G
Guest
This is an American-Style Microbrewed Pale Ale that is easy to make and easy to drink. It provides an excellent introduction to the art of brewing for the first time brewer.
Before beginning to brew this recipe, youâll need to make sure you have all the required equipment and ingredients. SeeBasic bewing equipment for a list.
Ingredients
1 can (3.75 lbs) Coopers "Bitter" Brewing Kit
2 lbs of gold or light dry malt extract
1 oz Cascade hops (pellets)
These items, along with the basic equipment needed, can be purchased at any Homebrew store . Check our listing of to order by mail or try your local telephone directory.
Once you have all the needed equipment, you are ready to make the first batch. It shouldnât take more than an 90 minutes from start to finish.
Procedure
Bring one gallon of water to a boil in an uncovered pan large enough to hold 1.5 to 2 gallons.
While heating the water:
Remove the plastic lid and yeast packet from the top of the Cooperâs extract can. Put the can in a container of very hot tap water so that the thick paste inside will soften.
Clean and sanitize your "brew day" equipment according to the directions found in Sanitation.
When the water has come to a boil:
Open the can of extract from the bottom, pour the contents into the pan with the water. (Scrape out with a spatula, rinse with a small amount of hot water.) Stir until dissolved. Add the dry malt extract. Stir until dissolved. When this comes back to a boil, add the hop pellets and boil for 5 more minutes.
During the boil, empty the sanitizing solution from fermenter. Then fill the fermenter about one-half to two-thirds full (approximately 3 gallons) with cold tap water.
At the end of the boil time, turn off the fire under the kettle. The strong, unfermented beer now contained in the pot is called "wort." (Pronounced "wirt.")
Carefully pour this wort into the fermenter containing the cold water. If your fermenter is marked in gallons, add additional cold water, if needed, to bring to total volume to 5 gallons.
Put the clean, sanitized floating thermometer into the fermenter so that you can check the temperature periodically. Set the lid for the fermentation bucket loosely on top while the wort is cooling.
Managing fermentation
Pitching the yeast
When the temperature of the wort drops to less than 80 deg F, you are ready to prepare and add the yeast.
Run warm (body temperature or about 98-100 deg F) water into a clean cup, bowl or measuring cup. Open the yeast packet and pour it on to the warm water without stirring. Allow the yeast to dissolve in the warm water for about 10 minutes then stir any remaining chunks with a clean spoon.
If your kit included a hydrometer and you want to take a measurement, pour a small quantity of the wort out to fill the hydrometer jar, or set the clean, sanitized hydrometer in the wort. One you have made your reading, remove both the hydrometer and the thermometer from the fermenter.
Pour the yeast mixture into the fermenter. Attach the lid and fermentation lock. Store the fermenter some place where the temperature will stay around 65 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. (The cooler end of this range is better than the warmer end.)
Fermentation
During fermentation, check the brew every 12 to 24 hours for activity. If all goes well, you should see vigorous activity within the first day. This will be indicated by rapid bubbling of carbon dioxide out of the fermentation lock and also by the development of a ring of gunk around the edge of the fermenter.
Once this has happened, you know that everything will be OK. In a week or so, your beer will be ready to bottle.
If you donât see any signs of fermentation activity within the first 48 hours, there may be trouble. Often times, the best approach is to wait it out. If youâve been away for a couple of days or forgot to check for activity during the first 24 to 36 hours, it may have done its thing while you were away.
If you are certain there has been no fermentation activity after 48 hours, you might try re-pitching the yeast. This requires that you have -- or quickly get -- an extra packet of yeast. Follow the directions given above for mixing up the yeast, then take the lid off the fermenter and pour it in. Reaffix the lid and fermentation lock and wait for results. With any luck, this second packet of yeast will get things going within 24 hours of when it is added. If it doesnât, wait it out. It may be that the first yeast did its job and you just missed it.
If you get a quick initial fermentation (within 24 hours), youâll be ready to bottle five to seven days after the brew day
Bottling your beer
A few days after fermentation is complete, you are ready to bottle your beer. Hereâs a checklist of the things youâll need on bottling day.
Equipment
Measuring cup, 1 cup or larger capacity.
Small pan for boiling water
Racking or bottling bucket (plastic)
Racking cane and transfer tubing
Bottle filler
Hydrometer
Supplies
55 to 60 twelve ounce bottles and bottle caps
Bottle capper
² cup of dry malt extract or priming sugar (purchased from your homebrew supply shop.)
Overview
First, if you haven't used the bottle capper before, experiment with it a bit on an empty bottle or two. Once youâve got the hang of it, just use a bottle opener to remove the practice caps from the empty bottles. (Just think, you'll soon be doing that to bottles of beer that you brewed yourself!)
Now, here's the overview of the bottling process. First, weâll transfer the beer from the fermenter to the racking bucket in order to separate it from the spent yeast and other debris. Then weâll add just a bit of sugar to the beer so that it will carbonate in the bottle. After that, we are ready to fill the beer into the bottles and cap them.
Throughout this process, we want to minimize splashing and aeration of the beer as this can have undesirable flavor effects. This isnât a huge deal, but just remember that "quiet is cool" when dealing with fermented beer.
Sanitize the equipment and bottles
The first step in bottling is cleaning. All of the equipment that will touch the beer -- no matter how briefly -- must be cleaned and sanitized as described in our section on Sanitation. In addition, all the bottles must be cleaned and sanitized as well. (Although, if you are using new bottles, you can usually go straight to the sanitizing step.)
Racking the beer
"Racking" is a brewers term for transferring or moving the beer from one vessel to another. In this case, weâll rack the beer from the fermenter to the racking bucket using the sanitized racking tube and cane. (If you havenât already, see the note in Sanitation about how to fill the tube with water.)
To achieve the racking, weâll use the magic of siphon action to move the beer. Put the fermenter on the counter with the racking bucket below it on a chair set immediately in front of the counter. (Alternately, you can put the fermenter on a chair and the racking bucket below it on the floor.)
Now put the racking cane in the fermenter so that it rests against the bottom on the far side - away from the racking bucket - and leaning forward at an angle to rest on the front edge. The tube end goes in the racking bucket itself and should rest against the bottom as well. If it does not reach the bottom, use a phone book or a small box to raise the level of the racking bucket until it does. Now you are ready to transfer. Release the clamp on the hose so that the beer flows into the racking bucket. To minimize splashing at the beginning of racking, you may want to tip the racking bucket to keep the tube end submerged in beer.
Siphon power depends upon the level of the liquid in the bottom container being lower than the level of liquid in the top container. Keep this in mind and adjust things during the racking process if you need to.
Near the end of racking, you will want to tip the fermenter back, away from the front of the counter. This will keep the end of the racking tube submerged in beer for as long as possible and minimize beer loss. Then, as the thimble on the racking cane is about to emerge from the last of the beer, close the clamp on the tube end so that the racking tube and cane remain filled with beer.
You are now ready to prime the beer.
Priming
Right now your beer is flat -- it has no carbonation. Rather than using some mechanical or industrial process to carbonate it, we will do this naturally using the fermentation power of the yeast.
When yeast ferment sugar, they turn it into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide produced by fermentation inside a bottle dissolves into the beer and thereby carbonates it. Even if your beer looks perfectly clear when you rack it, it still contains enough yeast to carbonate your beer. All we have to do is to add a measured amount of sugar before bottling.
The standard quantity of sugar used for priming 5 gallons of beer is ² of a cup. You must use corn sugar (also known as dextrose) or perhaps dry malt extract for this purpose. You can not use ordinary table sugar.
Measure the sugar into your measuring cup and then mix it with 1/3 to 2/3 cup of boiling water. This will sanitize the sugar solution. Once this is prepared, you can pour it into the beer in the racking bucket. Next, take the racking cane and gently stir the beer for 30 seconds or so to mix in the sugar solution. Remember, no splashing!
Bottling
First set the racking bucket on the counter or a chair and make a work area for yourself at a lower level so that siphon power will move the beer for you.
Next, arrange the bottles nearby. I usually leave them in the case boxes to make them easier to handle.
With the racking tube clamp still closed, affix the bottle filler to the end of the tube. Now use the empty priming sugar cup to practice. With the racking cane in the beer and the bottle filler in your priming cup, open the clamp on the racking tube. Then press down on the bottle filler so that beer flows into the cup. If you want, put 6 ounces or so of beer into the cup and use this to measure the gravity with your hydrometer.
You are now ready to fill those bottles!
Insert the bottle filler into a bottle and press it against the bottom of the bottle to start the flow of beer. Continue until the liquid level reaches the very top of the bottle. As soon as you release the pressure on the filler the flow of beer will stop. Then, as you remove the filler from the bottle, the level of beer will drop. When the filler is removed, the beer will be about two inches from the top of the bottle.
At this stage, I generally find it easiest to fill a whole case of bottles before I begin capping. There is no rush to get the capping done as long as it happens within an hour or so of when you add the priming sugar to the beer.
As you fill, keep an eye on the level of beer in the racking bucket. When it starts to get low, tilt it so that you can draw out most of the beer without sucking up any air.
Once the beers are filled and capped, they need to rest for two weeks to a month before theyâll be ready to drink. Ideally, you will keep them at room temperature (65 to 75 deg F) during this time so that the priming fermentation and aging processes can take place properly.
I know that it is hard to wait, but patience is usually rewarded with better tasting beer. (Of course to prove this, you might have to taste one bottle after two weeks.) If you are that anxious, go ahead and make another batch of beer so that youâll have a steady supply coming once you taste the first batch.
By the way, this is the stage where you could run into that old bugaboo of homebrewing, the exploding bottle. Mind you, it is quite rare -- I have produced more than 5,000 bottles of homebrew and I can only remember two that ever exploded. More than likely, these two happened to be in weak or cracked bottles that couldnât handle the relatively mild pressure exerted by natural carbonation. Nonetheless, it is a good idea to keep your bottled beer stored inside cardboard case boxes with the lids closed. That way, if one does happen to explode the flying glass will be contained inside the box.
After the beers have aged, throw a couple of bottles in the refrigerator to chill them down. Open and enjoy.
Labeling your brew
If you drink all of one batch before you make another, you'll never have any need to label your beers. But few people operate that way, so some system of labeling comes in handy.
The easiest is to take a china marker and mark a batch number on the top of each bottle. If you want more than that, you can get some of the small round self-adhesive labels sold at office supply stores and affix them to the tops of the bottles. With these, you can write out some additional information including the style, bottling date, etc. if you want to.
Another fun thing to do with your homebrew is to have some labels made up to go on the front of the bottle. If you are artistic or have some skill with a computer, this can be easy to do. Homebrew shops often offer gummed paper that is pre-cut or perforated to produce normal bottle-sized labels. But whatever you do, remember the three most important rules of bottle labels: 1) Have fun, 2) Go wild, and 3) Show off.
Before beginning to brew this recipe, youâll need to make sure you have all the required equipment and ingredients. SeeBasic bewing equipment for a list.
Ingredients
1 can (3.75 lbs) Coopers "Bitter" Brewing Kit
2 lbs of gold or light dry malt extract
1 oz Cascade hops (pellets)
These items, along with the basic equipment needed, can be purchased at any Homebrew store . Check our listing of to order by mail or try your local telephone directory.
Once you have all the needed equipment, you are ready to make the first batch. It shouldnât take more than an 90 minutes from start to finish.
Procedure
Bring one gallon of water to a boil in an uncovered pan large enough to hold 1.5 to 2 gallons.
While heating the water:
Remove the plastic lid and yeast packet from the top of the Cooperâs extract can. Put the can in a container of very hot tap water so that the thick paste inside will soften.
Clean and sanitize your "brew day" equipment according to the directions found in Sanitation.
When the water has come to a boil:
Open the can of extract from the bottom, pour the contents into the pan with the water. (Scrape out with a spatula, rinse with a small amount of hot water.) Stir until dissolved. Add the dry malt extract. Stir until dissolved. When this comes back to a boil, add the hop pellets and boil for 5 more minutes.
During the boil, empty the sanitizing solution from fermenter. Then fill the fermenter about one-half to two-thirds full (approximately 3 gallons) with cold tap water.
At the end of the boil time, turn off the fire under the kettle. The strong, unfermented beer now contained in the pot is called "wort." (Pronounced "wirt.")
Carefully pour this wort into the fermenter containing the cold water. If your fermenter is marked in gallons, add additional cold water, if needed, to bring to total volume to 5 gallons.
Put the clean, sanitized floating thermometer into the fermenter so that you can check the temperature periodically. Set the lid for the fermentation bucket loosely on top while the wort is cooling.
Managing fermentation
Pitching the yeast
When the temperature of the wort drops to less than 80 deg F, you are ready to prepare and add the yeast.
Run warm (body temperature or about 98-100 deg F) water into a clean cup, bowl or measuring cup. Open the yeast packet and pour it on to the warm water without stirring. Allow the yeast to dissolve in the warm water for about 10 minutes then stir any remaining chunks with a clean spoon.
If your kit included a hydrometer and you want to take a measurement, pour a small quantity of the wort out to fill the hydrometer jar, or set the clean, sanitized hydrometer in the wort. One you have made your reading, remove both the hydrometer and the thermometer from the fermenter.
Pour the yeast mixture into the fermenter. Attach the lid and fermentation lock. Store the fermenter some place where the temperature will stay around 65 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. (The cooler end of this range is better than the warmer end.)
Fermentation
During fermentation, check the brew every 12 to 24 hours for activity. If all goes well, you should see vigorous activity within the first day. This will be indicated by rapid bubbling of carbon dioxide out of the fermentation lock and also by the development of a ring of gunk around the edge of the fermenter.
Once this has happened, you know that everything will be OK. In a week or so, your beer will be ready to bottle.
If you donât see any signs of fermentation activity within the first 48 hours, there may be trouble. Often times, the best approach is to wait it out. If youâve been away for a couple of days or forgot to check for activity during the first 24 to 36 hours, it may have done its thing while you were away.
If you are certain there has been no fermentation activity after 48 hours, you might try re-pitching the yeast. This requires that you have -- or quickly get -- an extra packet of yeast. Follow the directions given above for mixing up the yeast, then take the lid off the fermenter and pour it in. Reaffix the lid and fermentation lock and wait for results. With any luck, this second packet of yeast will get things going within 24 hours of when it is added. If it doesnât, wait it out. It may be that the first yeast did its job and you just missed it.
If you get a quick initial fermentation (within 24 hours), youâll be ready to bottle five to seven days after the brew day
Bottling your beer
A few days after fermentation is complete, you are ready to bottle your beer. Hereâs a checklist of the things youâll need on bottling day.
Equipment
Measuring cup, 1 cup or larger capacity.
Small pan for boiling water
Racking or bottling bucket (plastic)
Racking cane and transfer tubing
Bottle filler
Hydrometer
Supplies
55 to 60 twelve ounce bottles and bottle caps
Bottle capper
² cup of dry malt extract or priming sugar (purchased from your homebrew supply shop.)
Overview
First, if you haven't used the bottle capper before, experiment with it a bit on an empty bottle or two. Once youâve got the hang of it, just use a bottle opener to remove the practice caps from the empty bottles. (Just think, you'll soon be doing that to bottles of beer that you brewed yourself!)
Now, here's the overview of the bottling process. First, weâll transfer the beer from the fermenter to the racking bucket in order to separate it from the spent yeast and other debris. Then weâll add just a bit of sugar to the beer so that it will carbonate in the bottle. After that, we are ready to fill the beer into the bottles and cap them.
Throughout this process, we want to minimize splashing and aeration of the beer as this can have undesirable flavor effects. This isnât a huge deal, but just remember that "quiet is cool" when dealing with fermented beer.
Sanitize the equipment and bottles
The first step in bottling is cleaning. All of the equipment that will touch the beer -- no matter how briefly -- must be cleaned and sanitized as described in our section on Sanitation. In addition, all the bottles must be cleaned and sanitized as well. (Although, if you are using new bottles, you can usually go straight to the sanitizing step.)
Racking the beer
"Racking" is a brewers term for transferring or moving the beer from one vessel to another. In this case, weâll rack the beer from the fermenter to the racking bucket using the sanitized racking tube and cane. (If you havenât already, see the note in Sanitation about how to fill the tube with water.)
To achieve the racking, weâll use the magic of siphon action to move the beer. Put the fermenter on the counter with the racking bucket below it on a chair set immediately in front of the counter. (Alternately, you can put the fermenter on a chair and the racking bucket below it on the floor.)
Now put the racking cane in the fermenter so that it rests against the bottom on the far side - away from the racking bucket - and leaning forward at an angle to rest on the front edge. The tube end goes in the racking bucket itself and should rest against the bottom as well. If it does not reach the bottom, use a phone book or a small box to raise the level of the racking bucket until it does. Now you are ready to transfer. Release the clamp on the hose so that the beer flows into the racking bucket. To minimize splashing at the beginning of racking, you may want to tip the racking bucket to keep the tube end submerged in beer.
Siphon power depends upon the level of the liquid in the bottom container being lower than the level of liquid in the top container. Keep this in mind and adjust things during the racking process if you need to.
Near the end of racking, you will want to tip the fermenter back, away from the front of the counter. This will keep the end of the racking tube submerged in beer for as long as possible and minimize beer loss. Then, as the thimble on the racking cane is about to emerge from the last of the beer, close the clamp on the tube end so that the racking tube and cane remain filled with beer.
You are now ready to prime the beer.
Priming
Right now your beer is flat -- it has no carbonation. Rather than using some mechanical or industrial process to carbonate it, we will do this naturally using the fermentation power of the yeast.
When yeast ferment sugar, they turn it into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide produced by fermentation inside a bottle dissolves into the beer and thereby carbonates it. Even if your beer looks perfectly clear when you rack it, it still contains enough yeast to carbonate your beer. All we have to do is to add a measured amount of sugar before bottling.
The standard quantity of sugar used for priming 5 gallons of beer is ² of a cup. You must use corn sugar (also known as dextrose) or perhaps dry malt extract for this purpose. You can not use ordinary table sugar.
Measure the sugar into your measuring cup and then mix it with 1/3 to 2/3 cup of boiling water. This will sanitize the sugar solution. Once this is prepared, you can pour it into the beer in the racking bucket. Next, take the racking cane and gently stir the beer for 30 seconds or so to mix in the sugar solution. Remember, no splashing!
Bottling
First set the racking bucket on the counter or a chair and make a work area for yourself at a lower level so that siphon power will move the beer for you.
Next, arrange the bottles nearby. I usually leave them in the case boxes to make them easier to handle.
With the racking tube clamp still closed, affix the bottle filler to the end of the tube. Now use the empty priming sugar cup to practice. With the racking cane in the beer and the bottle filler in your priming cup, open the clamp on the racking tube. Then press down on the bottle filler so that beer flows into the cup. If you want, put 6 ounces or so of beer into the cup and use this to measure the gravity with your hydrometer.
You are now ready to fill those bottles!
Insert the bottle filler into a bottle and press it against the bottom of the bottle to start the flow of beer. Continue until the liquid level reaches the very top of the bottle. As soon as you release the pressure on the filler the flow of beer will stop. Then, as you remove the filler from the bottle, the level of beer will drop. When the filler is removed, the beer will be about two inches from the top of the bottle.
At this stage, I generally find it easiest to fill a whole case of bottles before I begin capping. There is no rush to get the capping done as long as it happens within an hour or so of when you add the priming sugar to the beer.
As you fill, keep an eye on the level of beer in the racking bucket. When it starts to get low, tilt it so that you can draw out most of the beer without sucking up any air.
Once the beers are filled and capped, they need to rest for two weeks to a month before theyâll be ready to drink. Ideally, you will keep them at room temperature (65 to 75 deg F) during this time so that the priming fermentation and aging processes can take place properly.
I know that it is hard to wait, but patience is usually rewarded with better tasting beer. (Of course to prove this, you might have to taste one bottle after two weeks.) If you are that anxious, go ahead and make another batch of beer so that youâll have a steady supply coming once you taste the first batch.
By the way, this is the stage where you could run into that old bugaboo of homebrewing, the exploding bottle. Mind you, it is quite rare -- I have produced more than 5,000 bottles of homebrew and I can only remember two that ever exploded. More than likely, these two happened to be in weak or cracked bottles that couldnât handle the relatively mild pressure exerted by natural carbonation. Nonetheless, it is a good idea to keep your bottled beer stored inside cardboard case boxes with the lids closed. That way, if one does happen to explode the flying glass will be contained inside the box.
After the beers have aged, throw a couple of bottles in the refrigerator to chill them down. Open and enjoy.
Labeling your brew
If you drink all of one batch before you make another, you'll never have any need to label your beers. But few people operate that way, so some system of labeling comes in handy.
The easiest is to take a china marker and mark a batch number on the top of each bottle. If you want more than that, you can get some of the small round self-adhesive labels sold at office supply stores and affix them to the tops of the bottles. With these, you can write out some additional information including the style, bottling date, etc. if you want to.
Another fun thing to do with your homebrew is to have some labels made up to go on the front of the bottle. If you are artistic or have some skill with a computer, this can be easy to do. Homebrew shops often offer gummed paper that is pre-cut or perforated to produce normal bottle-sized labels. But whatever you do, remember the three most important rules of bottle labels: 1) Have fun, 2) Go wild, and 3) Show off.
