Malt is one of the main ingredients found in beer; and it’s what provides beer with a distinct color, flavor and body. But while the concept of malt can be quite simple, one of the first questions any beer-maker asks when they first start out is, “What is malt?”
Malt, in its most basic form, is barley or other type of grain that has gone through a malting process. That process includes germinating the grain, soaking it, and drying it so that it can provide a superior flavor and important sugars to beer and other products. The entire process includes a variety of malting products from which you can typically choose to malt yourself, or purchase malt extract or dry malted grains.
However, no matter what type of products or process you’re using, you’ll still be able to choose from a huge variety of different types of malts.
Standard base malts include 2 row pale malts, 6 row, Pilsner, and wheat malts. Specialty malts are also available, and these malts typically add a stronger flavor, color, and body to the overall beer. These types of malts include Carapils, Honey malts, Munich, Rauch, Rye, special roast, Victory, and Vienna.
If none of these specialty malts can provide that rich, distinct flavor you’re looking for, crystal malts may be able to do the trick. And they’re a completely different type of malt altogether.
When crystal malts undergo their malting process, their starches are turned to a sugar; and that sugar then becomes caramelized. Once that has taken place, crystal malts provide a rich, sugary taste along with good head retention and a color that can be anywhere from light tan to deep mahogany.
The world of malts is just one that you need to understand when you set out to create your own special blend of home brew. The good news is that it’s a fun area to explore, and it helps you create your own uniquely flavored beer! To read more about the various malted barleys and the role the play in a beer recipe, you might want to take a look at another blog post: “What Are The Different Malts Used in Homebrew Recipes?“

Keeping your home brew stuff clean at all times and sanitizing it is essential for creating clean and fresh tasting beer. The beer brewing process encourages the growth of microbes to accommodate a yeast fermentation. Unwanted bacteria will have a chance to grow as well, so it is best to eliminate it up-front through sanitation.
Your home brewing equipment will come into contact with sugars, malt extract, malted grains, beer yeast, hops, and many other substances. Make sure that all the equipment is sanitized if you wish to brew healthy and delicious beer.
First clean all visible dirt, stains, and dust from your equipment. After this use a sanitizer to kill the invisible microbes. After you have made your wort from the partial mash, if any foreign substance comes into contact with it, your homebrew can become infected. Boiling will kill the bacteria, but after the boiling process has been completed, you need to be extra careful with the resultant beer wort.
Make sure that the brew kettle, beer fermenter, airlock, lauter tun, hoses, utensils, carboys, wort chillers, beer bottles, rubber stoppers, and all other home brewing equipment are properly sanitized. Anything, which is made from plastic, needs to be cleaned with special care. Do not use abrasives such as scouring pads on these product, or this will scratch the plastic – the perfect hideout for bacteria.
While cleaning your equipment make sure that the sanitizers you are using are made for the very purpose. There are many sanitizers on the market that are specifically designed for cleaning homebrew equipment. A few of the more popular ones are: Basic A, Iodophor, B-Brite and Star San. All of these will sanitize you equipment safely and effectively.

Cornelius kegs, which are sometimes called “corney kegs”, are a boon for homebrew lovers. They have a wide array of advantages. The popularity of these kegs has increased simply because they have afforded the home brewer the ability to put their beer on tap. They have a multitude of benefits and here are some of the advantages of Cornelius kegs:
• Forced carbonation is the perhaps the biggest advantage that had made them popular among people owning home breweries. You don’t have to wait for bottle conditioning. Just fill the keg and charge with CO2.
• Kegging beer saves you from troubles of routine maintenance that are associated with bottling. No more cleaning, filling and capping beer bottles.
• Corney kegs have a small footprint. This is one of the prime reasons why people love to use them for kegging homebrew. You can typically fit up to 4 in a full size refrigerator.
• High reliability and easy availability of these kegs has made them famous among novice and pros alike. If a seal does eventually wear out, they are very easy and inexpensive to replace.
• Beer bottles tend to break while plastic kegs or king kegs may develop scratches. Glass bottles are fragile, and though they cost much less initially, they cost a lot in the long run. When you calculate the breakage associated with bottles and compare it with the onetime investment that is associated with Corney kegs, the results are just the same. Many people feel that kegs are costly but they ignore the damage that happens because of broken bottles.
• The corney keg makes it easy for you to rack beer and store it efficiently. Hence, it helps in converting your room into a brewery really easily.
Other than these points, kegs are a cool alternative. If you dislike washing beer bottles, kegs are the way to go. These kegs save a lot of space and are easier to handle. Save time and money, and get these kegs for your homebrew. To read more about kegging you homebrew, take a look at “Basic Homebrewing Tips For Kegging Your Beer“.

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In a recent survey that was conducted at a university, it was stated that beer was the highest consumed hard drink among people of all ages, (we are talking about adults of course). Beer is an every-night-out’s staple drink. You might be going through dozens of bottles every month for your weekend parties, but did you ever stop to think how this amazing drink is brewed? It’s not really rocket science.
To brew it yourself, you need some very simple homebrew stuff that is generally present in a regular kitchen.  Beer generally takes approximately three weeks to brew.
To begin with, gather all the home brewing ingredients that is called for in your beer recipe. This usually consist of malt extract, specialty grains, beer hops and beer yeast. Make sure the home brewing equipment you use is sanitized.
Next step is to add the specialty grains to hot water, usually at about 160° F. After an hour or so, filter the barley.  Now add to this tea of sorts the malt extract and bring to a boil.
Add the beer hops into the wort. Hops are responsible for a lot of the flavor in a beer. Hops are bitter in taste, so you need to take care. Also, the more you boil hops, the more they will lose their bitter flavor, so it is important that you follow your beer recipe directions closely during this step.
Cool the wort and add water to it until the total volume reaches the intended batch size. Now you can add the beer yeast and let the fermentation begin. Once the beer yeast has completed the fermentation, usually about 5 days, it will produce what you’ve been craving for. Yes, alcohol and carbon dioxide. Alcohol adds an amazing taste to beer, and carbon dioxide takes the form of foam.
Now it’s up to you. You can put your homebrew on tap and keg the beer, or you can bottle it allow it to carbonate within the beer bottles, a process known as priming.
Now your down to the very last step — drinking. Having a world a beers available to you that you’ve made with your own efforts is a very exciting and fulfilling venture. And, it’s easier to make than it’s ever been. Beer ingredient kits have made the steps above easy to accomplish with there pre-measured ingredients and proven beer recipes. So why not give it a try.
To read more about how to make your own beer you might want to take a look at “5 Simple Steps To Making Beer“. This is another blog post the goes over the brewing process in a little more detail.

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