The first step is to get your notebook and your brewkit. I like to keep notes of my brewing. It’s not necessary, but it’s nice to go back and look.

Begin

Next, clean and sanitize your primary fermentor, air lock, and spoon. I washed it with Ajax dish soap, then sanitized with one-step.

Cleaning the primary

Sanitizer

After washing the primary, I put ice in it and filled it to the 2 gallon mark with water. I then set it outside. I did this because I have a wort chiller on order and will need a way to chill my wort. This will come in handy later.

Next, lay out all of your ingredients.

All of the ingredients

Time to start brewing. Get a pot of water to around 150F and steep your grains to create the wort.

Grains Steeping

Not exact, but close.

After steeping for 20 minutes, remove and discard. Then bring the water up to a nice rolling boil. At this point you will add your remaining malt. Whether they are dry, wet, or a mixture depends on the kit. I am brewing an IPA and mine had both.

Dry malt extract

Liquid Extract

Next you will add your bittering hops. Mine were Columbus, which were awesome smelling, and Cascade. It will look swampy and smell delicious.

Mmm, hoppy

This boils for 55 minutes. At the last 5 minutes, you boil in the flavoring hops. After it has boiled for an hour, remove the wort and cool it rapidly to 70F. This is where the ice water comes in, I simply poured the wort into the water. I then added enough cold water to make 5 gallons.

Room temp wort

Finally, add the yeast, give ‘er a stir, and set it in a dark cool place. It will sit in the primary for 2 weeks.

Yeast

In the brew closet

And here’s a treat. Two days later, it was bubbling. It does this because yeast eats sugar and gives off alcohol and carbon dioxide.