Home Brewing at Frozenbrew.com

No beer is quite so satisfying to the taste as one you've brewed yourself. Brewing beer is also a fun hobby. What are you waiting for? Let's get started.

You're going to need some equipment. It's not hard to find, and shouldn't cost too much to pick up. You'll find everything you need at any local brewing store or online brewing site. Here's a

list:

Small bowl - Bottle brush - Saucepan - Bottling bucket - Airlock and stopper - Spatula - Oven gloves - Wooden mixing spoons - Brewing Pot - Plastic hose - Fermenter - Bottle capper - Thermometer (the stick-on type is best).

But - it's much easier, especially if you're new to this, to pick up a microbrewery kit. It will include everything you need, all the brewing ingredients, including hopped malt concentrate and brewers yeast powder, and fermentables, which are what you need to produce your desired flavor of beer. It's possible to get everything separately, but a self-contained kit is much more convenient.

The equipment will need to be sanitized. In fact, this is one of the most important steps in producing a decent beer. Everything needs to be cleaned with hot, soapy water. Then the equipment should be sanitized using either the chlorine solution or iodine solution which came with the kit. Even better, and more environmentally friendly, is sanitizer which contains Sodium Percarbonate - as effective as chlorine but without leaving the problematic residue of bleach.

Once everything is sterilized, we are ready to begin. Two quarts of water go into the brew pot. Heat the water until it begins to steam - around 180F. Remove from heat. Add the beer kit and fermentables. Follow the instructions that came with the kit.

Stir the brew until everything is dissolved, then put the lid on and leave it to sit for ca twenty minutes on a low heat. Fill the fermenter with four gallons of water and add the mix, known as the wort. Stir this for four minutes to oxygenize the mixture. Once the wort is cool to the touch, the yeast can be added.

Now the wort needs to ferment. The fermentation process continues for five days. During fermentation it's important to keep the temperature constant, at around 65F, and the wort should also be kept in a dark place. During the fermentation process you will observe tiny air bubbles rising to the surface.

After five days you need to check the beer daily. The beer is ready to be bottled when no more air bubbles appear. It's very important to wait for fermentation to fully complete, so don't be impatient or you will ruin your beer.

Before bottling you need to prepare what is known as the primary solution. The primary solution is what carbonates the brew. Add two cups of water and three-quarters of a cup of dextrose to a saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Let it cool for thirty minutes then pour it into the bottling bucket.

Now for the bottling itself: put one end of your hose in the bottling bucket and attach the other end to the spigot on your fermenter. Open the spigot and transfer the beer to the bottling bucket. When finished, detach and clean the hose and throw away the fermenter. Each bottle should be filled leaving one inch of air at the top. Cap the bottles tightly making sure there are no leaks.

Almost there now, but it's still not quite ready for drinking. The bottled beer needs to be kept in a cool dark place for the second fermentation process. The fridge is too cold for this purpose. Basements are ideal, if you have one. The beer needs to sit for two more weeks before being ready to enjoy.

Well, that's the traditional way to do it. But it's really much easier to purchase a microbrewery kit which includes an all-in-one single step fermenter, conditioning vessel, and dispenser apparatus. No need for bottling - the beer can be tapped directly from the dispenser. And the assembled kit sits in your fridge taking up no more room than a conventional six-pack.

Cheers!