RECIPE STOUT BEER

 

THE PREPARATION

Everything starts with proper preparation. Make sure you have the necessary materials: 1 large soup pan (at least 6 litres), thermometer, whisk or stirrer and a hydrometer if necessary. Make sure everything is clean and sterile. Tip: use soda for this. Clean and hygienic working is the most important thing when brewing. Also make sure that you have enough ice cubes and/or cooling elements ready.

COOKING

Pour 5 litres of water into the pan and add about half of the malt extract powder. Be careful: this may dust off! Stir with a whisk until there are no lumps left, then repeat this with the remaining powder. Now add the bitter hops and stir well. Now let the mixture boil gently for a total of 60 minutes without a lid on the pan. During the last 15 minutes of the boiling process, add the aroma hops and the cane sugar. Always make sure that the lid is off the pan, so that unwanted volatiles can evaporate. After boiling, about 4 litres remain, which is called wort.

COOL

After boiling, the hot wort must be cooled. From now on, it is extra important to work sterile. In order to avoid contamination with bacteria, it is not only not only very important to work with disinfected material, but also to cool the wort down to 20-25° as soon as possible. For cooling you can use a wort chiller, but as a starter you can also use a sink filled with cold water, cooling elements and ice cubes in which you put the pan. Change the cold water now and then, so that the wort cools down faster, but make sure that no water gets into the pan! Measure the temperature regularly. The cooling process can take up to 15-30 minutes .

DELETED

Pour the wort through a sieve into a clean and sterile fermentation bucket. If you want, you can now measure the starting SG , by filling a measuring glass with wort and placing the hydrometer in it. The final difference between the begin SG and the end SG gives an estimation of the alcohol percentage of the beer. After the measurement you add the yeast bag to the wort and stir well. Close the bucket and fill the water seal for 3/4 with water and leave the cap off. Place the bucket in a room where the temperature is +/- 22° . After about 10 hours , the main fermentation starts and you can see the water in the water seal bubbling. If there is no activity, this does not mean that nothing is happening. After a few days, the main fermentation will pass into the secondary fermentation. After 1 week, measure the SG by tapping some beer and repeat this every other day. The main fermentation is finished when you have 2 measurements with an equal SG. If you have 2 measurements with the same SG, you can bottle. Important: If you bottle too soon, a too high carbon dioxide pressure can lead to exploding bottles.

If you like, you can put the bucket in the fridge for another week or so to lag, which makes for clearer and tastier beer.

BOTTLES

If there is a lot of sediment in your bucket, carefully pour the beer into a sterile pan so that the sediment remains in the bucket. Rinse the bucket well and pour the beer back into it. Now it's time to add sugar water to your beer for secondary fermentation and carbonation. Sugar water is made by dissolving sugar in boiled water. For 4 litres of beer you need 60 ml of boiled water in which you dissolve 24 grams of sugar. Allow the sugar water to cool to room temperature and then add it to the beer. To fill the bottles, use the tap. Fill the bottle to 3 centimetres below the rim. Close the bottle with your crown cap machine and crown caps (or use swing-top bottles) and store at 20° for at least 2 weeks. After 2 weeks you can already open one, but the longer you wait, the tastier it gets!