It’s nice to have lots of cool, shiny equipment to make beer with but, let’s be honest, it can take a bit of time to accrue exactly the right inventory of toys in your brewing cupboard. So if you’re a beginner, or something decides to break or wander off, it might seem like you have to put-off brew day until you have all your ducks in a row.
Never fear! When we started making beer at home we had nothing but a wooden spoon and saucepan and so over the years there has been a lot of experimentation and improvisation. We’re here in this article to show you how you can use stuff that you might already own, as a quick substitute for a fancy gadget gathering dust on your amazon wish list! Along the way we’ll also discuss where we think that your money is best-placed in the beginning.
Mashing
Mashing seems like a lot of hassle because its the very first step in the brew day. Not only that but you’re also dealing with solids AND liquids AND temperatures AND timings. Never fear, even if it seems like you need to remember hundreds of things, you definitely don’t need to spend hundreds of pounds!
- Measuring Jug: One of the first jobs on brew day is to measure out an appropriate amount of water. If you find yourself without a measuring jug, a good alternative is to use a kitchen weighing scale. Each litre of water weighs exactly 1 kg and so if you need to measure out 5 L of water for a mash-method brew, simply weigh out 5 kg of tap water. If you don’t have a scale or weighing liquids is difficult, then bear in mind that pint glasses (I know you have some of those lying around) hold around 570 ml (⅔ = 380, half = 285, third = 190). This means that 8 pints and 1 ⅔ of a pint get you right up to your 5 L of water.
- Weighing Ingredients: If you weren’t lucky enough to have us weigh your ingredients out for you then obviously, a kitchen scale is the obvious choice here. If you don’t have a kitchen scale then this is a good place to invest a little money, even a very cheap scale will pay for itself very quickly and can be used outside of the brewery. A digital scale is most useful. If your scale is broken then I suggest simply buying bags of grain in amounts similar to those that you are going to need them in and throw them all in. For example, if your pale ale requires 900 g of pale ale malt and 200 g of crystal, simply buy 1 kg of pale ale and 250 g of crystal. It won’t be perfect but it will definitely still make beer! Hops are a little more difficult, as most vendors (Brwit excluded) will not weigh out hops for you. If you absolutely have to eyeball pre-packaged hops then I suggest buying pelletised hops. They aren’t as pretty to look at and, in my opinion, don’t give as tasty results, but they are more uniform in shape and size than hop flowers.
- Saucepans: Most people will have a reasonably sized saucepan for making, well… Sauce. The trick is having enough space in the saucepan, not only for the liquid, but all the grain also. If you don’t have access to a pan that can hold at least 2 L more than the volume of liquid you need then you can mash in ANY container that is rated as ‘food safe’. So if you have a bowl or plastic box that is big enough, go right ahead. Temperature can be maintained by adding cold or boiling water to lower or raise the temperature respectively. Obviously, you WILL need a pan to boil in so it may be worth investing in a larger pan.
- Thermometer: This is my top pick for places to spend your money early on. A glass thermometer might cost £2 and is worth Every. Single. Penny. A thermometer is necessary for maintaining mash temperature and determining when your beer is cool enough to pitch yeast into. THERE IS A WAY TO MASH without a thermometer, a method known as decoction mashing. Decoction mashing is a method that is way beyond the scope of this quick-hitter but it basically involved adding your grist to cold water and periodically removing portions of it. These portions are boiled and then returned to the main mash which slightly raises the overall temperature. This process is repeated until the mash is at or around the correct temperature… Simple enough right?… I am a much bigger fan of thermometers than I am of decoction mashing.
- Filter: As nice as porridge is, beer is way better. So after the mash you have to remove all that grain material from the sweet liquid wort. A standard kitchen sieve will achieve this nicely. If the sieve doesn’t quite do the job then recirculating the wort through the sieve and grain will definitely get any rogue pieces of cereal out. IF YOU WANTED TO SPLASH OUT here then I highly recommend getting some sort of mesh bag to brew with (usually referred to as a BrewBag). This removes the need to keep lugging large amounts of hot water around and, especially on the small scale, they’re usually pretty damn efficient! Still though, that old kitchen sieve sat at the back of the kitchen cupboard will do the trick nicely.
Boiling
Boiling requires much less finesse (and equipment) than mashing. I do have a kit suggestions right off the bat, though: a clock. Any kind of clock. Ideally a stopwatch or timer but to execute the perfect boil, all you really need is to keep an eye on the time! All the rest is just gravy!
- Fining agent: If you’re a fan of clear beer, it can seem like a good idea to try to encourage some of the particulate material (trub) that gets left in the pan to drop out of solution a little bit. This is usually achieved using a fining agent called ‘irish moss’ (or ‘protofloc’ or ‘whirlfloc’ etc). If you don’t have any of these things to hand, a small amount of gelatin can be added (somewhere in the region of a half teaspoon per gallon). This is best added whilst the beer is hot so that it has the best chance of dissolving. A BETTER ALTERNATIVE to this is something that is finding its way into kitchens more and more these days. A product called ‘xantham gum’ that is used as a gluten-free, vegan thickener. Xanthan gum is a VERY GOOD thickener and so you really only need around a quarter of a teaspoon per gallon. If you’re weighing, you need much less than 1 g of powder. Again, add this whilst the beer is hot so that it dissolves properly.
AN ALTERNATIVE TO FINING is to not fine at all. Studies have shown that, not only does kettle trub NOT have a negative effect but that it might actually have a POSITIVE effect on fermentation and yeast health… I’m still unsure what to make of that but if it means I can be a little lazy at the end of a brewday I might be inclined to give it some thought from time to time.
- Hydrometer: If you want to know how strong your beer is or monitor the progress of your brewing or fermentation then you may want to measure the gravity of your beer. A hydrometer is the perfect way to do this. HOWEVER, if you don’t have one of those there are alternatives. The best alternative, I think, is the good old kitchen scale. To get a gravity reading using your scales then simply measure out a known volume of liquid using a measuing jug or glass (for example 100 ml). Then weigh this liquid IN GRAMS (remember not to include the weight of the glass or jug in the measurement). Divide the scale weight by the volume of liquid and there you have your gravity.FOR EXAMPLE! If I’m making a porter with a target original gravity of 1.050 and have somehow broken ANOTHER hydrometer at the end of a brew day I will accurately measure-out 100 ml of my cold wort. I will then weigh this. Lets say the weight of 100 ml of this liquid is 105.00 g. I’ll then divide 105.00 g by 100 ml to get my gravity of 1.050. Again, if the most accurate way that you have of measuring liquid is with a pint glass then use that and divide by 568 ml instead of 100 ml. I will just say though that, whilst beer gravity is nice to know, it is not essential, especially in the early days.
Fermentation
Fermentation is the final step of the actual brewing process and, while it might seem like you just have to leave your beer in a dark room for a week, there is still some equipment required.
- Sanitiser: Sanitation, sanitation, sanitiation. The three golden rules of brewing! Sanitation is boring. There’s no denying that. It is however, super important. This is where I will make a purchase recommendation. There is a no-rinse sanitiser brand called StarSan. A bottle of StarSan will cost around £16, depending on where you buy it and how much postage costs, and could last the rest of your natural life. Not only is it no-rinse but it is odorless, reusable, storable, cleans as well as sanitises and only requires a 90 second contact time which means that it can also be applied by spraying… That being said, this article isn’t called ‘Some Equipment Brewing’ so I’ll crack on with my no-purchase necessary options.
Household bleach can be used to sanitise equipment. Be sure to make the bleach up to the correct dilution as stated on the back of the bottle as different brands of bleach contain varying concentrations of bleach. Sanitising with bleach is more difficult than sanitising with a no-rinse sanitiser but it does have a handy indicator for when your stuff is clean: if it smells like bleach, keep on rinsing! Most equipment can also be pasteurised i.e. sanitised using boiling water (or wort). If you really dont want to use StarSan or bleach then you can boil your equipment. This works well for spoons, hydrometers, thermometers, sieves etc. but can be a little more difficult for fermentors. Glass fermentors can NOT be pasteurised using boiling water (because they explode) and most plastic ones can’t either (because they implode).
- Transferring: This is an overlooked part of the brewday. The final hurdle, when almost 5 L of liquid is moved from a large, open-topped pan, into a small fermentor. My advice here is that a funnel or piece of tubing does the trick wonderfully! Simply filter-off the hop material and then siphon the liquid or pour through the funnel. Failing that, using a wide-necked fermentor also removes a lot of the difficulty from this. HOWEVER if you’re trying to be frugal and can’t find any of that stuff then I have a trick for you.
The Wooden Spoon Technique as I am just now referring to it, will get your beer from A to B with minimal spills. DISCLAIMER, It might require some practice… and a friend. Take a sanitised wooden spoon and turn it upside down. Place the end of the spoon handle through the neck of the fermentor with the other end in the air. Touch the lip of your cold pan to the base of the spoon handle. Now pour. Pour with conviction and the liquid will run down the edge of the spoon, into the fermentor. Simple. Like I said, you may need a friend to help you hold either the spoon or the pan… The pan will be heavier so chose your role wisely!
- Fermentor: If fermentation is simply leaving your beer in a dark room for a week then you’re going to need a container to put it in. This can be literally ANYTHING that fits 5 L of liquid in. Some recommendations here are a wide-neck (to make transfer easier), a smooth lining (to make cleaning and sanitising easier) and one that has a marking at 4.5 L. I do not recommend an insulated container as the beer will get warm during fermentation and it is important for this heat to be able to be dissipated. A 5 L water bottle is perfect.
- Bubbler/Airlock: Finally, your beer is in the fermentor, now you just need a way to keep the bugs out without an explosion. A great way to do this is with the tried and tested balloon technique. Putting a small hole in an ordinary balloon and putting over the neck of the fermentor allows the carbon dioxide generated from the fermentation to be released as it is formed. The positive pressure of carbon dioxide leaving the balloon will prevent any backteria from entering the container. This technique also has the advantage of letting you know when fermentation is active (the balloon inflates) and when it is over (the balloon looks sad). If a balloon is a little over budget OR you listened to us back in the transferring step and the neck of your fermentor is too wide then an ‘open’ fermentation is the way forward. Simply place a piece of sanitised foil or tissue paper over the mouth of the fermentor and secure with an elastic band. An open fermentation can also give some interesting flavour profiles to a beer so it may be worth trying this even if you have a bubbler handy?
There it is! The Brwit guide to brewing without spending a penny on equipment. If you think that we have missed anything off the list or would like more advice on how to implement some of the tips, please get in touch! We love to hear from you.
The Brwit Team