Also in the future, I see the club purchasing a larger 20 gallon brew pot as our membership grows.

Many people think homebrewing is hard, cost a lot, and/or is time consuming. The fact is, homebrewing is easier than you think, costs as much or as little as you want, and can find recipes that take as short as 15 minutes. Once you have your own process down with the equipment you chose, it becomes cheaper to make quality beer than it is to purchase.

In this Internet era, the information is out there! I'm writing this today to start out people who have never actually attempted to make their own beer. And remember this is the basics of the basics, the more you learn the better beer you'll make.

Most people have a decent sized kettle for cooking and that would work fine, otherwise get a kettle, a stirring spoon, a fermenting bucket with lid & airlock stopper (which can be obtained at any local homebrew store or online at places such as www.northernbrewer.com for usually less than $20).

Find a recipe online, through a friend, in a book/magazine, or at your local homebrew store. Once you find the recipe based on your desires (budget, time to cook, favorite style, or clone recipe) purchase your ingredients (once again at your local home store or online). *Don't forget to buy some sort of sanitizer also which is a must have, & usually costs just a couple bucks (I prefer StarSan).

Most new brewers start by making 5 gallon batches, so to start your process you want to boil approximately 7-8 gallons of water. Bring it to a rapid boil! (in your kettle on the kitchen stove or other source of heat). The boil alone kills off any bacteria that might be present, but you still want to start with clean equipiment.

Once the boil is a rapid boil, add your first ingredient & also your timer. The recipes you find will have differently timed boils to make different beers (a common boil is 60 minutes). With extract brewing you will be adding a syrup-like extract **Make sure you stir as you're adding this ingredient, otherwise the thick syrup will fall to the bottom of your pot and start burning, causing an awful flavor in your finished beer. Add the next ingredients at the designated time of the recipe (Every recipe I've come across shows the length left in the boil as the ingredient addition time). Remember to stir your beer occasionally, and watch for boilovers (the term commonly used in the homebrewing community when the boil starts bubbling over the pot), it will be a pain to clean up!

When you are done with all your additions at the designated times, and your timer reached zero, you are done with the cooking process of the batch. You now must cool that mixture as fast as possible to avoid bad flavors in the final product (Cool to at least 80 degrees in less than 25-30 minutes, the faster the better). **Very important!!! Do not touch, or use any unsanitized item in your mixture after the boil is completed! YOU WILL contaminate your beer! To cool your "wort" (the term for unfermented beer, and pronounced like "hurt" but with a "W"), most new brewers make an ice water bath in the kitchen sink. Fill the kitchen sink with water & ice, but keep the level below the top of the kettle to avoid introducing contaminants to the wort. You can also build or purchase "wort chillers", typically a coiled tubing where cool water runs through the inside to exchange heat with the hot wort. But that is your option to figure out what works best for you. While your wort is cooling, it is a great time to start sanitizing your fermenter & equipment (the bucket, lid, airlock, and stopper mentioned above in the equipment section).

To sanitize your equipment (which includes anything that might touch the wort after the boil has been completed), make a solution with water and the santizer you purchased following the recommended amounts on the sanitizer bottle. Fill the bucket with sanitizer & put other equipment right in the solution too. Sanitize for about 5 minutes.

Once you have clean sanitized equipment and cooled wort, pour the wort into the fermenter/bucket. If you use a strainer, make sure you sanitized that first too. If not, attempt not to pour in any clumps from the bottom of the kettle in the fermenter, but a nice strainer works well. When pouring is completed, place the clean sanitized lid on top of the bucket and press down to make it seal. Sanitize your hand, then plug the hole in the lid with your thumb or palm of your hand. Once sealed, shake the whole bucket vigorously (this will perform the much needed task of "aeration" which is needed for the yeast to perform the fermentation process). Shaking for 20-30 seconds should suffice, but longer should not hurt. Once aeration has been completed, pour in your yeast and place the clean sanitized plug in the hole of the lid. Last but not least, place the clean sanitized bubbler airlock in the plug, fill to the "Fill" line on the airlock with water, and cap the top of the bubbler. Now place the whole fermenter in a location where the temperature is typically stable at the temperature your recipe designates (probably 68-70 degrees). This also is an important step because temperature swings & higher/lower temperatures will affect the outcome of your beer. When your airlock starts bubbling (usually within 1-3 days) fermentation has started, and when it stops for a few days it is typically completed. For now, stick to the designated fermentation time that is stated on your recipe.

Though kegging is an option for you, it is more expensive and most new brewers start with bottling. So with that being said, make one last trip to the brew store, & purchase a bottle capper & some bottle caps. Then either buy new bottles, or use empty bottles that you've saved from Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, etc. (Most brewers prefer amber bottles due to the UV protection they offer, & MAKE SURE you only use the bottles that are NOT twist off. Otherwise your caps might not stay on). Add a boiled water priming sugar according to style, check out http://www.mrmalty.com/ for better information. The priming sugar should've came with your recipe, and is the reason your beer is carbonated when ready to drink. Without it, you will have a flat beer that doesn't really resemble beer.

Use clean sanitized bottles (the same way you sanitized the other equipment), fill each bottle using your best method (the $8-$10 auto siphon I have works wonders! P.S. at the brew store, go get it!). This time make sure you do it slowly and not aerating the beer on the way to the bottle leaving only 1/2" - 3/4" of air space in the bottle. Don't forget to clean sanitize your bottle caps & use that easy-to-use $6-$12 bottle capper to cap your bottles. I know it's hard and the patience of tasting your beer is wearing thin, but the bottles now must bottle condition for 2 weeks at room temperature. This bottling condition is what causes your awesome creation to be a nice carbonated beer.

You may now put it in the fridge & once cold, enjoy a tasty homemade pint of "YOUR BEER". You are now an extract homebrewer, and welcome to the community!

The more you learn, the better brewer you'll be. Take advantage of all the information out there. Download a free software of iTunes on your computer, download free podcasts on iTunes. For example: Basic Brewing, The Brewing Network: Brew Strong, and of course our free podcasts Crude Brew Crew.

And visit our forum on http://www.crudebrewcrew.com/

david@crudebrewcrew.com for any questions