Homemade

Guide to Homemade Wine, Beer, Cider & Mead

Alcoholic beverages; commonly beer and wines and made at home. Most often brews are made from brewing kits purchased at shops specialized in spirits. Cheap Draft features homebrew recipes, equipment requirements, and best practices needed to deliver the perfect batch!

The Action of Yeast

Choice of yeast is most important, for herein lies one of the secrets of successful beer making.

Many people obtain brewers’ yeast from their local brewery and impart to some extent some of the characteristics of the beers turned out by that brewery. Others use dried yeast or bakers’ yeast from doubtful sources, but don’t do this yourself. Far better to get a good yeast from one of the suppliers listed at the end of this book, either top or bottom fermenting kind. Bottom fermenting yeast settles to the bottom of the fermenting vessel; most of this is left behind when the beer is bottled. Any in suspension at bottling time settles to the bottom of the bottles and sticks so hard that all but the merest trace of beer can be poured off clear before the yeast is disturbed.

Many home operators very successfully use yeast from bottled beers. They get a bottle of their favorite stout, or Guinness or Worthington and let it stand overnight. You then pour off the beer very carefully - not into the sink, of course, drink it! leaving about an inch of beer in the bottle. This last inch will contain the variety of yeast used in the beer you have bought. This may be brought into activity by boiling about a quarter pint of water and about an ounce of sugar together. When this is cool pour into the bottle containing the yeast using a funnel. Give a shaking, plug the neck of the bottle with cotton wool and in a day or two or perhaps even in a few hours, this little lot will be fermenting ready to add to the batch of beer you have been waiting to make.

When this batch of beer is nearly finished, you may take a little of the yeast from the top or bottom, treat it as above and you will have a new nucleus ferment readv to add to the next batch when advised in the recipes. You can do this each time you make a batch of beer.

The practice of using yeast from bottled beers can only be done successfully when the beers are dark; this is because only dark beers have a yeast deposit. Bright, light, sparkling ales do not have them.

By the time we add the yeast, sugar will already have been added to the wort in the fermenting vessel. In beer making we add enough sugar to give the amount of alcohol we want and bottle the beer at a point where there is very little sugar left. The fermentation that goes on after bottling charges the beer with the required gas - see draught or bottled beers:

Yeast feeding on the sugar produces alcohol and carbonic acid gas and turns the murky wort into clear foaming beer with a nice percentage of alcohol. The action of yeast has been fully described in various wine books of mine”: it is therefore enough merely to say here that it is the yeast that makes the beer for us, and to explain briefly what happens when yeast is put into the wort. Yeast is a living thing and like all living things it must reproduce itself if it is to survive. When put into a sugar solution - fruit juice in wine making, wort in beer making - it springs to life and almost at once begins to reproduce itself. In so doing it produces alcohol and the gas we see rising in the form of bubbles during fermentation. In wine making, fermentation goes on until so much alcohol is made that the yeast is destroyed by that alcohol. But in beer making we do not want nearly so much alcohol. Therefore, we add just enough sugar to produce the alcohol we want. In wine making we add from two to four pounds of sugar to the gallon. The yeast will use approximately 2~ lb. in producing about 14% of alcohol by volume. This amount of alcohol is usually sufficient to kill the yeast. Therefore any sugar in excess of 2t lb. is left unfermented to sweeten the wine. Obviously, if we use only two pounds of sugar to the gallon the amount of alcohol will be less than 14% and the wine will be dry. The wine will be of 14% and still dry if 2t lb. of sugar is used. If three pounds are used, the wine will still be of 14%, but less dry as there will be half a pound left unfermented to sweeten it.

I mention this to make clear that the more sugar you use the more alcohol you will obtain. But as mentioned, beers should not be too strong; indeed, the amount of sugar given in the recipes is plenty because the amount of alcohol produced from this is ample for beers.

During fermentation a good deal of frothing takes place. This is yeast rising to the surface. Do not disturb unless advised in the recipes in the event of a top fermenting yeast being used.

Coloring

Usually, this is not needed unless darkening of darker beer is needed or pale beers appear to be turning out too pale. Demerara sugar and other brown sugars if used will impart some coloring, as will brown invert sugar. These will affect the flavor to some extent, but many operators enjoy a reputation for the flavor given into their beers by the sugar they use. Where there must be no flavoring from the sugar and where darkening must be practiced to satisfy a few operators’ fastidiousness, then gravy browning may be used, but go easy with it. Burnt sugar may also be used. But where dark malts and black malts are used, coloring should not be necessary.

Sweetening

Some operators will want to sweeten their beers - especially their stouts. Obviously sweetening with sugar is going to give rise to more fermentation and therefore more gas than the bottles can hold. If sweetening is necessary use lactose. As with all other requirements this is obtainable very cheaply from home brew supply firms. Lactose will not ferment.
The rate to add will depend on the extent of the sweetness required. Some operators need only two ounces while others need four ounces to the gallon. Start off with two ounces per gallon and add more if necessary, rather than adding four ounces at the start and find you have made it too sweet.

This is far more important than most people imagine. Indeed, breweries are famous because of the water supply they have (or did have before pollution ruined it), and upon the type of water supplied to your district depends to some extent the quality of your beer.

You may be quite satisfied with the beers you make regardless of the type of water in your area. However, to harden soft water and to soften hard water is quite a simple matter. Hard water is best for pale and bitter beers while soft water is better for mild ales and stouts.

If you are doubtful about the sort of water you have coming through your tap your local water board office will tell you whether it is hard or soft. You may then alter it to suit whichever type of beer you propose to make. Hard water may be softened by boiling before starting the brewing. That it will be boiled again during the process should be disregarded. A water softener has its advantages, but also its expense. Home brewing supply firms supply ‘Burtonising’ salts for treating all types of water very cheaply indeed and these do make a vast difference to the finished product, for they bring out the full flavor of the malt and hops. All water in the commercial brewery is treated in this fashion - hence their use of the word ‘liquor’ - brewery liquor, instead of water. Use the salts as directed by the supplier.

Do not imagine that you will be adulterating your water supply, you will merely be making good deficiencies; and, in any case, following the commercial brewer as closely as you can.

A few years ago an argument started as to which sugar was best for making wines, and has gone on ever since; and I doubt whether it will ever be settled to the satisfaction of all concerned. Now that brewing strong beers has become legal the same argument will rear its head and fling the average operator into a quandary. He will feel that he simply must use the best possible sugar, or feel inadequate, or think that he is not going to make such good beers as can be made.

Can I settle the argument once and for all? No, I am afraid I cannot. The reason for this is simply that various sugars give slightly varying results. Each operator using a different sugar swears by that sugar; so, to him, that sugar is the best to use.

I have used all kinds of sugar, syrups and molasses in wine making. Let me say that sugars are different, though basically the same. For example, ordinary household sugar is two kinds of sugar in one, while invert sugar is the two sugars in household sugar separated from each other yet together in one mass when purchased.

Now, it is argued that invert sugar is the best for home brewing and that this should always be used. Yet when we add household sugar to the wort, the first action of the yeast is to invert the ‘one’ of household sugar to the two sugars of invert sugar - thus giving you invert sugar. The main argument is that if the yeast has to invert the sugar before it can use it for reproduction purposes, surely it would be better to give it invert sugar right away. But I cannot see the point in this - though I will admit that when invert sugar is added to the wort the vigor of fermentation is greater in less time than when household sugar is used. However, I find the difference in the end product - the finished beer - not nearly so great as many people would like to have me believe. A difference there is, but this is not likely to be noticed by the beginner who will not have experience to guide him. Therefore, beginners are advised to use household sugar for a time, at least, and then when they have sufficient experience to enable them to detect the differences in flavor the various sugars impart to their beers, they will be able to decide which sugar gives the flavor to their liking.

White invert sugar gives the same flavor as household sugar - otherwise no discernable flavor at all. Demerara does give flavor as well as some color, dark brown invert sugars give a good deal of color to beer and some strong and pleasing ‘nutty’ flavors. These flavors please some people, but not everybody likes them. Syrups - golden syrups, black treacle or green treacle may be used with other sugars to give special flavors, but experience is needed before you dabble with them - especially the strong-flavored treacles. My mother used to make a treacle beer my father raved over - either in praise or because he drank too much of it; I never did find out. So it will be seen that using a little strongly flavored treacle to impart a special flavor is worth trying out. However, as mentioned, you should use household sugar to start with and then when you feel like it use other sugar in place of it and then perhaps add a little strongly-flavored syrup according to your own special tastes or wishes. It will be seen that some of the recipes include the use of sugars other than household sugar and that others include the use of syrups and treacles. You can, of course, go right ahead and use these if you want to, ignoring my advice above, and I doubt very much whether you will regret it. My advice is to use household sugar and to leave syrups alone for the time being is for those who feel that they would rather start off with a recipe that will produce a beer they are likely to be able to compare with their favorite at their ‘local’. Beers made with other than household sugar or with the addition of syrups and treacles are, of course, first-class beers, but they are not, strictly speaking, near-identical to beers from public houses - at least, not from public houses in the area in which I live.

The chances are, of course, that when you have made beers with demerara sugar or other brown sugar with a little black treacle or golden syrup added, you will plump for these all the time and think it strange that I ever advised you to start off with household sugar and to leave the syrups alone.

These are readily obtainable from the many home wine and home brew supply firms listed at the end of this book. Convenient sizes of all containers make purchase and measure easy and inexpensive. Indeed, whether you have a gallon or a hundred gallons on your mind, you are catered for.

Malt extract is malt extracted from the grain. Hops extract is an extract of hops. Dried hops are dried hops, while malt is malt in the grain, or grain malt. This has to be cracked before infusion - before it is put into the brewery liquor in the mash tun. Such ready-to-use ingredients makes for trouble-free and easy brewing, and no one will blame you if you stick to using the readily prepared stuff. However there will always be those who will like to malt their own barley and perhaps roast it to obtain some special result. My grandfather used to do this and he produced results he swore could not be matched. He was a blacksmith in the spreading chestnut tree style with an immense capacity for homebrewed beer. In his day, home brewing was a laborious undertaking, but even with commercial beer at a penny a pint it was still economical to make it for oneself.

Having taken the hydrometer reading you will see at once how much alcohol will be made by comparing the reading (specific gravity) with its potential alcohol by volume. To increase the reading add 2% oz. of sugar for each increase of 50 you require: i.e. 4t oz. for an increase of 100 and 6% oz. for an increase of 150 and so on.

There is no need to go above these figures as 9% of alcohol is plenty for beers. The illustration on page 156 shows the hydrometer in a sample and registering a reading of 1.035.

We use the hydrometer in brewing to ascertain how much sugar the wort contains and to find out how much has been used up. This enables those who will be bottling fermenting beers to do so when there is just the right amount of sugar left to give the beer the required gas and to make sure that there is not enough sugar left to give rise to so much fermentation that the bottles explode.

We might argue that if we add a pound of sugar we know how much we have added and therefore know how much the wort contains. But it must be remembered that enzyme action has converted starches to sugar, the amount depending on the amount of malt used. Sometimes other materials are added to give starches into the wort; in this case we have no means of knowing how much sugar the action of enzymes has produced. By using the hydrometer we are able to find out, though the beginner need not bother with it unless he wants to know for sure how much alcohol he has produced.

The beginner would do well to make a few brews without using the hydrometer at the start. But if he is making bottled beers by bottling the nearly. finished-fermenting beer, he must use it to be on the safe side.

Now let me explain how it is used. Water has the gravity of 1000, often written simply as 1. We use water and its gravity of 1000 as a comparison - to put it simply. Therefore, as compared with water, or having a specific gravity of - whatever the figure might be. Now any liquid thicker than water will have a specific gravity of above 1000. The figure above the 1000 in our case refers to the amount of sugar in the wort. Therefore if we start off wi th a specific gravity of 1070, it means that the sugar content of the wort registers 70 on the hydrometer. All we have to do is take a sample of the wort in a trial jar supplied with the hydrometer, or a lager glass if you have not a proper trial jar. Let the hydrometer slide into the sample so that it floats clear of the sides of the jar. Make sure there is enough sample to float the hydrometer. Stand the jar on a level surface and note at what figure the liquid cuts across the stem of the hydrometer. This will be the figure representing the sugar content.

Comparing these to figures with those in the in Specific Gravity / Alcohol Percentage and you will see how much alcohol will be produced from the sugar. If you decide you want a stronger or weaker beer, all you have to do is to either add more sugar to increase the reading or add water to reduce it. Bear in mind that the more sugar the wort contains the higher the hydrometer will float. The less it contains the lower it will sink. Thus, as the sugar is used up by the yeast from day to day, the lower the readings will be from day to day.

It is not likely that you will take day to day readings, but if you did the result would appear like this:

At this stage, fermentation will begin to slow down so that the reading will drop by only one or two degrees a day. When the reading has finally dropped to 1.005 it is safe to bottle the still-fermenting beer. A reading as high as 1.008 is sometimes safe, but beginners would be wise to bottle their beers when the reading is 1.005 as sometimes unforeseen factors give rise to more gas being produced than expected. As their experience grows, and if they decide they want more gas, they can bottle when the reading is 1.006 or 1.007.

Note. I must mention so that confusion is avoided that readings as I have shown them are often written without the decimal point and appear thus 1006 instead of 1.006 or 1007 instead of 1.007. Don’t let this bother you if you happen to come across this elsewhere, as the figures mean the same whichever way they are written.

Most chemists, such as Boots and Timothy Whites, and many ironmongers stock thermometers covering all ranges of readings. The range best for brewing is from about 50 to boiling; if it goes beyond boiling point it will not matter. Many operators brewing in the simplest fashion seem to manage without one, but it is best to have one handy as it means that temperatures may be checked as required and this checking results in far more accurate brewing which, in turn, makes for far better beers.

When you get your thermometer, take my tip and put it in cold water - all of it - and bring to the boil and hold there for about one minute. This will harden it so that when it is put into high temperature liquids it will not break. It is very probable that all this talk about using a thermometer and hydrometer gives the impression to beginners that home brewing is a highly technical and complicated business - nothing would be further from the truth. The fact is that in using these simple instruments you are making the job much more simple and much more certain. Without them - particularly the thermometer - disaster can overtake you in the early stages, but this would not become evident until much later on when you might discover that, owing to having had the wrong temperature at the wrong time, there is an immovable starch cloud or that the beer lacks flavor or perhaps has gone far more bitter than it should have done.

The hydrometer can, of course, be done without, but as explained in the section covering this instrument, using it makes for safe working, gives you details of how fermentation is progressing, and allows you at a glance to calculate how much sugar to add to give a certain percentage of alcohol.

So don’t stint on these important items and don’t for heaven’s sake imagine this business to be complicated. When you have all the utensils and ingredients ready and have read through the details here once or twice, everything will become very clear and very simple to put into operation.

The fermentation lock beginners need not use a fermentation lock during the early days of beer making. But when they have had a bit of experience they may find it very useful - I do myself. Readers already making wines must forgive me for boring them by repeating details they already know about. In wine making we use a fermentation lock to ensure that the fermenting wine is kept safe from wild yeasts and bacteria and to cut off the air and oxygen supply so that the yeast, which must have oxygen, turns to the sugar for it, thus producing more alcohol than it would if it obtained oxygen from the atmosphere. It is a fact that high alcohol wines cannot be made without a fermentation lock.

In beer making we use a fermentation lock during the later stages of production and in order to keep the fermenting wort free of wild yeast and bacteria. We also use it so that we can put the fermenting beer into jars, thus freeing the fermentation vessel for another batch.

As will be seen, after three or four days, fermentation of the beer slows down; it is at this stage that it may be put into jars. If put into jars during the vigorous ferment, the yeast will be forced up through the lock to such an extent that you will have beery yeast all over the place.

But if the lock is fitted to jars filled to within four or five inches of the tops with slower fermenting beer, there will be no bother. Fermentation locks are supplied with bungs already fitted for about 25 6d. One, or maybe two is all the home brewer will need. Before fitting the lock rinse it in some of the sterilizing solution and then stand it on its bung downwards in a cup of the solution to make sure the cork is purified. It may then be fitted to the jar. A little of the solution is then poured in the open end or dropped in with an eye-drops dispenser. The gas being generated inside the jar will push the solution up to one side and bubbles will pass through. The solution closes up so quickly that airborne diseases are prevented from gaining access. The lock may be left in place until all fermentation has ceased or until you are satisfied that it has gone on long enough to leave the right amount of sugar left unfermented and the beer is ready for bottling. This, of course, depends on whether you are making draught beer, or are adding sugar to draught beer to produce a gaseous beer, or whether you are using a hydrometer to ascertain how much sugar is left unfermented. All this may seem to complicate matters, but as soon as you have made a few brews all this will fall neatly into the pattern of things.

If reading the outline on commercial brewing it will be seen that we need a mash tun for conversion and extraction of the mash-malt and brewery liquor. For this we may use a two-gallon polythene pail. This is quite suitable for a four-gallon lot, as we can make the amount up to four gallons at a later stage, thus avoiding the use of a larger vessel. We shall also need a copper for boiling the wort _ the strained mixture from the mash tun plus hops and any other additions. The copper may be an ordinary domestic boiler provided it holds two or three gallons comfortably. A galvanized copper (boiler) may be used provided no acid is added until the wort is poured into the fermentation vessel. Acid added earlier than this would react on the metal to produce unpleasant tastes and effects and even poisoning. A very large iron saucepan with a mottled blue lining or similar wash boiler would also be suitable. Even so, it would still be wise never to add acid until advised in the recipes. In this way risk of metal contamination is avoided. Lined vessels must not be chipped. Do not use enamel pails for boiling the wort as these often contain lead in the glaze; this can cause lead poisoning. For fermentation purposes a polythene dustbin bought especially for the purpose is ideal. Before using it stand it on a level surface and put in one gallon of water. Mark on the outside with suitable paint a line where this reaches. Then add another gallon and make another mark. Do this with a third, fourth and fifth gallon until you have a bin marked from bottom to top at gallon levels. This will avoid a lot of messing about later on when a recipe calls for making up to a certain level with water.

In addition to the three essential items mentioned you will need a 50-watt immersion heater costing about 7s. 6d. These are designed for tropical fish tanks and are used by home brewers to keep the mash in the mash tun at a suitable temperature. This saves the bother of trying to keep the mash at a given temperature over gas or other heat for hours on end. Power consumption by the immersion heater is negligible. Bear in mind that constant and correct temperature of the mash is of the utmost importance, as it is during this stage that enzyme action brings about the important changes already discussed. The heater already mentioned does this admirably when used with a two-gallon polythene pail. The above are essentials. A specific gravity hydrometer is not essential, but you will make your brewing much more interesting and results more certain if you use one. When to use is included in the recipes.

Barrels or storage jars are not needed. Far better to take the beer from the fermenting vessel directly into bottles. Quart bottles are best and these should be used when directed in the recipes.

Alternative fermentation vessel. Many operators making large quantities of wine use a thick polythene bag as a fermentation vessel. This may be used quite well for fermenting beers provided it has suitable support; an old barrel past its usefulness is ideal. Merely put the bag in this and fill with wort. Deep crocks or bread bins, or even round plywood flour bins, may be used. As the polythene acts as a lining, almost any vessel normally unsuitable for fermentation purposes may be used. Make certain that any container of this sort has no sharp edges, protruding nails or metal parts that might puncture the polythene bag; remember that when full of wort the pressure on such objects is considerable.

If a bag is used, the top may be gathered together and held in place by an elastic band. The gas formed will find an outlet for itself where the top is puckered.

When bottling time comes, the top may be undone, folded back over the rim of the container and the siphoning tube inserted. One drawback with this type of container is that top-fermenting yeast sticks to it, but this is easily cleaned off. Whereas bottom fermenting yeast settles and works from the bottom, top-fermenting kinds rise to form a nobbly pancake on the surface. This should be scooped off daily if large amounts of yeast are made in a short time. Sometimes, if this ‘cake’ is left on the surface, it turns an unpleasant brown color. This is quite natural and even if left undisturbed until all fermentation has ceased and then scooped off it will do no harm to the beer.

Here it is important to mention that fermentation vessels must be large enough to hold all the wort and to leave space for a good yeast head to form. If it is not big enough, the yeast will overflow, making a terrible mess.

Suitable polythene bags are best obtained from home brew supply firms, as these can be relied upon to be of true polythene and to be sound in seams and texture and of suitable gauge-thickness.

It is a fact that in an hour or so of your spare time once a week enough beer can be made to last an average drinker a fortnight. A four-gallon lot may be made in any kitchen and it takes only a moment or two to assess how long thirty-two pints of the best will last.

Home made beer is cheap - as has already been pointed out - but this does not mean that it is poor when compared with commercial products. On the contrary, many ales, stouts and such-like bought over the bar leave a lot to be desired. Once you have the easily-acquired skill you can make yours better than the stuff now costing more than it is worth. And you can learn by simple experiment how to make beers of all sorts which will really suit you rather than having to acquire the taste for some commercial product that has come your way owing to the merging of two brewery groups. The skill in making beers comes in learning how to make the very kind of beer you have been looking for. Therefore, I expect you may have to make several lots before you are able to say that ‘this’ is just what you have been looking for and that the recipe you used in the one for you.

This is how skill in home wine making is acquired. Too many novice wine makers make a batch of wine with fruit that has become available without giving a thought to what the wine will be like or whether they will like it or not. The fact that it is wine is all that seems to bother them. This sort of person would go to a wine merchant for a bottle of wine with not the faintest idea of what they wanted apart from it being a bottle of wine. No person with any sense would go into a pub not knowing what he wanted. Clearly, the home brewer must have a pretty good idea of what he wants before he begins and then choose the recipe most likely to produce it. If he does this he will very soon succeed at what must be one of the most interesting and rewarding home hobbies there can be.

No license is needed today and although this is an absolute boon that will make home brewing as popular as home wine making - there being more than half a million wine makers in Britain alone _ some operators who have been making beers without a license for as long as they can remember confess that now they are not breaking the law half the fun has been knocked out of it for them. It would seem that the beer was just that much better because in making it they were breaking the law. I suppose there is something in that, for as a child I remember that apples pinched from other people’s orchards always tasted better than our own.

Being able to make beers as strong as you wish should not be encouragement to make them stronger than need be. The amounts of sugar given in the recipes make for good strong beers, that is, beers with a comfortable percentage of alcohol. You can make them weaker or stronger as you wish by altering the amount of sugar accordingly. The table below will show you how much sugar to use to obtain a given percentage of alcohol. But over-strong beers should not be the aim of anybody simply because, if they are made too strong, they become malt and hop wines rather than beer and therefore too strong to be drunk by the pint or even half-pint. It is all very well to acquire a reputation for being able to knock up a knock-out drop, but if your friends are affected by strong beers as many people are - they roll up their sleeves and challenge perfectly innocent bystanders to a punch up - it would be better to make them at roughly the same strength as commercial beers. In any case, the flavor of over-strong beers is spoiled and they are no longer the long, cool, refreshing drinks one looks for in beers, but temper- and hangover-inducing shorts.

You will, naturally, choose the simplest form of beer making to start with; the method calling for the use of malt extract and hop extract. This method is becoming extremely popular amongst beginners and will continue to be so for a very long time with a vast number of home operators simply because the ingredients are ready to use and easy to handle. Very excellent beers are made with these materials which are, in effect, the same as malted barley and dried hops.

However, the more ambitious will want to use grain malt (malted barley) and dried hops, as the commercial brewer does. For this reason, recipes for using either ingredients are included; some calling for malt extract and hops extract; others calling for grain malt and dried hops. Using grain malt (malted barley) and dried hops does make for better beers, but this is a little more expensive. However, the expense - the little there is - should not bar you from going in for making the best possible beers.

Years ago, home wine makers put up with all sorts of disappointing liquors made from all sorts of unsuitable fruits and yeast and fermented them in anything but a fire bucket. Today, they are a fastidious lot insisting on the best ingredients, the best yeast and the most suitable utensils - and so they should. The result of this new outlook has been the complete transformation of the nature and quality of home-made wines. Years ago, hardly any home-made wine was worth drinking; yet today they are absolutely first-class products easily on a par with the best commercial wines.

So let us do as home winemakers have done and learn to make beers as good as those turned out by famous breweries.

Whether it be ale, lager, stout, old ale, pale ale or just beer from the barrel - it, or they - are all beers. But this has not always been so. For centuries ‘unhopped’ beer - that is, beer made without hops was known as ale. Only beer made with hops was known as beer. However, as time went on, hops found their way into all beers whether they were known as ales, beers, stouts or what have you. The real difference between the various beers comes in the treatment of the malted barley, the amount used in the various beers and the amount of hops used in each.

Pale ale is made with more hops than other beers and the malt used is of the highest quality pale variety. It may be sold as either draught or bottled beer. Light ales are a weaker version of pale ale. Mild ale - the popular draught beer - is made with darker malt. Stouts are made from the darker malts and with some roasted malt.

It will be seen that by blending the various malts and by either increasing the amount of hops used a wide variety of beers can be made from the two basic materials - malt and hops. From all this the reader will at once see that he has only to use his imagination and his palate to decide on how, after a few initial experiments using the various recipes, to alter slightly the amount of ingredient to produce a beer that will be the envy of his friends.

Careful blending of light and dark malts and increasing or reducing the amount of hops used will show readily enough in the variety of beer produced how each may be altered a little more until the operator has designed a recipe for a beer that will be the only one for him forever more.

My urging you to experiment does not suggest that you will be disappointed in your first effort. Indeed, you will most likely be delighted. I make the suggestion of experimenting in case amongst the many recipes there is not one that suits your palate but I’m willing to bet there is.

The first operation in commercial brewing is the milling of the malted barley. As with drying hops, and malting the barley, skill is required if the best results are to be obtained. The malted barley is milled so that it is hardly more than cracked. From the mill the malted crushed barley or ‘grist’ is conveyed to the mash tuns (our mash tun will be a two-gallon polythene pail, as we shall see later on). The mash tuns of the brewery are enormous copperdomed vessels, often holding many thousands of gallons. It is in these that the first great changes take place. The malt is fed into these and mixed with water - from now on called ‘liquor’ simply because in the brewery there is no such thing as water except the stuff they wash the floors with. Brewery liquor, then, and malt form the wort in the mash tun. This is brought to and maintained at a temperature suited to the particular enzyme whose action is required to take place first. It is then increased and increased again until the brewer is satisfied that the changes brought about by the various enzymes are complete. At this stage the wort is boiled. As soon as the malt is put in the mash tun and wetted, the process halted in the malting kiln recommences. Starch is converted to sugars by digestive ferments or by the enzyme action just mentioned. Temperature control during this stage is essential because certain enzymes work - bring about their changes - at temperatures that would destroy others. U nderheating would merely leave certain enzymes inactive so that the desired changes would not take place - or only partly take place. Complete change by enzyme action is necessary if good beers are to be produced.

Conversion, and extraction of flavors and other essentials taking place in the mash tun take from four to six or even eight hours. When the wort has been run off the near-spent grain into the coppers for boiling, more hot brewery liquor (not water) is sprayed over the grain until the brewer is satisfied that he has obtained all the goodness he can get.

Next comes boiling. From the mash tuns the wort is run into coppers and boiled with hops. It is during this boiling that the character of the beer is ‘fixed’ - or decided - and the enzymes which bring about the desired changes in the mash tun are destroyed. If they were not destroyed they would merely continue the process of convertion until the wort became a tasteless and unpalatable mixture of brewery liquor, spent hops flavor and alcohol. Boiling is necessary not only to halt the enzyme action but also to destroy wild yeasts and bacteria by sterilizing. Wild yeasts and bacteria cause spoilage ferments.

After boiling, the wort is cooled by refrigerating machinery to about 60°f. At this stage yeast is ‘pitched’ into the wort; and now the great transformation from murky, flat wort to bright, foaming beer begins. This is known as fermentation, the action of which is described under ACTION OF YEAST.

A few hops are added during the latter stages of fermentation to add extra tang and preservative properties - some of these having been lost during boiling.

It stands to reason that if we want good beers we must follow as closely as possible the methods used by those who know how to make them best of all the commercial brewers. Obviously we cannot possibly follow the commercial brewer through every process from growing the barley and hops to bottling the finished product, with gigantic machines handling two or three hundred bottles a minute. Nevertheless, we can follow him most of the way.

Firstly, we can by-pass two of the most highlyskilled operations by buying quite cheaply ready-touse ingredients - the very same materials as used by the commercial brewer. Thereafter we can follow him very closely indeed. In fact, we might well be very tiny miniatures of the great man himself.

Naturally, the beginner lacks the skill and technical knowledge to start with, but he quickly acquires a very simple technique or ‘knack’ of knocking up some really first-class beers, and he does this consistently after a few initial experiments. If this is so; and if our beer making is going to be simple with good results assured, there would seem to be no need here for a lengthy discourse on some of the technicalities of commercial brewing. But there is. Anybody can make good beers, but I believe that if the whole process is understood you will be able to see how closely you are following ‘the great man himself,’ so that you can see for yourself the importance of the simple methods you will be using. That highly technical processes go on naturally and unseen during these processes need not be discussed here. The fact that they do go on, how and why they go on without you having much to do with it will be discussed later on.

It is a fact that beer making is a natural process, apart from the boiling which is necessary if wild yeasts and bacteria are to be prevented from spoiling the finished product. The changes that take place in the ingredients are natural changes; all we need do is to start them off. Boiling halts these changes and destroys the causes of spoiled beers. Adding yeast merely starts the processes in a liquor freed of the enemies of successful brewing.

The art in commercial brewing is in selecting the materials best suited to the types and varieties of ales and beers turned out by each particular brewer. Any drinker worth his salt will have a wide knowledge of the various ales, beers and stouts available in the houses of the various brewers. The fact that each differs is the result of careful blending of ingredients.

Quality is of the utmost importance. Therefore, brewery groups grow their own barley and hops and harvest and process them according to their needs or select the best from overseas. The body in beer comes from malt obtained from selected barley; hops add flavour, ‘tang’ and bitterness where this is required and, of course, preservative properties.

Yeast in itself adds nothing to beers, yet without it beer would not ‘happen’. The action of yeast on sugar in the wort (prepared liquor) produces alcohal, without which the wort would remain wort and never become beer.

Sugar is essential if the yeast is to produce alcohol _ this point is covered in more detail in the practical section. Invert sugar is used in all breweries, not because it contributes flavour or any effective properties to the finished product, but because it is more readily fermentable than other sugars.

Barley is grown extensively in this country and very often the finest barley in the world is produced here. The quality naturally depends on soil conditions and the weather - the latter being, as we all know well enough, somewhat unpredictable. For this reason a good deal of barley is imported from areas where the climate is more reliable and better suited to growing the very best regularly each season to offset the poor quality sometimes produced here. Thus the commercial brewer might well use, in addition to some grown here, barley from Egypt, California, Canada, and perhaps India as well as from Europe.

Barley is but a seed and, within its husk, like all seed, is the germ of new life with a plentiful supply of food for the young plant.

Barley and malted barley appear identical. Barley is hard - so hard that the miller uses stone to grind it. Malted barley on the other hand is easily cracked with the teeth to exude the soft sweetness which is malt.

Malting barley is a highly skilled operation bypassed by amateurs who buy ready malted barley or malt extract. In malting barley, the maltster brings about artificial growing conditions so that the seed reacts as if it had been sown in soil. These growing conditions are stopped when the maximum yield of malt can be expected. Firstly, the barley is heaped and watered until germination takes place and growth begins. He then spreads this on the malting floor and never takes his eyes off it, as it were. Warmth and moisture encourages growth of the shoot within the husk and also brings about digestive ferments which cause starches and other substances to change into malt. When the young shoot still within the husk is about three-quarters along the seed, the maximum malt yield is reached. At this stage further growth is halted by drying or lightly cooking in a kiln. Thus the all-important malt is kept within the husk. The mass of rootlets is then removed and the malted barley - or malt, as it is now called - is stored for use as required.

The fuller flavored, darker colored malts are obtained by higher temperatures than those destined for pale ales which are of the palest color. Crystal malt is produced by gas-oven treatment. Some malts are roasted while others - brown malts in particular - are produced in kilns burning wood fires.

Using one malt alone or blending two or many in the mash tun is the skill by which the brewer produces the beers for which he is famed. And it is here, by experiment, that the home brewer can turn out something quite remarkable once he has gained a little experience from using the simple recipes and methods detailed in the practical section.

Hops were once described as a noxious weed and outlawed by royal decree, but without them beers as we know them today would not exist. They are easy to grow - indeed, my grandfather used to grow them in the same manner as runner beans. Many country pubs are festooned with hops during the season; it is from such as this that home wine makers on a visit to the country pinch a few for adding to wines which benefit from the addition of a hop or two.

The fully grown, pale green hop bears some resemblance to a pine cone except that it is less tapered and paper-soft instead of woody-hard.

Take a handful of freshly picked hops and the palms immediately become sticky or tacky. This is because essential oils and resins have developed in the cone, and it is at this stage, when the cone is ‘ripe’, that the hops are gathered, for it is now that the full flavour is reached. Now - or a little earlier - the hop pickers converge on the hop garden in their thousands. Whole families up sticks, as it were, and sally forth for three or four weeks’ working holiday where they can be assured of a good time into the bargain.
The drying of hops is a skilled craft. The hops are spread over the cloth-covered porous floor of the drying kiln through which warm air is passed until sufficient moisture has been removed to ensure that the hops keep well. If too dry the flavour is spoiled; if not dry enough they could turn mouldy on storing. When suitably dry the hops are packed by presses and stored until required for use.

The lengthy discourse on commercial brewing is designed for those who will be using grain malts (so that they may see for themselves how closely they will be following the commercial brewer and to give them a clear understanding of the subject). Beginners using malt extracts need not bother to read this unless they want to from the interest point of view; for, strictly speaking, and because they are using the simplest methods, this does not concern them. It will, of course, when they decide they are ready to go in for making the very best of top-rate beers using grain malts.

This two-step method of learning is undoubtedly the best, for the experience gained in using malt extracts either in liquid or dried form readily obtainable from suppliers of home brewing equipment - Step One - allows them to go into using the slightly more elaborate methods involved in using grain malts - Step Two.

Step Three, if there really is one, is the stage when the operator, having used malt extracts and having advanced into using grain malts, decides to advance even further. Here he will use both grain malts and malt extracts in one brew, use his head in blending ingredients, evolve recipes of his own and perhaps methods as well; thus becoming an expert in his own right - and quite quickly. Such a man will make some extra super beers the like of which will not be obtainable elsewhere.

And when this stage is reached, there is no limit to the amount of blending of ingredients that can be carried out to obtain those special results that so often show a man up amongst his pals as someone exceptional. So, start with the simple methods and ingredients in chapter 3, and when you are ready, proceed to advanced aspects and you will be in for a lifetime’s pleasant drinking with an absorbing interest into the bargain.

Ales, beers, stouts, cider, mead, or any of the other alcoholic drinks detailed in this book are easy to make provided you understand not only why you are working in one particular way, but also why you must work in this way if you want the best results.

There are many methods for making every sort of alcoholic drink; some are good methods ensuring the top-most quality results, while others are so antiquated and slip-shod as to be quite comical. Others are half-way between the two. For far too long too many people have been following methods that can only result in disappointment. The methods here ensure success provided you know what you want before you begin. In saying this, I mean that you should have a good idea of what you want and then set out to make it as near to this as you can expect at first attempt.

In wine making we choose to make them sweet, medium or dry; light, medium or heavy. Naturally if the beginner winemaker dislikes dry wines and unwittingly makes them at first attempt, then it stands to reason that he will be disappointed. But if he had known what he was about he would have known he was making a dry wine and could have avoided what was to him a calamity because being a beginner he would not necessarily know how to rectify the fault when he had finished. It takes a little time and a few experiments before you can expect to turn out something exactly as you want it. And when you have done this, the experience gained, together with a bit of common sense, will show you how to improve your product so that it quickly becomes the main and favourite drink of yourself and your friends.

Too many people chuckle apologetically when offering ‘a little drop of something I made myself’. Heaven knows why, for it is those who feel they have something to apologize for who turn out the best stuff. Hundreds of times and all over the country I have had people offer me home-made wines, beers, ciders and meads as if they were offering me diluted strychnine and were apologizing for the suffering to come. Mostly they were top-rate wines and beers. It seems to me that someone thinks just because he made it it can’t be much good. This attitude has its good point because a man like that is clearly anxious to improve his product. But provided he is satisfied I can see no reason for striving to improve it beyond improving it to suit himself even more. After all, as experienced operators will agree, striving to improve can be overdone to such an extent that the end product bears no resemblance to the original. The ‘improved’ product, then, is no longer what it was and the operator is disappointed.

The aim should be to find in as few experiments as possible the recipe which gives the results nearest your special liking and then vary slightly the ingredients in future brews. This can be done quite simply by increasing slightly the amount of ‘this’ and perhaps reducing slightly the amount of ‘that’ until you produce precisely what you are after.

Altering the amounts of ingredients may not be necessary, for you might well hit the alcoholic nail on the head first time - and I hope you do. Either way, you will get a lot of pleasure for a comparatively small outlay, for if your first attempts are not all you hoped for you will realize at once that you are on to a good thing, because before long your own brew at sixpence or eightpence a pint will be as good as your favourite commercial product at three bob a pint. If you are a draught-beer man it’s easier and cheaper still.

This resource is designed for all types of home brewers, from the veriest beginner with not the slightest idea where to begin to those with some experience looking for means to improve their product.

The complete beginner can begin by making some very excellent beers using readily prepared malt extracts and dried hops and only the simplest of utensils. The method is quick, straightforward and sure.

The beginner, when he has had some experience with the simple methods may then go on to tackle the slightly more advanced methods using grain malts and slightly more elaborate equipment. Those already experienced in making beers from malt extracts may go right ahead and use grain malts if they want to.

For the benefit of those who will want to use grain malts, I have included some details of the processes of the commercial brewer whom those using grain malts will be copying in every way. Using grain malts involves a period of mashing - as will be seen - and while this is a very simple process for amateurs willing to take some care in the process, those using malt extracts will not have this job to do, as a glance at the simple methods of making beers with malt extracts.