully understand the sanitation process and have all your equipment clean and ready to go before you begin. Sanitizing everything that will come into contact with your beer or wort before and after the boil. Never use bleach to sanitize! Learn more about the importance of sanitation and some recommendations for the best sanitizer for home brewing. Have some sanitizer in a spray bottle handy if needed while brewing.
- Have a good grasp of the fermentation process before you begin. Yeast requires oxygen to convert sugars to alcohol. There are a few ways that you can accomplish this, one simple trick is to shake the water to top up the wort or pour into your fermenter with some height.
- Understand how you will bottle your beer before you start. If you have a dishwasher, this can make your bottling process a bit cleaner if you bottle over the top rack on your dishwasher to catch any spills.
Remember that beer is pretty resilient, so relax and enjoy. It is unlikely that you will do anything to drastically alter or ruin your beer.
Home Brewing Tips for Beginners
Here are some home brewing tips for beginners if you are just getting started:
- Many people use a homebrewing kit, which are designed with a pretty simple flavor to appeal to a wide range of people. To add a little flavor to your homebrew kit, you can add ½ oz. of hops which is known for aroma and flavor to boiling water for about 20 minutes and strain it into your fermenter for added flavor.
- Large amounts of cane sugar, dextrose or table sugar will completely ferment out of your group and leave a cidery, dry flavor which is often attributed to the home brew taste. Use dry malt extract instead and swap out for these types of sugars to avoid this.
- Some beer kits are designed to appeal to the convenience of the beginning homebrew or do not allow enough fermentation time. You can usually extend the fermentation time specified on your kit by about 10 to 14 days for better tasting beer in the end.
- After bottling from your home brew kit, your beer may be carbonated after about a week although it will taste much better if you wait a few more weeks to allow all the flavors to settle.
- Fully understand the recipe before you start making your homebrew batch and make sure all of your ingredients are handy and your equipment is fully sanitized and ready to go.
