NICK BUTLER>>: Hi. I'm Nick Butler and I absolutely love beer.
Recently I've been interested in brewing it myself but I realized I have no idea how to do that.
That's why I've enlisted the help of a very experienced brewer from Northern Brewer, Nick Stephan.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Hello. NICK BUTLER>>: So, Nick, what do we have today? What do you have for me?
NICK STEPHAN>>: The Small Batch Brewing Starter Kit. This guy is going to be a 1-gallon starter kit,
and it's great to get you started brewing if you have limited space or just don't really want to commit to making 5 gallons of beer at a time.
NICK BUTLER>>: Yeah, I think that sounds perfect for me.
NICK STEPHAN>>: All right. So the first thing you're going to run into when you open this guy up, one of the most important pieces -- it may not seem like it -- but it's going to be a Northern Brewer brewery-in-a-box instruction packet.
NICK BUTLER>>: That seems very important. NICK STEPHAN>>: Yeah, no, it really is.
So as you pop this packet open, you're going to run into a few things.
Number one is a heartfelt communication from the Northern Brewer Family welcoming you to the life of a homebrewer. NICK BUTLER>>: Very nice.
NICK STEPHAN>>: The second off is going to be an inventory of the entire contents of the kit.
And also we will have a glossy insert in there of a 101 of the brewing process, and this will be specific to 1-gallon brewing.
NICK BUTLER>>: And it's laminated, so when you're brewing it yourself, you know, you can just wipe it off.
NICK STEPHAN>>: As you open this up, it is going to be a tight fit. There's a lot of items in here, but really all of them are very basic.
First things first, tubing. NICK BUTLER>>: Tubing.
NICK STEPHAN>>: So the smaller gauge is actually going to be for siphoning. Attach that to your siphon as you go along.
And the larger gauge is going to be used for blow-off, and I -- believe me, don't worry if you don't know what that means right now.
NICK BUTLER>>: Yeah.
NICK STEPHAN>>: All right. So next up, your moonshine jug.
NICK BUTLER>>: Yes. NICK STEPHAN>>: So this is a 1-gallon jug.
This guy is going to where all the activity actually happens where you actually ferment your beer.
NICK BUTLER>>: So if the brewer ring -- NICK STEPHAN>>: The brewer ring?
NICK BUTLER>>: The brewer ring. NICK STEPHAN>>: The M. Night Shyamalan movie? NICK BUTLER>>: Yes.
NICK BUTLER>>: Yeah, so if the brewing doesn't work out, I can always start a jug band, right? NICK STEPHAN>>: Sure. You're talented.
Next up we have two items that are going to be important during the actual transferring of the beer and bottling of the beer.
First up is your bottling wand, a clear plastic piece of tubing but it has a little check valve on the bottom of it. NICK BUTLER>>: Yeah.
NICK STEPHAN>>: So you can check that off your inventory list.
NICK BUTLER>>: And it looks like a wand. NICK STEPHAN>>: And it does look like a wand, so that's helpful for remembering.
The next up is a mini Rack Magic® Auto-siphon. NICK BUTLER>>: The Rack? NICK STEPHAN>>: Magic Auto-siphon.
Continuing forward. We'll have our recipe kit.
So this is a 1-gallon sized recipe kit. This is the Caribou Slobber is what we'll be using for this particular brew kit.
NICK BUTLER>>: What's in the box? NICK STEPHAN>>: Honestly, I think we'll save that until brew day. NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
NICK STEPHAN>>: And then finally we have our little guts packet. So inside of this guy, it will be a number of different things.
Number one is crowns or bottle caps. NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
NICK STEPHAN>>: A screw stop for your 1-gallon fermentor. NICK BUTLER>>: Ah, okay.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Some Easy Clean, one of the most important things in the brew kit in my opinion.
You need to keep all beer equipment clean in order to produce quality beer.
NICK BUTLER>>: All right.
NICK STEPHAN>>: An airlock that will go on top of your fermentor.
That guy is actually going to allow CO2 to be released from the 1-gallon fermentor without allowing any mold, yeast, bacteria, other creepy crawlies into your actual fermentor.
NICK BUTLER>>: This goes in here, on there? NICK STEPHAN>>: That's correct. That's correct. NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
NICK STEPHAN>>: And one of the last items is a fun guy. This is actually your bottle capper.
So you will use that to use these little crowns or bottle caps, and there's a little magnetic drive on the inside of that you can snap them onto,
and then when you go to bottle, you'll just crimp on down on both of the sides and that will seal the bottle up for you after we're all done. NICK BUTLER>>: All right.
NICK STEPHAN>>: And finally a must, your Northern Brewer DVD, everything you're seeing right now, so you probably already got this, and that's really it.
The 1-gallon starter kit doesn't have a lot to it, so it's really easy to kind of learn and get a first crack at brewing.
NICK BUTLER>>: Yeah, it seems pretty simple and I'm not -- I'm not, you know, intimidated yet, but I'm ready to -- I'm ready to start brewing.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Open up your kit and the most important thing that you want to do is always take a good inventory of your kit, so that's going to be very important.
Generally speaking, I would recommend doing that before you jump into brew day. For the purposes of this demonstration, we're going to take kit inventory right now. NICK BUTLER>>: All right. Let's do it.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Pop open your recipe kit box. Let's get everything out of here. NICK BUTLER>>: Sounds good.
NICK STEPHAN>>: And let's look for our inventory on it. So we're going to look for all of these components and kind of check them off as we go down the list.
NICK BUTLER>>: All right. Steeping grains and mesh bag.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Mesh bag. NICK BUTLER>>: Mesh bag is here.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Yep.
NICK BUTLER>>: And our steeping grains -- NICK STEPHAN>>: That's those. NICK BUTLER>>: -- are right here.
Number two, 1.5-pound Northern Brewer Gold Malt Extract. We have two bags of the hops.
We have the brewed yeast.
It looks like these are the Northern Brewer fizz drops. NICK STEPHAN>>: That's correct.
NICK BUTLER>>: You add these to the actual bottle?
NICK STEPHAN>>: You add those to the bottle at the time of bottling, that's correct. NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Those will carbonate the bottle. NICK BUTLER>>: So this is during the bottling process? NICK STEPHAN>>: That's correct.
NICK BUTLER>>: These look like sour drops, these fizz drops for your beer. I'm just going to try one. It's candy. It's great.
So how much water do we need for the 2-gallon pot?
NICK STEPHAN>>: So you're going to put 1 and quarter gallons in there, and the reason you use a little bit more water than just 1 gallon is that you're going to have loss during the boil, right?
Some of it's going to boil off and evaporate -- NICK BUTLER>>: Right. NICK STEPHAN>>: -- over the course of the hour. So 1.25 gallons of cool tap water will be just fine to start with.
NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
NICK STEPHAN>>: So next step is we just need to put the grains in the bag, and, yeah, we are at 160 now.
Tying that off -- just tie that off to the handle actually make it's easier to retrieve after you're all said and done.
NICK BUTLER>>: Okay. So we want to dip this in and kind of bob it a few times --
NICK STEPHAN>>: Yeah, just like -- NICK BUTLER>>: -- and then tie it off?
NICK STEPHAN>>: Exactly, just like a teabag.
You know, kind of get in there and get everything nice and wet and make sure you hydrate all the grains, and then, yeah, just tie it off to this handle and we'll let it start steeping for twenty minutes.
All right. So twenty minutes has passed and we've extracted the color and aroma we're looking for, at least should have -- it looks like we have.
So now we can just untie that guy. NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
NICK STEPHAN>>: And pull it out. NICK BUTLER>>: All right.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Give it a couple bobs just to make sure we get it all out, and then lift it up and drain out all of the excess just to make sure we get all the -- all the flavor and aroma -- NICK BUTLER>>: All the goods out of there?
NICK STEPHAN>>: Exactly. Exactly. And then once that stops dripping, just toss it in here. NICK BUTLER>>: All right.
NICK STEPHAN>>: And we can discard into the trash. NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
NICK STEPHAN>>: We need to wait for this to come up to a boil.
NICK BUTLER>>: Okay. And at this point is the temperature important or is it just boiling?
NICK STEPHAN>>: Just boiling. Yep, we want to get up to a boil, and then as soon as we achieve that boil, we'll cut power -- or cut the heat and add the malt extract. NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
All right. Great. I guess we'll wait until it boils. NICK STEPHAN>>: So now we wait. NICK BUTLER>>: All right.
NICK BUTLER>>: So it looks like we've got this up to a boil. Now we're ready for the malt extract, right? NICK STEPHAN>>: Correct, yep.
It is important to note that you want to cut the heat to the kettle, which I just did.
If you add the malt extract while applying heat, you risk scorching the sugars on the bottom of the kettle, so we want to cut that heat while we're adding that, and then we'll return it to heat once we have that all stirred in.
You're going to taste that? NICK BUTLER>>: Yeah. NICK STEPHAN>>: It's actually not bad.
NICK BUTLER>>: Yeah, it tastes fine. NICK STEPHAN>>: Yeah, it's sweet.
NICK BUTLER>>: I'll have another one.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Now we just need to bring it back up to a boil.
NICK BUTLER>>: Back up to a boil. So it looks like we're back up to a boil.
What's the next step?
NICK STEPHAN>>: All right. So once you see your first kind of doming boil, right, then it's time to do your first hop addition. So grab one of those Willamette hops. NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
NICK STEPHAN>>: And you can just tear that guy open. NICK BUTLER>>: All right. This is 7 grams.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Yep, so we'll dump that in. But hold on one second. I just want to point out to people at home, so at this point it is a good idea to lower your heat a little bit on your kettle.
You may have heard a little bit about boil over and the problems that that can cause.
The boil can actually rise up, spill over the sides, and caramelize your stove.
This is when it's really dangerous, and when it can happen is during your first hop addition. So add them slowly and stir at the same time and reduce heat.
That should reduce the chance of boil over and a really sticky mess.
NICK BUTLER>>: Okay. So this has been boiling for a good thirty minutes now.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Um-hmm.
NICK BUTLER>>: We're ready for the second hop addition.
NICK STEPHAN>>: That's correct, yep.
So the way this is going to go is we're doing a forty-five-minute total boil. So the total boil will be forty-five minutes.
We put one addition in at the very beginning and then with fifteen minutes remaining, we'll add the second addition of hops. NICK BUTLER>>: All right.
NICK STEPHAN>>: And then we'll continue to boil for fifteen minutes. Once that's complete, we're all done with the boil. Ready to get them in? NICK BUTLER>>: Wait, one more.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Perfect. Give it a stir just to make sure they're all dissolved and broke up in there.
And we wait for fifteen more minutes. NICK BUTLER>>: Fifteen more minutes on the boil.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Fifteen minutes has passed. We are finished with our boil, so we've cut heat.
At this point you want to put the cover on the kettle. Up to this point you want the cover off of the kettle. NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
NICK STEPHAN>>: So we'll cover it up now to keep any airborne stuff out of it and we'll begin to do our chill.
So the easiest way for folks at home to do a chill right out of the gate is just do an ice bath. So literally let's just put water and ice in your sink, drop this guy in there, and wait for it to cool down.
Once your beer goes into the ice bath -- or once your wort goes into the ice bath, I recommend now having a beer. You can't really ruin anything anymore.
Get everything cleaned, get everything chilling, and now is a great time to kick back and enjoy a beer.
NICK BUTLER>>: Hey, I'm two ahead of you. Welcome to the party.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Roast.
NICK BUTLER>>: Now we can just clean everything. NICK STEPHAN>>: Yeah, now it's time to get everything ready for where the beer is actually going to live in the fermentor after we're done with the chill.
Now we should basically fill this jug up full of 1 gallon of warm to hot water.
We don't want to go boiling obviously. Putting boiling water into a glass container is probably never a good idea.
And then we'll add 1 tablespoon of our cleanser to that.
All right. So this next part is super scientific. We're going to pick the jug up.
NICK BUTLER>>: And shake it around. NICK STEPHAN>>: And shake it around.
Just make sure everything gets -- all of the cleaner gets dissolved. Try not to splash everywhere. And let that stand for about two minutes.
NICK BUTLER>>: We don't need any extra cleansing for this because I used it as a jug-band instrument?
NICK STEPHAN>>: That cleanser should take care of any of the microbes that came off of your -- NICK BUTLER>>: Beard. NICK STEPHAN>>: -- face area.
NICK BUTLER>>: My face area. NICK STEPHAN>>: Yep.
NICK BUTLER>>: Yeah. NICK STEPHAN>>: Exactly. NICK BUTLER>>: Good.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Now once this stands for two to three minutes, we're going to want to transfer that cleanser into a second vessel.
One thing I should say at this point is that in order to have -- create a proper siphon, obviously the vessel you're coming out of needs to be higher than the vessel you're transferring into.
Otherwise, gravity just doesn't quite work, and you need to be in that level.
So I'm just going to use this stool, move this guy up here, keep that hose and that vessel right there, and we give this a couple of pumps and that siphon should start no problem, and we'll just run this into that vessel.
And then once we get towards the end, we tip this guy just to pick up all the liquid.
All right. So after we've transferred that over into this vessel, we just want to -- and all of our stoppers and airlocks have had a chance to soak, we take out our -- our stopper and we can just toss this on here. NICK BUTLER>>: All right.
NICK STEPHAN>>: And also take the three pieces of our airlock; fill up the airlock about halfway. NICK BUTLER>>: Halfway?
NICK STEPHAN>>: Yep. Just so that basically that top is submerged.
NICK BUTLER>>: Yep. CO2 out and nothing back in. NICK STEPHAN>>: Exactly. Exactly.
So this is now ready to go; ready for our beer as soon as we've finished chilling.
NICK BUTLER>>: Okay. So our wort is completely chilled.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Yep.
NICK BUTLER>>: The next step is getting the wort into the jug.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Yep. And we will proceed to transfer this out of our kettle, into our fermentor. Give it a couple of quick pumps and the siphon starts. Pretty easy.
So as you're transferring this out, you want to be sure to kind of keep the siphon just a little bit off the bottom.
There's going to be a lot of sludge and sediment that's built up on the bottom of the kettle and you want to leave behind as much of that as possible.
NICK BUTLER>>: Slightly raised above the -- NICK STEPHAN>>: Off the bottom, yep.
NICK BUTLER>>: Okay. NICK STEPHAN>>: About an inch off the bottom should be plenty.
NICK BUTLER>>: Okay. NICK STEPHAN>>: But you'll kind of see -- if you get down too far, you'll start to see this get cloudy.
NICK BUTLER>>: Okay. NICK STEPHAN>>: So try to keep it clear and -- so right there I picked up a little bit of air bubbles, but we're good to go.
And then as the level gets lower, just slowly tip and try to leave behind as much as of the sediment that you'll see start to show up in the bottom of the kettle.
And then we'll just keep going until we've got it all. NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
NICK STEPHAN>>: So now we need to cut open our yeast packet and pitch our yeast in here, and then we'll put our stopper back on. NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
NICK STEPHAN>>: And, again, we have cleaned the outside of that yeast packet with cleanser, as well as those scissors.
And just pour that right in there. Perfect. Just like that. So then we put this back on. And we wait.
That is now technically beer. That is no longer wort.
NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
NICK STEPHAN>>: One thing you might want to do for the first 24 hours or so is actually remove this guy and set it aside, and we'll use what we refer to as a blow-off tube.
NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
NICK STEPHAN>>: So what that is, is this larger diameter tubing that we -- came in your kit.
You'll actually want to take this and put it in your cleanser; make sure it's completely submerged, gets total contact, and drain it out again.
Two to three minutes contact time will be more than sufficient to make sure it's cleansed.
And then all you do is literally just put one end of the tubing into your stopper and one end of the tubing into the vessel that you have remaining..
NICK BUTLER>>: So that's only really necessary for the first 24 hours?
NICK STEPHAN>>: That's correct. Yep, just to ensure that the foam doesn't come up, plug this thing up, and cause you problems down the road.
NICK BUTLER>>: After one day, you're fine to put the stopper back on?
NICK STEPHAN>>: Yep. Put your three-piece airlock back on and then it can store anywhere else. So just for the first 24 hours you want to leave it like this. NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
NICK STEPHAN>>: So that's basically it for the first day.
Now at this point you just want to find somewhere dark and warm to put this guy.
NICK BUTLER>>: Brew day, done. NICK STEPHAN>>: Easy.
NICK BUTLER>>: All right.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Roast. NICK BUTLER>>: Roast.
NICK STEPHAN>>: This is what the beer is going to look like after 24 hours. It's going to kind of take on this milky color, and this is actually a lot of active yeast in suspension.
You'll notice like a krausen ring will be around the top here. At the airlock, you'll see every -- oh, two to five -- three to five seconds, you'll see a bubble coming out of there -- NICK BUTLER>>: Yeah.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Yep. And that's the CO2 being released from the actively fermenting beer.
NICK BUTLER>>: And this will sit here for -- NICK STEPHAN>>: We'll do another seven to ten days here. After two weeks, we can transfer it out and we can go into bottling. NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
So we're finally here, bottling day.
NICK STEPHAN>>: We are here. This is bottling day.
So first things first, we already mixed up a gallon of cleanser and put it in our kettle, and then in there, we'll need to put our bottle caps and clean each one of our bottles as we go through this. Toss those guys in.
And then also while we're at it, we want to clean our Rack Magic® Siphon.
So the best way to do this is we want to assemble our siphon, where our bottling wand goes on one end of the tubing, our siphon goes on the other end of the tubing.
We kind of create this little loop here. We'll use that for bottling. Pump this up and down to force this -- NICK BUTLER>>: Force this through?
NICK STEPHAN>>: Exactly. Force the cleaner through a few times, and that should ensure that we're good and clean so we can go into bottling.
NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
NICK STEPHAN>>: So now we just need to clean all of those bottles.
So I think that sounds like a great job for you. NICK BUTLER>>: Yes, it does.
I've done your dirty work; I've cleaned all the bottles. Now we're ready to bottle, right? NICK STEPHAN>>: We are. We are.
So the next thing, take these fizz drops and go ahead and put one fizz drop in each one of these bottles. NICK BUTLER>>: All right.
NICK STEPHAN>>: What that's going to do is provide a little bit of extra sugar for the yeast to consume, and that will allow them to carbonate the beer inside the bottle after we cap them.
All right. Final step here -- or second to final step, I'm going to hand you this end of the wand.
What we're going to do is I'm going to open up our fermentor here. I will have you place that into the bottom of one of those bottles.
Now there's a little tab on the bottom there that needs to be depressed in order to allow the flow to come through this tube. NICK BUTLER>>: Um-hmm.
NICK STEPHAN>>: So as I pump this, that will start the flow, and then once you see the level reach the top of that bottle --
NICK BUTLER>>: The very top? NICK STEPHAN>>: The very top.
Lift up, that will stop the flow, and then as you remove the wand, it will actually leave the perfect amount of headspace in the neck there.
NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
NICK STEPHAN>>: So here we go. Keep that pressed against the bottom of the bottle until the beer level reaches the very top of the neck.
Then as soon as it gets to the top, lift up, and that will stop and leave you the perfect amount of headspace.
NICK BUTLER>>: Okay.
{♪♪MUSIC♪♪}
That's -- those are -- yep. NICK STEPHAN>>: Time to cap them off. NICK BUTLER>>: Yep.
{♪♪MUSIC♪♪}
NICK STEPHAN>>: We're all bottled up and packaged. Now these just need to sit in a warm, dark place for one to two weeks. NICK BUTLER>>: Okay. Great.
Well, Nick, I want to thank you for helping me along the process.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Not a problem.
NICK BUTLER>>: I think my first brewing experience was a success. Can't wait to try one; can't wait to enjoy it.
NICK STEPHAN>>: Cheers man. NICK BUTLER>>: Yeah, thank you so much. NICK STEPHAN>>: Excellent.
{♪♪MUSIC♪♪}
NICK BUTLER>>: So it's been two weeks and I finally have a chilled beer ready to open and enjoy. So I'm going to pop this open; give it a drink.
I had a really great time brewing my own beer for the very first time.
The process is simple, start to finish, with the small batch.
Now I hope you have as much fun as I did brewing my own beer.
Cheers, and happy brewing.