Brewing beer is essentially the process of fermenting grain or fruit over a period of time, the sugars in the grain or fruit will then turn in to alcohol. You can make beer with either the grains or an extract from grain. The way commercial producers make beer is not so different from the way that home brewers do.

The steps to a home brewed beer

Step 1

First we need to make a mash that is why this stage is often called the mashing stage. We need to crush en steep all the grains in water and thus forming an extract. This mash is then kept at a constant temperature and by doing this some enzymes and starches are distracted from the grains. The distracted starches will become sugars that later on will become alcohol.

Step 2

Sparging is the name of the stage. Fresh water needs to be added at this point so any sugar that remained in the mash will now dissolve. From now on we will call this mixture wort, this is the basis for all beers, a dark liquid loaded with sugar.

Step 3

When we are done with the sparging and we are sure that all sugar has dissolved we will boil the wort. If you need to add any extra ingredients this is the time to do so. Hops is a given in this but you can add anything that your recipe calls for. A lot of the home brewers out there have their own special ingredients that they add to the recipe, so they can have a special flavor that is connected to them. By bringing the wort to a boil we also kill bacteria and other microorganisms that could be present in the wort it will also get rid of the excess water.

Step 4

Now we place this mixture of wort, hops and other ingredients in to a glass vat or jar and we add yeast to it. Now we let this mixture ferment for some time. This fermentation process can take from 7 up to 14 days (sometimes longer), during this time sediment will settle on the bottom of the glass jar or vat together with other materials. When this first fermentation is done most brewers will put the beer in a new container so it can ferment some more.