Essential equipment for home brewing

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Craft brewing as a phenomenon originated in the US in the mid-seventies. This was due to the great growth of small business and entrepreneurship. Small breweries could not compete with large players in the market in terms of volume and value of products. But their beer was in demand, as it was brewed not only according to the classic recipe, but also using unusual ingredients.

Today, this phenomenon is popular in our country. Each city has its own mini-breweries that produce original intoxicating drinks. For some people, brewing has not become a way to earn money. It is more of a hobby that provides all friends and loved ones with delicious m alt beer.

Craft brewing equipment is a separate issue. Any business, even if it is not aimed at making a profit, requires certain financial injections. To start makingintoxicating drinks, you need to purchase equipment for brewing at home. It is on sale, and the buyer is offered various options for cost and performance. So what do you need to brew beer?

Homemade versus store bought

Why brew a m alt drink at home? After all, there are many varieties of beer on sale - draft, canned, bottled, dark and light, and even with various flavors. Among all the variety, you can find both products of dubious quality, and quite pleasant in taste. However, craft beer has a number of features that make it competitive with industrial-scale alcohol:

1. Low production. Because of this, you can try to produce products with different tastes. While the big players aim to cater to the needs of the average consumer, their drinks shouldn't be too fancy.
2. Making the most of your homebrewing equipment. You can use different cooking modes, different methods of filtration and fermentation. The taste of the drink changes with technology changes. Large manufacturers are working on proven technologies.
3. Small breweries are not focused on cutting costs. They can afford to buy the best raw materials and other expensive components. The price of the drink is high, but small batches are taken apart quite quickly. In addition, if you cook for yourself, then the cost of the product becomessecondary factor.
4. New recipes. Craft beer is often brewed according to original recipes using non-traditional ingredients. The big players are more inert on this issue.

Thus, craft beer reflects the freedom of expression of the brewer. He is not subject to many of the conventions of large scale production and can create as he pleases.

Ingredients

Before you buy equipment for home brewing, you need to find good raw materials for the production of the drink. Traditionally, beer is made from the following ingredients:

1. Water. Some manufacturers take tap water. With large volumes, this is justified, although it affects the taste of the drink. But in home production conditions, it is better to use soft bottled or filtered water.
2. M alt. These are cereals. M alt is divided by type, quality, degree of roasting. It should be dry, with a high degree of extract and protein content. Also, brewers are guided by the Kolbach number, which shows how much protein will dissolve in water when heated. M alt can be purchased from Russian and imported. The latter has a higher end product yield and better taste.
3. Hop. These are dry hop cones. It is best to purchase from foreign suppliers.
4. Yeast. Special grades of brewer's yeast that ferment all ingredients.
5. Additional ingredients - essential oil of hops, cereals, starch, sugar, corn syrup, dextrose. Are notmandatory, but often used to speed up the fermentation process and improve flavor.

Craft beer often uses non-traditional ingredients - fruits, berries, honey, spices and much more. They give the drink an original taste.

But the base of all types of beer remains the same - it is m alt, hops, yeast and water.

Cooking technology

When home brewing beer equipment is available, the technology itself does not seem too complicated. The whole process consists of several stages:

1. Wort grout. Raw m alt is crushed into small fractions and placed in hot water for a while. The soaking process separates sugars and other extractives.
2. Filtering. The wort is filtered to remove dense particles.
3. Brewing beer. The process takes about two hours. Hops are added at this stage. Once in the middle of cooking to give the drink a characteristic bitterness. The second time at the end - for a pleasant smell.
4. Filtration on a hydrocyclone. At this stage, the beer is clarified, making it more transparent, without a cloudy cock.
5. Fermentation. The liquid is cooled to the specified parameters and brewer's yeast is added. The wort is fermented for several days, then poured into special containers for infusion.
6. The finished product is once again passed through the filter and warmed up (pasteurization) to extend the shelf life. Some beers (ales) are not heated. They insist for a long time, the longer they stand, thericher taste.

Different stages require different equipment for home brewing. It is on free sale. You can purchase both a full-fledged mini-factory, and a separate device. Sometimes amateur brewers get by with minimal investment.

Brewing beer at home without additional investments

You can make your own home brewing equipment. To do this, it is not necessary to buy fermentation tanks and cooking tanks with automatic mode settings. All you need is:

1. Large capacity for brewing. Ideally, this should be a pot or tank with a faucet at the bottom. Although the last element can be dispensed with.
2. Fermentation tank - any tank of suitable size.
3. Thermometer. For temperature control.
4. Gauze is dense enough to filter.
5. Containers for bottling the finished drink - plastic and glass bottles.
6. Silicone hose. To drain the drink without affecting the cloudy sediment at the bottom.
7. Chiller. Wort cooling device. It can be replaced with a bowl of crushed ice.

The ingredients are as follows:

• filtered water - 32 l;
• high quality dry barley m alt – 5 kg;
• hops - 45g;
• brewer's yeast - 25 g;
• granulated sugar - 9 g per liter of water, total 288 g.

The process itself looks like this:

1. Pour 25 liters of water into a cooking pot, heat up to 80 ⁰С. Place in containercrushed m alt in a gauze bag. Keep 1.5-2 hours at a stable temperature of 65-70 ⁰С.
2. Heat the liquid to 80 ⁰С, hold for 5-6 minutes. Take out the m alt.
3. Rinse the m alt in the remaining water to wash out all the sugars and extractives. Add water to tank.
4. Bring to a boil. Divide the hops into three equal portions. Add the first at the beginning of cooking, after removing the foam, the second - after 50 minutes, the third - after another 10-15 minutes. In total, the beer is brewed for about an hour and a half.
5. It is necessary to cool the raw materials very quickly. The faster the process goes, the lower the risk of contamination of the m alt with wild strains of yeast. To do this, the container is placed in a basin or an ice bath and poured several times through gauze into another tank.
6. Add the m alt drink and yeast to the fermentation vessel. Install a water seal and leave to ferment for 7-10 days.
7. Product readiness can be determined by the absence of bubbles within the last 24 hours.
8. Carbonization. It is made so that characteristic bubbles and foam appear in the beer. To do this, 8 grams of sugar are added to clean pasteurized bottles for every liter of liquid.
9. Pour the drink with a narrow silicone hose into bottles with sugar and cork. Secondary fermentation will begin, causing carbon dioxide to form in the beer.
10. To achieve the perfect taste, beer poured into containers is cleaned in a dark place for a couple of weeks. You need to keep it at a temperature of 22 ⁰С.

So making your own brewing equipment is easy. However, all operations must be performedindependently, using the most primitive devices. And the performance will not be too high.

Purchasable equipment options

All equipment for small brewing can be divided into two categories:

1. Amateur. Low power, capacity and performance. Designed for a couple of brews per month exclusively for your own use.
2. Mini-factory. Brewing equipment designed for a minimum of 100 liters per day and operating continuously. There are configuration options for 100, 200, 300, 500 liters per production day. Such equipment cannot be placed at home, as it requires a lot of free space.

Minimum equipment

If you don't want to mess around with pots and bowls of ice, you can buy low-cost, low-capacity brewing equipment. So you can brew 40-50 liters of good craft beer at a time, and after 2-3 weeks of steeping, you will get an excellent m alt drink for your own consumption. The minimum equipment for home brewing is:

• Kettle for wort boiling of small volume - 50 liters.
• Pair of fermentation tanks equipped with water seals.
• Mill - for crushing m alt.
• Chiller - to cool the wort.

The wort kettle is actually the same big pot. But with a faucet at the bottom and a thick bottom for even heating. In addition, it immediately providesfiltration system. As a rule, this is a metal mesh for separating particles of large and small fractions.

Accessories

One pot is not enough to brew the wort. You need to purchase all the other additional equipment. Each performs a very important function, and without these devices, the brewer will have more problems.

A m alt mill with a handle is a very useful tool. Hard and dry barley is not easy to grind. The mill copes with this task quickly. In addition, it can be upgraded - add a handle like a meat grinder, or attach a drill to mechanize the process.

The chiller also makes the brewer's job easier. Cooling a huge tank with 50 liters of beer is another challenge. It is not easy even just to lift it, given that the container itself weighs 8-10 kg. And it will need to be dragged to a bath or basin with ice and lowered so that everything cools quickly.

The chiller makes this procedure many times easier. All you have to do is drop one pipe into the vat and wait. The whole process will take 20-25 minutes.

The fermentation tanks are also an important element. They are available in different sizes, but it is better to take 30 liters. Most sachets of brewer's yeast are designed for this volume of liquid, which is very convenient.

Price

Equipment for brewing in the minimum configuration will cost 25-30 thousand rubles. About 40-50% of this amount will be the cost of the brew kettle. The rest is the simplest additionalequipment.

Professional equipment

Some brewers want to automate as many operations as possible. And if finances allow, they buy mini-breweries.

Such equipment for home brewing has a slightly different configuration, has a larger capacity and performance. Yes, and it can only be called “home” conditionally, since it cannot be placed at home. To install it, you need at least a spacious garage or other production sites.

Benefits

Minibreweries are upgraded wort kettles. They have built-in heaters, thermostats and pumps. All this is accompanied by a built-in electronic unit that automatically monitors all stages of production. The brewer only needs to load the raw materials and select the desired recipe.

Further, the equipment will work according to the given program. It will only notify the brewer about the end of a particular stage. Free creativity remains on the lot of a person, that is, the development of original recipes.

Price

Professional equipment for brewing at home will cost 80-100 thousand rubles. The automatic brewery itself for 50-70 liters is 70 thousand rubles. Another 10 thousand rubles. have to spend on a used refrigerator for wort. The amount is impressive, but with such volumes and automation of the process, you can brew an intoxicating drink not only for yourself, but also for a small craft bar.

Equipmentfor brewing 300 liters will cost significantly more. But in this case we are talking about a serious scale of production. And if a person makes such investments, then only for the purpose of subsequent sale of craft beer for profit.

Do I need to buy an extra refrigerator for fermentation

If you make a m alt drink for sale, then a refrigerator, even if used, is a must. It is necessary to store the prepared beer at a low temperature and in the dark, which is unrealistic to do at home with large volumes of production. So this expense item must be provided for.

Brewing beer at home is the right decision. This is the only way to get a 100% natural product with an original taste. And not only for themselves, but also for the purpose of selling.