A simple guide to brewing at home

There are four basic home brewing ingredients; Malt, Yeast, Hops, and water. Do not be fooled by short the length of this list; there is a lot variety within each of these categories, with the capability to produce a wondrous array of beers available in the market today, from the blackest stout to the palest pilsner and everything else in between.

Some of the kits and recipes may also include sugars, specialty grains, or spices.

The most basic ingredient for you beer is water which you have for free. Water chemistry can also make a dramatic difference in the taste of your beer, but if your water has a good taste, then it's good for beer brewing.

Malt.

Beer is brewed by fermentation of the sugars of malt and other cereal grains. The brewers utilize the process of malting, where the seeds are prompted to sprout, and then the seeds growth is stopped through the process of kiln drying, to finally access these sugars. The process of malting stimulates amylase enzymes production within the grain. The brewers crush this malted grain and then soak it in hot water by a process known as mashing. This will activate the enzymes, which then convert the grain's starch into sugars. The sugars are then rinsed from the grain. Wort is the resulting liquid after this process and is boiled with other ingredients and hops. After the boiling and cooling of the wort, yeast is added so as to ferment the substance and thus produce beer.

Most brewers prefer to not perform the mashing process themselves. Dry malt extract and liquid malt extract are the results of this process. The malt sugars that are produced by this process are packaged for later use. The brewers then steep a small amount (usually about 1 LB) of specialty grains so as to provide specific color and malt flavors to the finished beer.

Hops.

This are the cone shaped flowers of the perennial Humulus lupulus. Hops are then added to the wort to impart a bitterness that is perfect so as to provide a wide variety of aromas and flavors and balance the sweetness of the malt.

Additionally, they also serve as a stabilizing agent,thus preventing spoilage, and contribute to the head retention and also act as a natural clarifier. While usage of hops in the brewing process is the norm today, it was till the eleventh century that hop use was very first documented in Germany and not till the sixteenth century that the use of hops became a norm to the British brewers. Before this introduction, the beers were preserved and flavored with plants such as rosemary, spruce, anise and wormwood. The adventurous brewers still make use these ingredients. There are particular hop varieties that are often associated with certain beer styles, or region. These hops are grown in countless varieties. Hops do contain beta and alpha acids, these acids contribute to the bitterness and stability of the beer.

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