VIEW SLIDESHOW: Make Your Own Beer: 15 Great Homebrew Recipes To Try

Last weekend we rounded up 7 projects for homebrewers: deep-cleaning and equipment maintenance, getting set up to keg your beer, and establishing an outdoor brew system. But once you're all ship-shape, it's time to get brewing.

If you're a beginner, we recommend starting with something pure and simple—don't throw cardamom and hibiscus and six kinds of malt and cocoa nibs and peppercorns into your first brew. Maybe begin with this extract recipe for American Pale Ale? If you've been brewing awhile, you're probably ready to step it up a bit. How about trying your hand at a Belgian Dark Strong Ale? One of the biggest challenges in homebrewing is finding recipes you trust, so we thought we'd give you a head start. Check out the slideshow for 15 Serious Eats-tested-and-approved recipes for homemade beer, from easy-for-beginners to more advanced projects.

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VIEW SLIDESHOW: Improve Your Homebrewing With These 7 Weekend Projects

Looking for a project to fill your 3-day weekend? Sure, you could declare Sunday or Monday a brew day, but what about investing in your homebrewing habit, and doing something that will make brewing beer better, easier, or more fun. Take on one of these 7 projects, and you might find yourself wanting to brew more often, even when you don't have an extra day off.

Are you doing some brewing this weekend? Switching to all-grain, making your own malt, or planting some hops? Tell us about your weekend homebrewing plans in the comments!

[Photograph: Jonathan Moxey]

Many beer recipes share a common flaw: they're just too complex. Homebrewers tend to get carried away, tossing in a few ounces of this and a half pound of that, and they end up with a recipe that calls for eight different malts and seven different types of hops. Chances are, that beer's going to taste muddled. (There are, of course, notable exceptions.) Understanding the building blocks of beer, ingredient by ingredient, allows brewers to know what each component is bringing to the mix.

One great way to get a handle on what each ingredient adds to a beer is to try to brew a SMaSH (Single Malt and Single Hop) beer. By focusing on just two ingredients, you can filter out the other "noise" and learn your Centennials from your Chinooks and your Munich malt from your Vienna. You'll know exactly what each ingredient tastes like, and learning those flavor and aroma characteristics on their own will help you tweak recipes with more components later on.

I like applying the SMaSH technique when brewing American IPAs and pale ales with American "C" hops, but it works just as well across a number of styles. Try Maris Otter and East Kent Goldings to brew an English barleywine. Or Saaz and Pilsner malt for a Czech Pilsner. Or Munich malt and Hallertau or Perle to create an Octoberfest.

The important thing about SMaSH brewing is to view it not as a limitation on creativity, but as a way to explore different ingredients and what they contribute to the brewing process. Simpler beers often taste better, and whittling your recipe down will allow the remaining ingredients to shine through.

Get the Recipe

Single-Malt, Single-Hop IPA (For Beginning Homebrewers) »

About the Author: Jonathan Moxey makes wort and writes about beer. He's a BJCP certified beer judge and Cicerone Certified Beer Server in St. Louis. Find him on Twitter at @jonathanmoxey.

[Photograph: Chris Cuzme]

A dubbel is a fantastic entry point for those not familiar with Belgian beer and an even better partner for food. The beer's characteristic aromas of plums, raisins, caramel, and warm bread are inviting; the brew is chewy and medium bodied, and it finishes dry and warming. It's a malt parade with a restrained bitterness keeping the whole thing in check.

Brewing your own dubbel is a good exercise in piecing together different specialty grains to create a complex yet coherent malt profile. Let's break down the beer's different elements.

Malt and Sugar

Steering away from the sugar-focused course taken with the Belgian dark strong ale, this dubbel relies more heavily on a variety of specialty malts than sugars to build layers of flavors. This appears to be a more "American" approach to brewing dubbel, as many Belgian brewers still rely on base malts and dark candi syrup.

The goal with this recipe is to have a greater focus on the beer's malt while maintaining complexity. Caramunich provides a dried cherry or plum note and Special B provides a raisin quality. Aromatic malt further enhances the beer's malt aroma. Chocolate malt, despite its name, is more about color adjustment than aroma or flavor. It helps give the beer its deep ruby hue, though it also contributes a slight roasted nuttiness. All told, specialty grains account for just over 15% of this recipe.

The majority of the grist is still made up of two-row Pilsner or pale malt along with a good dose of Munich malt to add a breadiness to the finished beer. Dark Belgian candi syrup will bring dark fruit flavors and aromas to the mix, but keep that addition to less than 8% or so of the recipe, so you don't boost the alcohol too high and thin the body out too much. I also like a pound of wheat malt to improve mouthfeel and head retention.

Hops

Once again, hops are relegated to a supporting role. Dubbels typically have a lone bittering addition before or at the beginning of the boil. I prefer a clean-bittering, high-alpha hop like Magnum, but the type is not critical, in my opinion. A few American dubbels are somewhat hoppier, but I wouldn't use more than a modest noble hop addition for flavor and aroma.

Yeast

Healthy Belgian yeast is essential to achieving the right mix of phenolic spiciness and fruity esters found in a great Dubbel. My yeast of choice for this is the Westmalle strain (Wyeast 3787 or White Labs 530). I've found it to produce aromas of plum, stone fruit, and spice. Another solid choice is the Chimay strain (Wyeast 1214 or White Labs 500), which can be a bit subtler.

Regardless of which yeast you choose, pitch an adequate amount and provide the wort with plenty of oxygen before pitching to ensure a healthy fermentation. Make a yeast starter or buy multiple packs of yeast. I use Mr. Malty's Pitching Rate Calculator to determine how much yeast I'll need for a batch. For aeration, carefully shake the carboy back and forth for a few minutes prior to pitching the yeast or oxygenate for a minute or two with an oxygenation stone, if you have one.

Fermentation

Keep your temperature stabilized on the cool side (64°F to 66°F), especially in the beginning of fermentation. Otherwise, you could end up with a hot, solventy mess. I like to keep it cool for the first couple of days, which is when the majority of the ester profile is developed, then allow it to free rise on its own until fermentation is complete.

Dubbel is a beer style that will benefit from a little additional time to mellow, meld, and get awesome. So be patient, show restraint, and give it a while to condition in the fermentor and in the bottle.

Get the Recipe

Parting Glass Belgian Dubbel (For Intermediate Brewers) »

About the Author: Jonathan Moxey makes wort and writes about beer. He's a BJCP certified beer judge and Cicerone Certified Beer Server in St. Louis. Find him on Twitter at @jonathanmoxey.

[Photograph: Sarah Postma]

Along with the flocks of folks shaking off hangovers to make their way to the gym and others half-heartedly embracing a New Year's resolution to drink more green juice, there are undoubtedly brewmasters-to-be out there trying to figure out how to use the beginner's homebrewing kits that were waiting for them beneath the tree this year. To you, fledgling brewers, I say, "Welcome!" This is going to be fun.

But before you get started, allow me to share a few tips that will give you a leg up and improve the quality of your initial batches of beer. Most of them don't cost a thing!

1. Start Simple

Let's take things slow. Chances are your equipment came with a beginner's recipe kit for something like a basic American pale ale, amber ale, or porter. Stick with something like one of those beers at first and resist the urge to tart it up with a load of additional ingredients. Straightforward recipes will make it easier for you to get your footing and to figure out what went right and what went wrong once the beers are finished.

There'll be plenty of future batches when you can get all Sam Calagione with multiple fruit, spice and exotic wood additions.

2. Clean and Sanitize!

Ask 10 different home or professional brewers for the best brewing techniques and you're bound to get 12 different answers. However, there's one point on which they'll all agree: Sanitation is the most important part of making good beer. On brew day, you're trying to create the best possible conditions for yeast to grow in and ferment your wort. (Wort, pronounced like "hurt" with a "w," is what we call beer prior to fermentation.) Unfortunately, those are also the best possible conditions for beer-spoiling wild yeasts and bacteria lurking in the air and on the surface of just about everything around you. Sanitation will help keep them at bay.

Once you've cleaned any visible dirt or build-up from all of your equipment, you must sanitize everything that will come in contact with your wort after the boil (carboys, buckets, tubing, spoons, thermometers, etc.). I use an acid-based sanitizer like StarSan (1 ounce per 5 gallons of water) or an iodine-based sanitizer like Iodophor (1 tablespoon per 5 gallons of water). StarSan will sanitize clean surfaces with 30 seconds of contact time; Iodophor takes longer (at least 2 minutes, 10 minutes for hospital-grade sanitation). Both sanitizers should be drained, but neither requires rinsing. StarSan will leave behind quite a bit of foam, but that won't hurt the wort.

There's no need to sanitize any of your equipment that will touch the wort before it's cooled because the boil will take care of that. And make sure to clean and sanitize your bottles and caps once the beer is ready to be packaged.

3. Chill Fast

After the boil is complete, you want to chill the wort as quickly as possible. The wort is most prone to infections by bacteria and wild yeast at temperatures above 80°F, so you want to minimize the time it spends in that danger zone. Rapid chilling also causes proteins to coagulate and drop out, which can reduce haziness in the finished beer. This is mostly a cosmetic issue, but it can lead to the beer going stale faster. Chilling more gradually will be less effective against these proteins or not effective at all.

Joe Postma has already laid out the pros and cons of different chilling methods, but for your first batches you'll probably want to put your brew pot in an ice bath. I started off making huge quart-size ice cubes in plastic takeout containers. If you want to speed the chilling process, use a sanitized spoon to gently stir the wort without splashing, which will increase the amount of hot wort that comes into contact with the cooler walls of the brew pot. Also be careful to keep the unsanitized ice water from splashing into the wort.

Shelling out $50 to $100 for an immersion chiller is one of the first equipment upgrades I recommend if, after you've made a few batches, you decide homebrewing is for you.

4. Aerate the Wort

These next 3 tips all deal with yeast. Why is yeast so important? Simple. Brewers make wort. Yeast makes beer. As brewers, we can't control the billions of yeast cells charged with that lofty task, but we can certainly influence them and help them out along the way.

Boiling drives off the oxygen dissolved in the wort, which yeast needs for healthy reproduction. If that oxygen isn't added back, the yeast can become stressed, leading to the development of off-flavors during fermentation. The cheapest way to aerate the wort is shaking the hell out of it for several minutes. Once you have the wort in a sealed, sanitized carboy or bucket, place a folded towel on the ground and vigorously rock the full carboy or bucket back and forth until it's good and frothy. I do not recommend picking the carboy up and shaking it back and forth. Carboys are dangerous, brittle, and unforgivingly messy if dropped.

5. Pitch Enough Yeast

Having plenty of healthy yeast is crucial, and most 5 gallon batches of beer require more than one package of liquid yeast for an adequate number of yeast cells. I use Mr. Malty's Pitching Rate Calculator to determine how many yeast cells I'll need in each batch. To get the appropriate cell count, you have the option of pitching multiple packages of liquid yeast, making a yeast starter, or pitching a single package of dry yeast.

Pitching multiple packets of liquid yeast is expensive, so in general I'd advise to avoid that route. Making a yeast starter isn't difficult, but requires some planning in advance of brew day. If you don't have the Erlenmeyer flask mentioned in the link above, you can use a sanitized growler to grow up the starter after boiling your starter wort in an ordinary pot.

The final option is dry yeast, which contains a much greater number of cells than a single package of liquid yeast. One of the drawbacks of dry yeast is there are fewer options available. However, a standard American ale yeast (such as Fermentis Safale US-05) or English ale yeast (such as Safale US-04) should do the trick for most entry-level recipes.

6. Control the Fermentation Temperature

Now that you've chilled and aerated the wort and pitched an appropriate amount of yeast, it's almost time to sit back and let the yeast cells do their thing. But first you need to make sure they're at a comfortable temperature so they can do their best work. I say "comfortable" because yeast cells can reproduce and convert sugar into alcohol and CO2 in a wide range of temperatures. However, each strain has a narrower optimal temperature range. You can find the recommended fermentation temperatures for each strain on the manufacturers' websites. Most American and English ale strains will perform best in a range of about 63°F-68°F. If you ferment cooler, you run the risk of an incomplete fermentation. If you ferment much hotter, the yeast can produce more fruity esters than are desirable as well as harsher, higher alcohols.

To keep your fermentation in check, find a cool place that doesn't see a lot of temperature fluctuations. Also keep in mind that the yeast will produce heat while it's reproducing and creating alcohol, so temperature of the fermenting beer may be 5 to 7 degrees warmer than the ambient room temperature. If you have trouble finding a place that's cool enough, Joe Postma has a few tips for adjusting your temperature.

7. Take Notes. Read. Share.

Once you have your first batch under your belt, you'll see making beer is really pretty easy. It's making great or even good beer that brings difficulty. Taking notes and learning from your mistakes and successes will help you improve your process and ultimately your results.

There's no substitute for repetition, but there's plenty you can do to expand your knowledge when you're not brewing. Read everything you can get your hands on. In addition to Serious Eats' homebrew articles, check out John Palmer's How to Brew, Charlie Papazian's The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, The Brewing Network podcasts, and Zymurgy magazine, which is available to members of the American Homebrewers Association—and it alone is worth the cost of membership.

You can also look for local homebrew clubs in your area. Joining a club is a great way to hang out with other brewers with all levels of experience and get no-nonsense feedback on your beers. Chances are your friends and family will tell you that they like just about everything you make, regardless of its actual merit. And why wouldn't they? It's free beer for them and they want to be supportive. Sharing your beer with other brewers will give you the opportunity to learn what you did right and what you did wrong from people with a deeper understanding of how beer is made. The lessons I've learned in homebrew clubs have made the biggest differences in my brewing, no question.

There's always more to learn, but for now it's time to get brewing. So read your instructions, make sure you have all of your equipment, and have at it.

About the Author: Jonathan makes wort and writes about beer. He lives in St. Louis. Find him on Twitter at @jonathanmoxey.

[Photographs: Mike Reis]

The image is great: President Obama standing over a brew kettle, mash paddle in hand, sweat dripping from his brow only to fall at the toes of his red, white and blue Wellington boots. It's true, the White House is homebrewing.

But the reality, as it so often is in these hard-hitting political matters, is less fanciful than all that. While President Obama did purchase the White House's very own brewing kit with his personal cash, he is hardly the brewer we'd love to imagine he is. After months of inquiry, including a petition that yielded over 12,000 signatures, the truth came out.

It turns out Obama is too busy with, you know, president things to get his hands dirty on a brew kettle. White House Assistant Chef Sam Kass stepped forward as the unofficial brewmaster. He came bearing recipes and a lighthearted video detailing the brewing processes for two White House original beers: a honey brown ale (called just Honey Ale in the recipe) and a honey porter.

Though some noticed that the recipe had some technical errors, brewers across the country (including Brooklyn Brewery's Garrett Oliver) fired up their stoves with the goal of drinking like the president. I had to try it.

Honey Ale

My first crack was at the Honey Ale. I followed the original recipe to the word, substituting only my own local honey for that grown at the White House (Garrett Oliver's request for a sample, like my own, was ignored).

The recipe is simple—by using malt extract and honey as the primary forms of fermentable sugar, the brewer needs not meddle in the complicated processes of mashing or lautering. The result is a final product with a high level of repeatability and consistency. The brewer needs only steep some grain for flavor, dissolve syrups for fermentable sugars, and boil hops for bittering and preservative qualities.

Fermentation, if kept within the prescribed range of temperatures, will be fairly consistent as well. If the recipe is followed closely, brewers all over the country will be tasting roughly the same beer—technique plays less of a role than ingredients here. I feel closer to Obama already!

But anyone who tries to brew the President's beer will encounter a few issues that should be addressed.

The first problem arises in the ingredients list: the recipe calls for 12 ounces of crushed "amber crystal malt." That describes a huge range of products—there are many varieties of crystal malt, all of them amber, each expressing a unique range of flavors and color. I played it safe with some middle-of-the-road crystal 60.

By the time I'd reached the end of the brewing process, however, I hit another hurdle. There was a little one ounce pile of Fuggles hops sitting on my kitchen counter. While the ingredient list calls for 1.5 ounces of Fuggles, the original recipe itself only instructs the brewer to use a third of that. It's not a huge deal, and the problem has since been corrected.

Errors aside, after just a few short hours my very own White House Honey Ale was sitting in a fermenter, happily bubbling away as the yeast's CO2 byproduct pushed its way through the airlock. I stuck the beer in bottles a few weeks later and waited the recommended additional two to three weeks before tasting.

The result was not as thrilling as I'd hoped, especially in light of Garrett Oliver's evaluation of the beer as being "perfectly balanced," and NY Times wine critic Eric Asimov's summation as the beer being "Good. Very good." I have to disagree.

The beer is quite sweet, which limits its drinkability. Oliver and Asimov both note a certain bitterness that is nearly absent from my beer, perhaps partially attributed to that troublesome ounce of Fuggles, which Oliver included even though the original recipe never instructed when they should be added.

I taste the beer before bottling. Best beer in America might be a stretch.

Aromatically, it's quite nice, with candied orange peel and marzipan leaping from the glass. Flavorwise, its not bad either: orange hard candies, grain and honey are all driving flavors packed within a rich body with a light effervescent carbonation. It's certainly not a bad beer, but the sweetness is cloying. There are a couple of things I'd change about the recipe.

1. Don't forget the Fuggles. Kass meant to include all of the Fuggles in the late flavoring hop addition, instead of just a half ounce. While the recipe now reflects that, copies of the original version are still floating around (including on the White House's own website). While not a ton of bitterness will be extracted from the hops, some contrasting hop character may help ease the sugary punishment.

2. I could have used some more carbonation, so if you're brewing this beer, you might want to increase the priming sugar. I pulled off just under 5 gallons of finished beer, so the carbonation level should have been right on with the recommended 3/4 cup of corn sugar used for bottle conditioning. That's about 4 ounces by weight, so I'd up it to 4.5 or 4.75 ounces (again, by weight) to bump the carbonation up to around 2.5 volumes of CO2. This will ease some of the sweetness off your palate.

3. Consider lowering the gravity. While the recipe doesn't indicate a target starting or finishing gravity (let alone ABV), my beer began with an original gravity of 1.064 and finished with a gravity of 1.014. This means the beer is a hefty one, around 6.7% ABV. Using a lower gravity recipe (by cutting back on the amount of extract used) would up the drinkability of this beer considerably. In Asimov's article, he notes that Oliver's take on the beer came in at 4.9% ABV, a nearly impossible result given the recipe. I'm inclined to believe that Oliver tweaked the gravity for drinkability's sake.

4. Try another yeast. In addition to the gravity adjustment, try fermenting with White Labs' California Ale Yeast or Fermentis' Safale US-05. The result will be less fruity (which will cut back on implied sweetness), and more highly attenuated, leaving a drier, lighter body.

Honey Porter

For whatever reason, people seem to have forgotten that there were in fact two beers in Kass's release. It's a shame, because the porter is the better beer, and I certainly preferred brewing it. The recipe is more thorough, specifying exactly the types of grain necessary, and the methods are described more clearly.

The only confusion came from the use of the strange "HBU" measurement, which I had to look up. These are "Homebrew Bitterness Units," and quantify hop alpha acid content independent of variety specification. I used some scrap hops I had leftover in my freezer to get to the necessary 10 HBU (specifically, I used a half ounce of Super Galena at 13% AA, and a quarter ounce of Nugget at 14%). Once I brewed it, fermentation went smoothly, and the final product was ready in just a few short weeks.

Aromas of plum jam, honey and figs are rounded out by some spicy hop character in this beer. The flavor is less sweet than the honey brown and much easier to drink, with a clean, dry finish, and a lower gravity (my OG/FG were 1.056 and 1.008, respectively, yielding an ABV around 6.3%)

I wouldn't change a ton about this beer, except maybe to increase the black and chocolate malt a touch to provide a bit more malt depth, and to use a cleaner fermenting yeast. The prescribed Nottingham strain produced a heavy load of fruity esters. Again, White Labs' California Ale Yeast or Fermentis' Safale US-05 might be worth trying.

Tell Us Your Results!

Have you brewed the White House beers? What did you think?

About the author: Mike Reis is a Certified Cicerone and Co-Director of Beer at the Monk's Kettle and Abbot's Cellar restaurants in San Francisco. Follow him on Twitter @beerspeaks or find him behind a pint near you.

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[Photographs: Zack Kinney]

Big, deep, and rich, Belgian dark strong ales are perhaps the most complex beers Belgium has to offer. The best examples unleash dark fruit, chocolate, and a host of other flavors on waves of strong yet smooth-edged alcohol and malt. These are beers for slow sipping and contemplation, and they'll become more elegant as they unwind with age.

Belgian dark strong ale isn't really a "style" so much as it is a catchall category. It's a designation that (mostly American) brewers and drinkers use to group Belgian-style beers that are bigger than dubbels and darker than tripels, so there's plenty of room for variation and experimentation. Which means, this category is fertile ground for homebrewers.

Brewing Belgian dark strong ales isn't cheap—I generally expect to spend an extra $10 to $15 per 5 gallon batch once I've bought the extra grains and sugars. However, considering commercial domestic and imported versions start at about $6 per 12-ounce bottle where I live, it's a relative steal to make your own. Here are a few tips to help you get started.

Malt

This part of the recipe is deceptively simple. According to Stan Hieronymus in his excellent book Brew Like a Monk, many of the best Belgian dark strong ales (such as Westvleteren 12, St. Bernardus 12, and Rochefort 10) are built on a base that's almost entirely two-row Pilsner and/or pale malts. This foundation can be all one type of malt, or a blend to create layers.

The beer's depth and complexity is added with character malts, alcohol, and sugar. For character malts, my advice is to keep it fairly simple starting out, or the flavors could get muddled. Complexity doesn't mean having a beer that tastes like everything imaginable, so try to keep your focus. A small portion of Munich or aromatic malt can add bready or nutty malt character. Special B will provide a raisin quality and CaraMunich can add dried plum and cherry notes. Avoid dark roasted grains, unless you choose to add a very small amount during the sparge for color adjustment.

To round things out, I like to add flaked oats or wheat to enhance mouthfeel and head retention.

Sugar

Essentially, these dark strong ales are a sugar showcase. Unlike plain cane or beet sugars, which leave little more than alcohol behind after fermentation, Belgian candi sugars and other darker sugars impart an array of flavors, aromas, and colors. I'm a fan of the candi syrups from Dark Candi Inc. Their D syrup is reminiscent of plum, raisins, and figs, while their D2 syrup adds flavors of milk chocolate, cherries, and burnt sugar. (If you have any leftovers after brew day, these are great for tuning up a cup of coffee.) I've also found Turbinado sugar to be a great choice; it can provide a rummy or honeyed quality in your beer.

In addition to their contributions to flavor/aroma, color, and obviously alcohol, the sugars also help dry the finished beer out or, as Belgian brewers would say, make it "more digestible," which is crucial for a beer of this size. I look to get up to 15% of the recipe's total fermentables from sugar additions. Sugars can be added during the boil or after the primary fermentation is complete if you're concerned about the yeast favoring the simpler sugars over the malt sugars.

Hops

Belgian dark strong ales typically put hops in the back seat, relying instead on alcohol to balance the malt. Stick with a bittering charge of a clean, high-alpha hop like Magnum or Warrior at the beginning of the boil and save your other hops for a different beer. You could consider a small addition of a noble hop variety like Hallertau or Saaz late in the boil if you're looking for a modest flavor or aroma contribution, but these beers really aren't about being hoppy.

Yeast

To ferment a quality Belgian dark strong ale, the yeast has to be Belgian and it has to be healthy. In my experience, the character of Belgian yeasts isn't something that can be duplicated by other yeasts. For Belgian dark strong ales, I prefer either the Westmalle strain (Wyeast 3787 or White Labs 530), which is also used by Westvleteren, or the Rochefort strain (Wyeast 1762 or White Labs 540). The Westmalle strain is a beast that'll furiously plow through sugars, leaving a very well-attenuated beer. It can produce a complex set of esters and phenols, some of which will dissipate if given time to condition. I've found the Rocherfort strain is cleaner, leaving a malt- and alcohol-focused beer with a more delicate ester profile. You can also pitch multiple strains for added complexity, or consider adding Brettanomyces or bacteria in the secondary if you want to funk it up.

Make sure you're pitching an adequate amount of yeast and giving the wort plenty of oxygen prior to pitching to ensure a healthy fermentation. You'll need to make a yeast starter, which just requires a little advance planning, or buy multiple packs of yeast. I use Mr. Malty's Pitching Rate Calculator to determine how much yeast I'll need for a batch. To aerate the wort, rock the carboy back and forth for a few minutes prior to pitching the yeast or oxygenate for a minute or two with an oxygenation stone, if you have one.

Fermentation

Temperature control is crucial on a beer this big. If the fermentation gets too hot, you're likely to create harsher, solvent-like alcohols. I prefer to keep the temperature below 70°F, at least for the first few days.

And, finally, give the beer time to condition. Seriously, let it rest for at least a few months before you drink it. It would be fine to drink sooner than that, but your patience will be rewarded. If brewed and packaged properly, this beer will start to shine after six months or so, and then peak after a year or more. This is a great beer to brew this fall and enjoy next fall.

Get the Recipe

St. Benedict Belgian Dark Strong Ale »

About the Author: Jonathan Moxey is a Harlem-based homebrewer, BJCP certified beer judge, and Cicerone Certified Beer Server. He hosts private beer tastings for Tapped Craft Beer Events.

Moving from extract brewing to all grain is a fun process that requires a bit of planning. You have choices on the size of your beer batches, style of brewstand you will have and the type of mash tun to use. Many homebrewers venture into all grain brewing using a cooler-based mash tun, which is an inexpensive option with very good temperature control. Other homebrewers, including myself, use 3 stainless kettles to brew all grain beer. This method offers different challenges from the cooler mash tun, particularly in temperature control, but it offers more flexibility in mash temperature and recipe design. If you chose to go with a 3 vessel system, here is the setup and process you'll go through when you brew.

The Setup

Three vessel systems are set up from left to right with a Hot Liquor Tank, Mash Tun, and Boil Kettle.

The hot liquor tank has the least intuitive name—brewers refer to water as liquor. The only thing you use the Hot Liquor Tank (HLT) for is heating up water to use in various points in the brewing process.

The Mash Tun, or MT, is where you mash your grain. Crushed grain mixes with water at about 150°F to convert starches to sugar. The bottom of the MT has a metal screen at the bottom, which allows you to drain the wort without getting any grain along with it.

The Boil Kettle is exactly what it sounds like. If you've done extract brewing before, then it's likely that the only kettle you have is a boil kettle.

The Process

What I typically do on a brew day is called Batch Sparge and Direct Fire. Direct Fire refers to the fact that I directly heat the mash water and the boil kettle, and Batch Sparge is the method I use to rinse the sugar off the grain.

The first step in my brewday is to heat the mash water (also called strike water) and grind the grain. The strike water needs to be warmer than the mash temperature, so that when you mix in the grain it stabilizes to the correct mash temperature. Typically, the strike water should heat to about 165°F so that the mash stabilizes at around 150°F, but every setup and recipe is different. Once the strike water is at the right temperature, slowly stir in the grain so that there are no clumps or "dough balls". Let this mash rest for about an hour.

As the mash is resting, start heating up the sparge water in the hot liquor tank. This sparge water will be used to rinse the grain after the mash is done. Sparge water should be heated to about 190°F, so that when it's added to the grain mixture it stabilizes around 170°F. Once the sparge water is at the right temperature, turn off the heat and wait for the mash to finish.

When the mash has rested for an hour, drain a quart or two from the mash tun and pour it back into the top of the mash. This is called the Vorlauf, which is a German word meaning "leading", and is done to to eliminate any stray grains that might have passed through the metal screen in the mash tun.

Drain all of the liquid from the grain into the boil kettle. If you have a single tier system, like mine, then you'll use a pump to move the wort from the mash tun to the boil kettle. A two or three tier system will just use gravity to move the wort into the boil kettle.

After the first batch of wort is completely drained, transfer the 190°F sparge water from the hot liquor tank into the mashtun. Stir the second mash, vorlauf one more time, then drain the second batch of wort into the boil kettle. The reason this method is called "batch sparging" is because the grain is sparged in two different batches.

After the second batch of wort is transferred into the boil kettle, the process is exactly like extract brewing. Bring the wort to a boil, add the hops as the recipe calls for, chill and pitch the yeast. Homebrewers who are comfortable with extract brewing will have no problems at this point.

This setup is just one of many different all grain brewing solutions for homebrewers. A common alternative to batch sparging is called fly sparging, which is where you rinse the grain and drain the wort at the same time instead of doing it in two batches. Another option that is becoming more popular every year is to heat your mash and boil your wort using electric heating elements. This eliminates the need for open flame, allows for easier temperature control and is a safer way to brew in an enclosed space.

Tell us: are you an all-grain brewer? What setup do you use?

A homemade counterflow chiller, made from copper tube and hose.

On brewday, chilling your wort as quickly as possible has a lot of benefits. Since it's the last big thing on the brewing schedule, faster chilling means you can finish your brewday more quickly. From a chemistry perspective, faster chilling increases protein coagulation, known as "cold break", which can lead to clearer beer. From a sanitation perspective, the faster you chill your beer and pitch your yeast, the less likely you will get an infection. So it's no surprise that there are numerous methods devised to cool your wort as quickly and efficiently as possible. Here are three of the most common methods for chilling your beer on brewday, with pros, cons, and usage tips.

Ice Bath

The ice bath is the least complicated chilling system, and it's the one that most homebrewers start off with. To use an ice bath, fill a large bucket (larger than your brew kettle), sink, or tub with cold water and ice, and simply soak your kettle in it. The more water you use, and the colder water you have, the quicker your wort will chill to fermentation temperatures. I usually fill a few old milk jugs with water and freeze them a few days before brewing. They're faster to make than ice cubes, and they stay frozen longer, too.

The biggest downside of this method is the amount of time it takes to cool the wort. If you're doing small batches (3 gallons), it will take at least an hour to get your wort below 70°F, and that's with adding ice a few times through the process. If you're doing 5 gallon batches, expect it to take a couple hours and a lot of ice. It's helpful to add a very large amount of ice and let it chill overnight. While the process may be low maintenance, the extended chill time may impair beer clarity and increase the risk of infection in your beer.

Pros: Inexpensive (you need a sink, water and ice). No extra cleaning/sanitization required.
Cons: Increased cooling time, leading to risk of infection and chill haze.

Immersion Chiller

An immersion chiller is a good step up from the ice bath for most homebrewers. An immersion chiller is a long coil of copper tube, from 20 to 50 feet, with hoses that can connect to a sink or a yard hose. To chill the beer, immerse the chiller into the wort, and run cold water through the copper until the beer is cooled. The beer begins to cool quickly, from the bottom of the kettle to the top.

When using an immersion chiller, make sure the outside of it is free of debris before you put it in the kettle. Additionally, you should put the chiller into the kettle 10 minutes before the end of the boil to sanitize the outside of the copper. Throughout the chilling, keep the lid on as tightly as possible to prevent air from contaminating the wort.

If your immersion wort chiller fits just inside your kettle without touching the sides and has enough coils, you should be able to chill your beer within a couple degrees of the water temperature within 30 minutes. If your wort chiller is too small for your kettle, it can take up to an hour for the beer to get to the same temperature. In either case, this is a step up in efficiency from the ice bath method.

Pros: Faster chill time. Easy to clean and sanitize. Inexpensive ($50 to $100, depending on size and quality)
Cons: Uses a lot of water. Doesn't scale up if you move to a larger kettle.

Counter Flow Chiller

A counter flow style chiller cools the beer outside of the kettle, before it goes into the fermenter. A coiled copper tube is surrounded by a larger tube, which can be made out of copper or hose. As hot wort flows through the smaller internal tube, cold water flows the opposite direction through the external hose. These "counter flows" cool the wort very efficiently, since cold water is working on a smaller amount of wort at any given time. If the wort and water flows are balanced correctly you can chill the wort to within a couple degrees of the cool water temperature in a single pass through the chiller, which can be as quick as 15 minutes.

The best way to use a counterflow chiller is to pump your wort with a food grade liquid pump that can handle boiling temperatures. Often times the pump is more expensive than the chiller, so this really only works well if you use a pump in your brewing process already. If you're upgrading, expect to spend at least $150 on the chiller and around $200 for a pump and additional hardware.

Sanitation of a counterflow chiller is a bit difficult, since the cooled wort flows through an interior copper coil. The best way to sanitize is to pump boiling worth through the chiller and back into the kettle for the last 10 minutes of the boil. After each use, I like to pump a gallon of near-boiling clean water through the chiller to remove any hop debris or leftover wort from the inside. Even though the counterflow process is a little more complex, it is efficient and the same chiller can work for any size batch of homebrew.

Pros: Uses less water than immersion chiller. Fastest way to chill. Same chiller can be used for 5, 10 or 30 gallon batches.
Cons: Requires pump. Difficult to clean and sanitize. Expensive.

Tell us: what method do you use you chill your wort?

About the author: Joe Postma is a homebrewer who is seeking that perfect blend of creativity and science required to make great beer. He moonlights as a consulting actuary during the week.

Citrusy, resiny, and bitter, the American Imperial IPA is an aggressive beer—and a rich one. This style grew out of the demand for hoppier beers at the start of the American craft beer revolution. As IPAs were brewed with more and more hops, the amount of grain needed to balance out the bitterness increased. The results were IPAs that were so extreme, with over 8.5% ABV and 100 IBUs, that they took on the moniker Imperial, which was previously reserved for only the biggest stouts.

Ten years ago only a handful of examples could be found, and almost exclusively on the West coast. Today breweries all across the country join the pioneers like Russian River's Pliny the Elder, Stone's Ruination, and Rogue's I2PA in making this homage to the American hop.

For homebrewers, brewing an Imperial IPA can be a great challenge. The high alcohol content means you have to pay close attention during fermentation, and the large quantity of hops makes the brewday a lot of fun. The extra ingredients are also usually enough to push the cost of the beer to almost twice what you would normally spend on a homebrew recipe. When I make an Imperial IPA I expect to spend between $40 and $60 for a 5 gallon batch.

The Malts

The grain bill for an Imperial IPA is very similar to the grain for an IPA, it's just bigger. Even though many people call it a 'double' IPA, the amount of grain is more like 1.5 times as much. So while a typical IPA might use 11 pounds of grain for 5 gallons, an Imperial IPA will use about 17 pounds. Standard American 2-row should be used for 85% to 90% of the total grain bill. The remainder of the grain is used to add complexity, so Munich, victory and crystal malts work quite well. If you want a heavier IPA that really coats the inside of the mouth, then half a pound of crystal 120L and some Munich malt really does the trick. If you're looking for an Imperial IPA with a more crisp, assertive hop character then a mix of 40L crystal, carapils, and corn sugar should comprise 10% to 15% of the grist.

The Hops

You want a lot of high alpha acid, high citrus hops for an Imperial IPA. Columbus, Centennial, Chinook and Cascade are the usual suspects, and most Imperial IPAs have some blend of them throughout the process. Many of the most popular commercial Imperial IPAs also have generous helpings of Simcoe hops to get that pine character in it. For a 5-gallon Imperial IPA, you should be using 1 to 2 ounces of high alpha acid hops at the beginning of the boil, 1 to 2 ounces in the middle of the boil and 4 to 5 ounces in the last 15 minutes of the boil. This type of schedule will give you high IBUs and a lot of hop flavors.

Dry hopping is also essential for this style. I recommend 4 to 6 ounces of dry hops, left in the beer for 5 to 7 days. Don't leave that many hops in the beer for longer than a week, otherwise unpleasant vegetal flavors could develop.

When you use this many hops, you should expect your beer yield to decrease substantially. A lot of liquid gets tied up both in the kettle hops and in the dry hops. It's the price you pay to get that extreme flavor, so it's something you just have to live with. I expect to lose just under 1 gallon of beer for every 5 gallon batch when I'm making an Imperial IPA

Yeast and Fermentation

With such a big beer, fermentation control is very important. If you already have good fermentation practices, you should be fine. It's essential to use lots of oxygen, lots of yeast, and keep your temperatures down, otherwise you'll be getting off flavors developing during fermentation.

For an Imperial IPA I like to err slightly on the side of too much yeast, so I'll make about a 4 liter liquid yeast starter or use 1.5 packages of dry yeast. Even if you typically use liquid yeast, it might be worth making this beer with dry yeast, because it offers much better control over the amount of yeast in your pitch.

The varieties of yeast used for this style are usually either an American Ale yeast or an English yeast. The English yeasts usually bring out more crisp and dry flavors, while the American yeasts give a more rounded flavor that melds the hop and malt characteristics.

Take a look at our recipe for an Imperial IPA. This recipe is based on Avery Brewing Company's Maharaja, and it makes a fantastic homebrew Imperial IPA.

Get the Recipe

Imperial IPA (For Advanced Homebrewers) »

About the author: Joe Postma is a homebrewer who is seeking that perfect blend of creativity and science required to make great beer. He moonlights as a consulting actuary during the week.

Homebrewers from around the country gathered in Seattle recently for the 34th Annual National Homebrewers Conference, which featured a range of expert panelists, the latest homebrewing equipment, and more beer than a couple thousand participants could drink over five days. Throughout the conference, we were struck by some trends that are emerging in the world of homebrewing and in beer in general.

Creativity is Booming

I though I had heard of every possible ingredient to use in homebrewing—until I saw a beer that was dry-hopped with chanterelle mushrooms. Nothing could top that. But then we got to the booth featuring beer made with Mountain Dew and a homemade coffee mead that they splashed cream in (think White Russian cocktail). What was really impressive? These bizarre brews were actually quite drinkable.

Not all the creativity was off the wall. American homebrewers are busy crafting delicious stouts infused with cocoa nibs and hops, and I was able to sample a whiskey cherry porter that tasted as good as it sounds. Of course, there were a few creative attempts that fell short, but usually that was because the underlying beer was lacking more than the extra ingredients. If your brewing methods are sound, creative ingredients go a long way.

Homebrewers Can Be Better Than Pro Brewers

I was expecting the homebrew at the National Homebrewers Conference to be good, but it exceeded my expectations. On Thursday night of the conference, local professional brewers brought their kegs for us to sample, while Friday night featured beers from homebrewing clubs across the country. There was no question in my mind who brought the better beer. Four of my favorite 5 beers of the week were homebrews.

The homebrewed beer excelled in creativity, complexity, and innovation. Homebrewers are bringing back forgotten styles like Berliner Weiss, Mild, ESB, and Gose, and they're doing it well. And the best homebrewed stouts, pales, and IPAs (particularly the Black IPAs) were high quality, complex, and delicious. When someone asks you if you can brew beer at home that is as good as commercial, you can say with confidence that you can do it better.

Feedback Makes You Better

While a lot of homebrews I tried were fantastic, some of them were mediocre and a handful were downright undrinkable. I found it interesting that my least favorite beers at the conference mostly came from individuals who were not associated with a homebrewing club. I would even say that the larger homebrew clubs generally had better beer than the smaller clubs (though not across the board). The lesson is that when more people try your homebrew and give you feedback, you will brew better beer. This was eye opening to me because I've been slacking off a bit in attending our local homebrew get-togethers. If I want to make sure my brewing techniques are up to par, outside critique is essential.

Sours Are In

Homebrewers across the country are producing sour beers at an unprecedented rate. At Friday's Homebrew Club Night I tasted a half dozen Flanders beers made by homebrewers, 3 of which were very impressive. Every other table seemed to have a Berliner Weiss or a Gose, and there were Brett Saisons and sour blonde ales peppered throughout the room.

If you're a homebrewer interested in brewing sours, just start now. There is a lot of great information out there in books like Wild Brews and specialty sour forums like the Babble Belt. Most sour ales take a year or so to mature to perfection, so the sooner you start, the sooner you'll be done. If you want a sour that is ready within a few months, the best option is to try brewing a Berliner Weisse.

Anyone is welcome to attend the national homebrewers conference, but you have to be quick to buy tickets—they tend to sell out in a couple days. The 2013 conference will be in Philadelphia from June 27 to 29. Keep an eye on the American Homebrewers Association and AHA Conference webpages for future details.

Beginning homebrewing recipes all start with simple steps. A first- or second-time homebrewer has enough to think about without an overly complicated list of instructions. But after brewing a few batches, it's pretty common to figure out a few tweaks and adjustments to the process that help you brew beer on your specific setup. There are times when you should never take a shortcut (especially when it comes to sanitation), but here are a few tips that we hope will help to simplify your brew day.

Bulk Yeast Starters

With mid- to high-alcohol beers, a yeast starter is usually recommended, particularly when using liquid yeast. Making a starter isn't difficult, but sometimes you don't get the chance to make one on time. If you find yourself in this position frequently, you may want to have a stash of pre-made starters waiting to be used.

A yeast starter is basically a small batch of beer. That's why one of the easiest ways to pre-make a starter for a future batch of beer is to simply make a little bit more beer when you brew your current batch. If you're brewing a Pale Ale or something similar, scale up your recipe to make 6 gallons instead of the usual 5 gallons. After you're done brewing, but before you pitch the yeast, pour the extra gallon into sanitized freezer bags and store them in the freezer until needed.

The best starters are made from pale, low hopped wort with an O.G. between 1.030 and 1.050. If you make starters with your leftover Imperial Stout wort, the yeast will have a hard time adjusting to the high O.G. of the wort, and the strong flavors of the dark malts will come through in whatever beer you add it to. Make your bulk yeast starters when you're brewing a wheat beer or pale ale instead.

When you use frozen wort with this method, you'll still have to boil and cool the wort in a sanitized container before you pitch your yeast, just like you would any other starter.

Some homebrewers take this idea a step further and make a set of "canned" starters from scratch. By mixing up a few liters of starter wort (100 grams of dry extract to 1 liter of water), canning them, and then putting them into the pressure cooker, you can make bulk batches of starters that will keep for several months. In order to guarantee your starter wort is sanitized and usable, the pressure must be 15psi for a minimum of 15 minutes. Any less than that and you risk lingering infection that would get into your beer and, in the worst case scenario, make you ill. You can pop these into the freezer like the boiled starters, but properly canned wort is even shelf stable for at least 6 months.

When you're ready to use your canned starter, bring it up to room temperature, open the lid and swirl it around to get oxygen dissolved into the wort. Don't forget that it's sanitary, so no stirring with unsanitized spoons. On the off-chance it it smells funky or sour, discard it. Otherwise pour in the yeast and cover it in foil just like you would any other starter. It should be ready to go in a day or two.

Bottle Washing

For homebrewers who bottle 5 gallons of beer, washing and sanitizing bottles can be a daunting task. There are a lot of gadgets out there that can make the process easier, but the easiest method I've seen is to use a regular dishwasher.

A dishwasher will only sanitize your bottles if it has a heated drying cycle. The water doesn't get hot enough to sanitize during the wash, but the steam produced while drying will do the trick. Stack the bottles with the opening down in the washer, and turn on the regular full wash cycle. Never use detergent with this method, since it can destroy head retention of your beer and possibly etch the bottles. After the drying cycle is complete and the bottles are cool, remove them from the dishwasher and fill as normal.

If you don't have a dishwasher, the heat from an oven works just as well. Dry heat in an oven takes longer to sanitize than steam, so you'll have to put them in the oven and wait for a while. According to John Palmer, author of How to Brew, the bottles should be in the oven at 338°F for one hour or 320°F for 2 hours. Obviously, this is not a good method if you have plastic flip-top bottles such as old Grolsch bottles.

What other shortcuts do you use when you're homebrewing? Share your tricks in the comments!

Homebrew recipe writers often take the experience level of their readers for granted. They usually assume that every reader knows the process, acronyms, and abbreviations that they use. Most of the written shortcuts that homebrew recipe writers use are pretty simple to understand, so there's no need to let recipe conventions get in the way of learning how to brew. Today I'll share the basics of how to read any standard homebrewing recipe.

The introduction to a homebrewing recipe usually lists the specifications of the beer you want to make, like the alcohol content (ABV) or bitterness level (IBU). If you're not familiar with the acronyms used in recipe specs, take a look here before reading on.

Grain Bill

The body of a recipe begins with the type of grains and sugars that will go into your beer. This section is referred to as the "grain bill" or "grist". Depending on the level of difficulty of the brew, there could be all extract, a mix of extract and grain, or only grains listed. This section will also include any sugar adjuncts, like Belgian candy, molasses, or maple syrup. If it's not specified, most sugar adjuncts can be added in the last 5 or 10 minutes of the boil. Shorter boil times preserve the delicate aromatics in these ingredients.

For an all-grain recipe, the amount of grain may need to be adjusted to match the original gravity for your specific brewing system. When I brew, for example, I know that 10 pounds of grain will produce 5 gallons of beer with an O.G. of 1.054. For someone else, 10 pounds of grain might make a 1.046 or 1.058 beer. Almost all brewers will be in between these values for 10 pounds of grain. The only way to find the efficiency of your system is to brew a few batches and take careful notes. Once you know your efficiency, you can adjust any recipe accordingly. Making a beer with the right O.G. is an essential step in accurately brewing a recipe.

On a rare occasion, you may run across a recipe that will list the grain bill in percentages, rather than pounds. The more mathematically inclined are welcome to use algebra to figure out the right amount of each grain to get the proper proportions and O.G. The rest of us use a recipe calculator program like ProMash or BeerSmith to do the calculation.

Hop Schedule

After the grain bill, you'll find the hop schedule. A hop schedule tells you the amount of hops to use, what variety they should be and how long they should be boiled.

When reading a hop schedule, the number of minutes listed is the amount of time they should be in the boil. This can be confusing the first time you go through a recipe. If you're doing a typical 60-minute boil and the hop schedule says "2 ounces Magnum 45 minutes", this means you need to add the Magnum hops 15 minutes after the boil starts so that they boil for a total of 45 minutes.

There are a couple of brewer code words that make their way into the hop schedule from time to time. At the beginning of the list, especially if you're brewing all-grain, you might see the acronym "FWH", which means First Wort Hop. Hops labeled FWH should be added during the sparge, before the boil kettle is filled and long before the boil starts. Adding the hops when the wort is cooler allows more flavorful, less bitter compounds to be extracted from the hops. The other phrase that can be used in a hop schedule is "Flame Out". When a hop is added at flame out, it means that you add the hop the instant you turn off the heat, but before you begin to cool. Hops added at the very end of the boil contribute the most aromatics and no bitterness at all.

Yeast and Fermentation

The bottom of the recipe will list the recommended variety of yeast. A good recipe will also give a suggested fermentation temperature. I always give a suggested fermentation time (such as, "transfer to secondary after 2 weeks" or "bottle after a month"), but these should always be looked at as a base guideline. Fermentation is only complete when you have 2 consecutive gravity readings that are equal. A recipe may also recommend an aging period after fermentation is done. Don't skimp on the recommended aging, even if waiting is tough! For lagers or high-alcohol beers, aging will make the difference between a mediocre beer and an excellent one.

About the author: Joe Postma is a homebrewer who is seeking that perfect blend of creativity and science required to make great beer. He moonlights as a consulting actuary during the week.

To the untrained eye, a homebrewing recipe can look like a secret code with abbreviations, acronyms, and lists of numbers. Over the years, brewers have condensed the essentials of a brewing recipe into an easy to reference format that can be quickly reviewed during the brewing process. But today we're going to demystify the code so that you can read a brewing recipe like the pros.

At the top of every homebrew recipe, you'll find the technical specs of what the beer is supposed to be. The original gravity (O.G. or sometimes S.G.) is given first, often followed by the final gravity (F.G.).

The bitterness level is listed as International Bittering Units (IBUs), and the color typically is described by the acronym SRM, which stands for Standard Reference Method.

Additionally, some recipes will also provide the alcohol by volume (ABV), but this is often omitted since the O.G. and the F.G. can be used to calculate this value.

Original Gravity

You measure the O.G. of your homebrew with your hydrometer after the wort has cooled, but before fermentation begins. This measurement gives the relative density of the sugar dissolved in the wort. Extract brewers should be able to come very close to matching the O.G. on a recipe, since the amount of sugar in malt extract is a fixed value. Sugar doesn't boil off, so the amount of extract you add to the wort determines exactly how much sugar you'll end up with. If you find that you're not getting the O.G. specified by the recipe, the most likely culprit is that you somehow didn't end up with the right amount of liquid. If you ended up with more than 5 gallons of wort, then the relative sugar density, and thus the O.G., will be lower. The opposite is true if you end up with less than 5 gallons of wort.

It's also possible that your O.G. measurement is off is because of the temperature of the wort. Hydrometers are calibrated to read the correct value at 60°F. My rule of thumb is that for every 8°F above 60°F, add 0.001 to your reading. Wort temperatures above 85°F produce inaccurate readings when using any adjustment formula.

All-grain brewers quickly learn that there is a lot of experimentation that goes into getting the correct O.G. of a recipe. For an all-grain brewer, the amount of sugar extracted from the grain is a product of the the way the grain is crushed, the mash temperature, sparge temperature and even the type of mash tun used. An all-grain brewer usually has to brew several batches and take careful notes before they can accurately predict the O.G. of a homebrew.

Final Gravity

The final gravity, or F.G., of a recipe is the same type of measurement as the O.G., but the measurement is taken at the end of fermentation. The difference between the O.G. and the F.G. tells you how much sugar was consumed by the yeast. As yeast eat sugar they produce carbon dioxide and alcohol, which are both less dense than sugar or water, so the density of the wort decreases.

The actual F.G. of a beer depends on yeast health, the type of yeast used, and the fermentation temperature. If your fermentation conditions are perfect then you may come close to the F.G. listed on a recipe, but predicting the F.G. is almost more of an art form than a science. There are a lot of variables that go into fermentation, so a beginning brewer shouldn't be surprised if the measured F.G. is off by about 0.005. Even advanced brewers will find that predicting the F.G. within 0.002 takes a lot of experimentation.

Since the actual O.G. and F.G. of a homebrew can be slightly different than what's on the recipe, I interpret the ABV listed on a recipe as a guideline. Your can calculate your actual ABV by taking the O.G. minus the F.G. and multiplying that value by 131.

IBUs

Next on the recipe list is typically the IBU rating of the homebrew recipe. The abbreviation IBU stands for International Bittering Unit, and is a measure of how bitter the beer should be. The IBU scale ranges from 10 for a very malty Scottish or Belgian ale, to around 35 for a balanced American Amber, to 75 or higher for a palate dominating Imperial IPA. Any IBU rating in a homebrewing recipe will be an estimated value, typically using either the Tinseth formula or the Rager formula. Both formulas use a combination of the acid level of the hops, the O.G. of the wort and the length of the boil to estimate an IBU rating.

The precise IBUs of a beer can be measured by complex methods called spectrophotometry or chromatography, but many commercial brewers calculate their recipes using the same estimation formulas from homebrewing. Perception of bitterness also changes with the malts and water used in brewing, so having a precise measurement doesn't add a lot of benefit. The human tongue doesn't distinguish well between bitterness levels that are higher than 100 IBUs, so you might as well save the hops if you're thinking of brewing a beer that's more extreme than that.

SRM

The last acronym you'll find on a recipe is the SRM, which gives you an idea of what color you should expect a beer will be. An SRM of 2 is a very pale beer, 15 is an amber color and 30 is very dark brown or black.

All homebrewers have been there. We plan on brewing that IPA, and then family comes to visit, or work gets in the way. The brewday gets pushed back a week, then another week, and before you know it we haven't brewed for 3 months. Or maybe you don't get busy, but discouraged and bored with the beers you're making. Let's get back on track; it just takes a small change in approach to feel excited about homebrewing again.

Brewing better beer is the first step to get back into brewing. I once spoke with a new homebrewer who brewed a couple batches that turned out fine, and then went on to brew a couple batches that were infected and had to be dumped. Unsurprisingly, he was on homebrew hiatus. It can be very discouraging—especially for a beginner—to put the time and effort into brewing beer and have it not come out well.

Obviously this homebrewer's issue was with sanitation. His sanitation methods seemed sound, so my recommendation was to replace his racking cane and fermentation bucket—basically anything that came in contact with the cooled wort—before brewing again. While replacing equipment for sanitation isn't common, it's important to remember that good sanitation is absolutely essential for brewing great beer.

Good fermentation practices may be the next best way to improve the flavor of your brew. The esters and off-flavors from fermenting at 75°F may be overlooked in your excitement from brewing your first few batches, but after awhile they become noticeable. Controlling fermentation temperature, pitching enough yeast, and oxygenating your wort will quickly change your friend's comments from the noncommittal "Wow, you brewed this?" to an authentic "This is better than beer I pay for!"

Brewing different beer is a great way to get inspired and end the homebrewing hiatus. Many new homebrewers seem to get stuck in a style rut. Every brew is 75 IBUs and 7.5% ABV. Now, I love IPA as much as the next beer drinker, but if that's all I brew I start getting bored quickly. I'll often try to brew styles that I overlook when I'm at the local beer bar. Learning about the techniques and history of a Porter or Belgian ales adds a lot to the enjoyment of brewing them. Additionally, these often overlooked homebrew styles tend to turn out really good. I rarely brew an IPA that is as good as my favorites (Bells Two Hearted or Boundary Bay IPA), but I can pass off my relatively simple Dry Stout as a commercial brew every time.

Buying new equipment that makes it easier to brew good beer is a great way to kickstart your brewing again. For me, the gamechanger was getting a kegerator. As soon as I realized I wasn't going to be washing 50 bottles every batch, I got a lot more excited about the beer I was brewing. If you are an extract brewer, moving up to all-grain equipment might be the perfect step. While you can brew great beer using extract recipes, moving to all-grain recipes will add a lot more variety and flexibility to your repertoire.

Other time-saving purchases include a good wort chiller or a high powered outdoor burner. As the weather warms up, brewing outside has the benefit of being faster, more relaxing, and enjoyable. Try it if you have the outdoor space.

Joining a homebrew club, meeting new brewers, and talking about brewing with friends will also help get you excited about brewing again. The first Thursday of each month, the Chicago Beer Society holds a meeting at Goose Island's Clybourn brewpub for homebrewers to meet and share their beer. For me, it's a great time to get together with other homebrewers to taste homebrew, hear critiques, and trade tips and techniques.

In cities all around the country, homebrew clubs meet, trade beer, and even brew together. If you haven't visited a local brew club, take a look at the list of clubs at the American Homebrewers Association. There may be no better way to get more out of your homebrewing experience than by hanging out with like-minded people. When you join a local brewing community, the beer you brew will improve, and you'll have a lot more fun brewing it.

About the author: Joe Postma is a homebrewer who is seeking that perfect blend of creativity and science required to make great beer. He moonlights as a consulting actuary during the week.