Our Beer

Our Wine


We started our beermaking again after Christmas 2005. Sharon decided that I needed another hobby so we bought some more equipment to go along with our winemaking things.

Knowing from previous experience that bottling beer was arduous and more like work than play, we decided we would keg our beer this time. To that end, we bought a keg, CO 2 bottle, fittings and even a Sanyo kegirator. Our kegirator can hold two 5-gallon kegs at one time and can dispense from both.

For our first batch, we selected an amber beer. Unfortunately, I neglected to record the type of hops and the can of hopped malt extract. I will do my best to change that in the future. At the bottom of this page, I will be recording our next batches.

Our first beer!
Our first kegged beer. 		Beer and dispenser
Our kegirator. 		In the secondary fermentor
Our secondary fermentor.

To create the wort, I bought a turkey fryer and a stainless steel pot that holds 20 quarts. Every four quarts are clearly marked along the inside of the pot. The basic steps of beermaking are simple. *Note: if you prefer using grains, go to the Basic Grains section below.

Basic Brewing Steps
  1. Sanitize everything! I use B-T-F Iodophor iodine sanitizer. Clean the pot, primary fermenter, and tools before you start.
  2. Put the hopped malt extract and one pound of malt extract in hot water to soften it up. Trust me; it's a lot easier to work with extracts that have been warmed.
  3. Add two gallons of water to the pot and bring to a boil. Once it is boiling, turn off the heat and stir in the hopped malt extract and the malt extract. If you are using water salts, add them now. Stir everything thoroughly.
  4. Bring the wort back to a boil. As soon as it starts to boil, add 2/3 ounce of your hops. Stir this well. And the mixture will start to foam when you add the hops so be ready to turn the heat down.
  5. Let the wort boil for at least 30 minutes. If you like more bitterness, you can boil for an hour.
  6. Turn off the heat and add the remaining 1/3 ounce of hops and stir well.
  7. Cool the wort. Put it into a cool water bath. We want the temperature to be below 80 F.
  8. While the wort is cooling, prepare your yeast by adding the dry yeast to about one cup of 100 F water. Cover with cellophane. The yeast will absorb the water and start to foam.
  9. Once the wort is cooled, pour it into the primary fermenter and add enough cold water to bring the total to five gallons. Stir well. Take the temperature reading and then take the specific gravity (SG) reading. Add .001 for every 7 degrees above 60 F. SG should be around 1.035 to 1.042.
  10. When the temperature is below 80 F, add the yeast and any yeast food (such as Bru-Vigor) onto the wort.
  11. Put the top on the fermentor, attach the airlock, and relax for three to four days.
  12. After waiting, open the fermentor. If the head has subsided, you can rack the beer to the secondary fermenter. Be sure to sanitize!
  13. Your specific gravity should read below 1.020. Attach the airlock and bung and relax for one to two weeks.
  14. Keg the beer. Sanitize the kegs and hoses and all other tools! Since I force-carbinate the beer in the keg, I don't use priming sugars.
  15. Attach the CO 2 to the keg once you have closed the keg. Set the pressure at 20-25 p.s.i. and give it a few minutes. Then, turn off the CO 2 and open the relief valve. This removes all of the air and ensures only carbon dioxide sits on your beer. Close the relief valve and put the keg in your kegirator with 20-25 p.s.i. for about one week.
  16. After the week is done, simply release the pressure and readjust to about 5-10 p.s.i. (experiment). Enjoy the beer.


Basic Grains

Using grains will definitely give you much more control over how your beer will taste! Here are some really basic steps that should guide you through brewing with grains.

  1. Bring about one gallon of water to 170 F. Add your grains (I prefer using a grain bag) and allow it to steep for at least 30 minutes although I usually let it steep an hour. Then, gently rinse (sparge) the bag with another gallon of 165 - 170 F water.
  2. Bring this to a boil. When you achieve a slow, rolling boil, turn off the heat and add all of your malt extract. Don't allow the wort to boil over! Once you have all of the extract dissolved, return to the heat and bring to a boil.
  3. Once you have it boiling again, start timing. After five (5) minutes of boiling, add any bittering hops and stir until the hops are thoroughly mixed. (See my Hops page for some information about these great greens!)
  4. Boil for 45 minutes. Now, add the flavoring hops! (Not all recipes will have flavoring hops)
  5. Boil for ten (10) minutes. Add your finishing hops! (Not all recipes will have finishing hops)
  6. Boil for another five (5) minutes and immediately remove from the heat. Your total boiling time is one hour (60 minutes).
  7. Put your pot in a cool water bath until the temperature is below 90 F (ideal would be around 60 F but we really need to get the yeast in there). As soon as the temperature is down, check the specific gravity. There are temperature correction charts available but, as a rule of thumb, you can add .001 to the specific gravity for every 7 F above 60 F.
  8. Transfer to your primary fermenter and add water until you have five (5) gallons.
  9. Add your yeast and yeast food and put your top on the fermentor. Wait.
  10. In about 3 or 4 days, the head should have subsided and the specific gravity should be about one-third of what you recorded. Rack the beer into your secondary fermentor (I use a 5 (five) gallon carboy for this).
  11. Anywhere from one to three weeks later, your beer should be clear and all fermentation action will have stopped. At this point, you can proceed with the kegging as shown above.

Please note that I not put any of the specific gravity readings in the steps above. Since each combination of grains will result in different readings, I felt it important to not give out any of the specific gravities. Of course, you should record all of the readings.

You will find that making your own beer is relatively inexpensive for a great tasting brew. Plus, you know exactly what goes into the beer. No extra preservatives here and that's a good thing. Besides, once you try your beer, it won't last too long anyway!


We started Batch #2 on 6 February 2006. For this one we used a hopped malt extract called "Export Ale" from Mountmellick Malt Extract. This extract says "..made from the finest two-row barley matls, and choice English full resin hops." For the hops, we used U.K. Fuggles Hops that have "mild bite, with a fruity aroma." We added 1/2 ounce at the start of the boil and the remaining 1/2 ounce after the boil. We also added 1/2 cup of brown sugar after the boil to give it some extra sugar and color. We kegged it and let it charge at 20 p.s.i. for five days. Then, we released the pressure on the keg and re-set it to 5 p.s.i. for serving. What a great beer! It has a smooth, slightly hoppy flavor and pours with just the right amount of head.

Batch #3 was a little different. We visited our local homebrew store looking for the ingredients to make a German bock. And we were interested in getting started using grains instead of a canned extract. So, we bought several pounds of different grains and malt extract. After soaking the grains, we wondered what we could use them for but never figured out what. So, we discarded them even though I suspect we should have kept them. We used German Perle hops for bittering and Hallertauer hops for flavoring. We were a little disappointed in this one since it didn't seem to clear up. I enjoyed the flavor but Sharon didn't like it at all. I found it to be very smooth with a lot of malty flavor. It wasn't very dark (at least, I expected it to be darker) but it did contain a lot of alcohol.
6 lbs Old Bavarian Munich Blend 2 lbs amber malt extract 1 lb German Pilsner malt 1 lb German Munich malt 1/2 lb German Melanoidin malt
1/2 lb German medium crystal malt 3/4 oz German Perle hops (for bittering) 1 oz Hallertauer hops (for flavoring) yeast 1 pkg Bru-Vigor (yeast food)


Our next batch is a Dunkelweizen. This recipe does not use any hops for flavoring or finishing. I followed the Basic Grains steps. I put the beer in the keg and force-carbinated it for seven days. When we tried it, our eyes got wide and knew we had a winner! An excellent dark beer with a hint of banana. We will be using this recipe again!
5 1/2 lbs wheat malt extract 1/2 lb dark malt extract 1 lb wheat malt grain 1/2 lb German Wheat Crystal 1 lb six-row pale malt
2 oz German Chocolate wheat 3/4 oz German Perle hops (for bittering) liquid yeast 1 pkg Bru-Vigor (yeast food) .


Then, we decided to try an Irish Red Ale. It turned out excellent with a red hue and not too bitter!
7 lbs light malt extract 1/2 lb cara-pils malt 1/2 lb British medium crystal malt 1/2 lb aromatic malt 1/2 lb wheat malt
1/2 lb German Melanoidin malt 1 oz Chocolate malt 1 oz Kent Goldings hops for bittering 1/2 oz UK Fuggles hops for flavoring and 1/2 oz for finishing liquid yeast and Bru-Vigor


This porter is very dark brown.
7 lbs amber malt extract 1 lb Domestic Special pale malt 1 lb medium crystal malt 10 oz chocolate malt 2 oz black patent malt
1/4 lb Special "B" malt 3/4 oz Chinook hops for bittering 1/2 oz Cascades hops for flavoring 1/2 oz Cascades hops for finishing liquid yeast and Bru-Vigor