Home brewing can allow you to experiment with beer tastes.
If you want to home brew beer, you will need four major ingredients: water, hops, yeast and barley. Barley, however, is considered to be the most important component in determining the quality of the beer as it gives beer it sweetness, flavor and color, along with natural sugars for yeast that convert sugar into alcohol during the fermentation process.
Instructions
1. Select a good recipe. Weigh the barley grains per the recipe.
2. Crack the barley grains in a roller mill to activate enzymes and convert starch. This will enhance the flavoring and sweetness. The cracked grain is called grist.
3. Set the temperature on the mash tun to 168 degrees Fahrenheit before adding the grains.
4. Add 1 qt. water for every 1 lb. of barley grain in the mash tun.
5. Mash the cracked barley grains at constant temperature between 150 degrees Fahrenheit and 158 degrees Fahrenheit for 60 minutes. The temperatures at which the grains are mashed depend upon the flavor you want and the accuracy of the equipment.
6. Rinse the grains with water once they are mashed. This will leech out dextrins and sugars that are left in the grains. Slowly run water over the grains and allow the grains to flow to the bottom of the container into the brew kettle.
Tags: barley grains, degrees Fahrenheit, This will