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Beer has evolved from one of the oldest recipes to one of the most popular drinks in the world and especially in Germany - according to a survey by Statista. So it's hardly surprising that some people get the idea of brewing their own beer. When brewing beer at home, you can choose from a wide range of flavours and beer styles - there are hardly any limits to the hobby brewer's joy of experimentation. Variants with a higher alcohol concentration are also possible. This allows hobby brewers to create unique and exclusive beers.
Thanks to these exciting possibilities, hobby brewing has experienced a dramatic upswing in recent years. However, the brewing process is also quite elaborate at home and requires some ingredients. In Germany, hobby brewers also have to abide by some rules. However, the pride that comes with having produced your own beer and finally drinking it is incomparable. This article aims to give a detailed overview of the art and passion of home brewing.
What is hobby brewing?
Hobby brewing is basically very easy to distinguish from regular commercial brewing. Home brewing is any brewing process that takes place at home and not for commercial purposes.
Usually, hobby brewers use a brewing kit or a hobby brewing system. Any private person can buy or order the necessary materials and brewing ingredients. The kits are particularly suitable for beginners.
Which brewing ingredients are the essentials for hobby brewing?
If you want to brew beer, you need some brewing ingredients. These can be bought in specialist shops or ordered via the internet. Hobby brewers should, however, plan ahead and procure the various raw materials in good time. After all, the brewing and especially the fermentation process takes some time.Unlike commercial breweries, home brewers do not have to adhere to the purity law and can produce many different flavours. Nevertheless - for every commercial and non-commercial beer production, the following brewing ingredients form the basis.
Hops
The hop plant, whose flowers bear the name umbels, belongs to the hemp family.Hop aromas can vary greatly, as there are over 300 hop varieties worldwide. The hop cones of the female plants contain the alpha acids that provide the bitterness of the product. The higher the proportion of alpha acids, the more bitter the hops and ultimately the beer will be. These hops are called cooking or bitter hops.
Aroma or finishing hops provide the aroma and scent of the beer during the boiling process. The smell of a beer in particular plays a major role in the perception of taste.
The acidity of the hops can vary somewhat in each year. Even the region in which the hops are grown has an influence on the acid content. However, the hop packaging or the information on the respective ordering website should provide information about the alpha acid content of the hops. Hobby brewers can use this as a guide.
Cereals/Barley
Cereals can be divided into different types. These include rice and rye. To produce malt, brewers use barley in particular. To use barley for malt or beer production, it should first be finely ground or crushed. This is done with the help of a grain mill or another method. If there are no facilities for this, a home brewing shop can help out. Ground barley should be processed as soon as possible. However, unground grain can be stored for up to four weeks.Malt extract
Malt extract is particularly suitable for beginners to brew their first own beers. It adds spice to the beer and can be used instead of mashed malt. Malt extract is available in liquid or dry form. The dry powder should get as little moisture as possible and should be stored appropriately because otherwise it quickly clumps together. On the other hand, it is easier to dose when brewing.Liquid malt extract, on the other hand, should not be stored for a long time, because it quickly develops mould after opening. However, it can be preserved longer with a little alcohol. The advantage is that the liquid form contains more nutrients.
Yeast
Today, there are different types of dry yeast, which can be used to produce numerous types of beer. The advantage is that the dry form has a long shelf life and requires minimal preparation for the brewing process. Liquid yeast is available in many more varieties, but has a shorter shelf life. However, high beer quality can theoretically be achieved with both forms of yeast.
Water
Beer contains more than 90 per cent water. Water quality therefore plays a major role in brewing. It goes without saying that the water must be clean and free of bacteria and odours. The pH value and water hardness are particularly important for brewing. A moderate hardness and a medium alkalinity are ideal for the brewing process - alkalinity describes the acid binding capacity of the water.
What brewing accessories are needed for hobby brewing?
Home brewing is an art that can be perfected with sophisticated equipment. So if you want to brew your own beer, you can easily buy the right equipment in conventional hobby brewer shops.A good homebrewing kit includes the following components:
• A large pot - the larger the better (a capacity of 30 litres is advantageous).
• Immersion heater
• Two large plastic buckets with a tap for filling, filling tubes and fermentation tubes (are often included in a homebrew kit)
• A fermentation bucket with a lid that has a drilled hole in the lid for an airlock
• Waterproof thermometer (digital or analogue)
• Iodine- or acid-based disinfectant
• Iodine for brewers
• Measuring jug
• Three or four nylon bags with which the brewer can add hops for boiling. Tights can also be used in a pinch, they should of course be a clean pair.
• Bottle caps or crown corks and bottle cappers or swing stoppers
• Beverage line for decanting beer and filling bottles
• Bottles (hobby brewers can use used bottles, but these should be rinsed thoroughly without detergent).
Certainly, a good do-it-yourselfer can make these elements himself. However, for hobby brewers who want to get started straight away, a ready-made hobby brewing system is a good option.
It is up to the home brewer to decide where the best place in their home to install this equipment is. However, they should bear in mind that quite a bit of space is required and that storing the wort and the young beer is an important part of the brewing process. If your garden, garage or hobby room offers more space than your kitchen, it may be more practical to brew the beer there.
Brew your own beer: Instructions for hobby brewers
As soon as the necessary materials and brewing ingredients are available, the home brewer can start with the first batch. There are many different recipes. However, the following instructions for hobby brewers should at least provide a basic direction. Those who like to experiment can make their own adjustments and give the beer different flavours by combining other ingredients or preparing these essential raw materials differently.
Tip: To repeat a successful brewing process, it helps to keep accurate records throughout the process.
Step 1: Preparation & Cleaning
First of all, hobby brewers should prepare their necessary instruments and tools. Everything that the beer or its ingredients come into contact with should be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. On the one hand, this is done for reasons of hygiene; on the other hand, the beer must not take on a strange or adulterated taste that can result from contamination. For this purpose, there are special disinfectant kits that kill all microbes that can have an unwanted influence on the beer aroma.
Step 2: Making the mash
To make the mash, the brewer must mix water with malt. The water must first be heated to 57 degrees Celsius. Now the malt is added slowly. This is done while stirring continuously so that nothing can burn. The temperature can then be increased to 64 degrees Celsius. This process is about separating the starch from the sugar. Since several rapid temperature changes or increases are required for mashing, an immersion heater is extremely practical. This makes heating much quicker. The thermometer allows you to keep an eye on the temperature at all times. After raising the temperature, do not continue heating, but switch off the cooker or immersion heater and leave the covered pot for 40 minutes.To determine whether the process was successful, the hobby brewer should carry out an iodine test. To do this, just put a small amount of the mixture on a small plate. Then drip a few drops of iodine on it. If the mixture turns blue or red, the maceration must be continued. If the iodine remains brown or yellow, the degradation of the starch was successful.
Afterwards, brewers should heat the mixture up to 64 degrees Celsius for another 15 minutes and carry out another iodine test. Now nothing should discolour any more. Despite everything, another 20-minute rest period follows, after which it is heated up a further time to 78 degrees Celsius. The repeated 10-minute rest period that follows completes the process of maceration completely.
Step 3: Purification and over-purification/over-purification
Now the hobby brewer transfers the mash into the lauter tun - a plastic bucket that is ideally equipped with a closed drainage tap and a lauter strainer or lauter tray. The mash can be left to stand again for about 20 minutes so that the husks can settle. These form a so-called spent grains cake, which filters the liquid again at a later stage.
During this time, you can clean the large cooking pot and prepare the post-pour. This is water that is heated to 76 degrees Celsius. Once the spent grains cake has formed, the lautering can begin, during which the malt is separated from the mash. The liquid, almost clear wort should run into a measuring cup. The brewer must pour the contents back into the lauter tun. However, care is needed at this point so that the spent grains cake is not stirred up again.
The process should be repeated until a clear liquid runs out of the lauter tun. The prepared post-pour is used to rinse out the last starch enzymes, which is also called "over-pouring" or "pre-pouring".
Meanwhile, make sure that the spent grains cake is always surrounded by a layer of water and never becomes completely dry. Hobby brewers can now pour the resulting wort liquid back into the boiling pot.
Step 4: Boiling the hops
The boiling pot filled with the wort must be heated to 100 degrees Celsius as quickly as possible with the immersion heater. After 30 minutes of boiling, the brewer adds about two thirds of the bitter hops, depending on the recipe. After 60 minutes of boiling, the rest of the hops or the aroma hops follow and after another ten minutes the hop boiling is complete.
On the one hand, the type of hops and the alpha acid content they contain determine the taste and bitterness of the beer. On the other hand, the boiling time also determines how bitter the beer becomes. A long boiled hop gives off more bitter substances. A beer with a short hop boiling time develops a stronger hop flavour.
Step 5: Filtering out hop strains and other precipitates
To make the beer more durable and clearer, proteins as well as residues of mash and hops must be separated from the wort. To do this, they should be poured from the pot into one of the buckets or cooking barrels already in use. To do this, take the brewing paddle and stir the wort quickly and vigorously.
The resulting centrifugal force should cause a cone of residue to form in the centre. As before, the clear wort can be drained again through a drain tap. To filter out the last residues, the liquid should be let through a cloth into an empty bucket. The result must now be cooled at about 20 degrees Celsius.
Step 6: Prepare the yeast
The hobby brewer can now add the dry or liquid yeast and stir the whole thing for 60 minutes. Afterwards, the container should be covered and the entire brew left to rest. The brewer's yeast does its work and converts the sugar into alcohol. By the way, you can also brew alcohol-free beer yourself without any special equipment. Read this interview to find out how.
Step 7: Let fermentation take its course
Next, the hobby brewer can only wait until the fermentation is complete and check the progress in between. This process should be completed after seven days at the latest. After that, the hobby brewer may bottle the beer. If you start too early, the bottles may burst. If the fermentation process continues after bottling, CO2 is produced, which in turn leads to high pressure in the bottles.
Visually, the fermentation process can also be observed and checked: First, a layer of foam appears on the surface, which collapses after a few days. In addition, the wort should look much clearer and no longer bubble when fermentation is complete.
Bottling beer - the right way for hobby brewers
If fermentation no longer takes place, the green beer is filled into beer bottles. However, the young beer still has a low carbon dioxide content. That is why hobby brewers add wort that they saved at the beginning of the brewing process. Alternatively, they can also use carbonation drops or sugar, which they boil down with water and add to the beer. This way, the yeast fungi have something to eat and a secondary fermentation or "bottle fermentation" can take place inside the bottle. This eventually produces more carbonic acid. This process lasts for about two weeks.In the beverage industry, "correct packaging" has long since become a science in its own right. Hobby brewers hardly need to worry about this, but they too must observe certain rules. The meticulously cleaned and sterilised bottles should not be filled to the top.
Instead, it is advisable to leave about 50 millimetres of air before sealing them airtight with a crown cap or swing stopper. If they are filled to the top, there is a risk that they will burst.
Some hobby brewers recommend opening the bottles in between so that some of the carbon dioxide produced during secondary fermentation can escape. This is of course much easier with a swing stopper than with a crown cork. Following secondary fermentation, hobby brewers must place the filled beer bottles upright in the refrigerator for a further two weeks for cold maturation.
Finally, the pleasure: Do hobby brewers' beers taste different?
Since there are many different recipes for home brewing, the taste can differ with each new variation. But there are also small intentional or unintentional changes in every brewing process that have an impact on the beer aroma. This is partly because hobby brewers do not have the laboratories and instruments available for measurements and quality control. For example, the beverage industry even uses professional systems for beer stabilisation. In contrast, hobby brewing by nature is not an industrial production where the same steps are always carried out with the highest, controlled precision. In addition, there are fine or large differences in the raw materials or ingredients used in home brewing. The choice of raw materials for home brewing therefore also depends on the sensory perception of the user. However, the individual variety of tastes is basically what makes hobby brewing so charming.Hobby brewing is so popular, in fact, that a German Hobby Brewers' Championship has been held annually since 2017. The competition is connected to a beer festival where the participating hobby brewers offer their beers at their own stands and can exchange ideas about their favourite topic. Every German hobby brewer is allowed to take part. The only requirement is that the beer must come from non-commercial production and meet certain style criteria.
The Home Brew Bayreuth hobby brewing competition is also becoming increasingly popular. In May 2021, home and hobby brewers submitted 160 beers for tasting by a jury - a record and a great success for the organisers Maisel & Friends and BrauBeviale. Nice to know: In 2020, the American Pale Ale called "Hoptimism", of all things, won the competition - how fitting in times of the pandemic!
Beer tax law & Co.: a little legal knowledge for hobby brewers
For personal consumption, home-brewed beer is initially tax-free. However, according to the Beer Tax Act (BierStG), private individuals are only allowed to brew up to 200 litres themselves without having to pay tax. As soon as the beer is sold, hobby brewing is considered a trade. Those who have commercial aspirations in this regard must also comply with the hygiene regulations of the public health department, which carries out regular inspections. In addition, the following proofs and licences are required:• SCHUFA statement
• Certificate of good conduct
• Trade licence
• Extract from the Central Trade Register
• Certificate of training in a restaurant
• Application for structural alterations & application for acceptance of structural alterations
• Liquor licence
• Concession from the city or municipality
• Tax registration
• Health certificate and training
• Registration with the Employer's Liability Insurance Association for the Food & Catering Industry
Even though you don't have to be a brewmaster to start a brewery, there are some requirements to be met. "Beer" is a protected term and is subject to the purity law in Germany.
Home-brewed beer, on the other hand, can easily be given as a gift - for example as a birthday or Christmas present. Theoretically, every German citizen can start brewing immediately if the necessary brewing ingredients and instruments are available. The only requirement - regardless of whether the beer is sold or not - is registration with the main customs office at least one day before the start of brewing. An informal letter is sufficient for this purpose.
