14 DAY TRIAL // Maybe you got tired of the same brands of beer and you want to try something new, or maybe those small bottles in which they serve it are simply not enough. Whatever your reasons, you should know that making beer at home is fairly easy, and requires no prior experience. In fact, because you would be the owner of your own brewery, you will be able to fine tune the product to fit your exact demands. And who knows? Maybe your recipe will be so good that it will land a production deal, making you a millionaire over night.
Let's start off with the equipment. There are some basic tools each home brewery needs, and they include one 10-gallon "food grade" plastic pail with lid, which at most hardware stores costs about $12, a 74 inch (188 centimeter)-long siphon hose, which costs about $2, a $1-hose clamp for siphon, a large pot, or turkey roaster, a thermometer and a hydrometer, which cost about $8 each, and about a dozen 2-liter plastic pop bottles with lids. These are the basic tools required. Over time, if you feel like it, you can add various others, depending on what you're trying to accomplish.
Then, there are four basic ingredients of beer, namely water, malt extract, yeast and sugar. Now, you can buy malt extract in 40oz containers, or in 1.5kg "tall" cans, depending on the amount of beer you want to produce at once. “Pre-hopped” extracts are also available in some places, and they will give your beer a more hop-like flavor. For a basic recipe, use one 40oz container with one teaspoonful of yeast. You may buy it from any store, or you may receive it with some brands of malt extract.
As for sugar, in the mix described above, add six to seven cups of regular white sugar, or between eight and nine cups of corn sugar, which is preferred on account of its flavor. In order to get a more rich taste in your beer, however, consider not using sugar, but adding two cans of malt. This will, of course, make the mixture more expensive, but you will be compensated in terms of taste. Bottom line, for $10 to $15, you get enough ingredients to make some 23 liters of beer, the rough equivalent of 65 to 70 regular 345 milliliter cans, that you can buy from the store.
The production process is fairly easy. Simply pour 10 liters of fresh cold water into the 10 gallon plastic pail. Then boil 7 liters of water in a different pot, and add a can of malt extract. Stir and cook without a lid for 20 minutes, then add sugar and mix it well in. As soon as the sugar is dissolved, pour the mixture into the pail. Splash it in, so that the mixture can get as much air inside as possible at first. The pail should now be almost half full. Add bottled or tap water until almost full, then sprinkle yeast on top of it and close the lid loosely. If too tight, the pail could explode on account of the forming gases.
In six to ten days, your beer should be done. An optimum room temperature is 16 to 20 degrees Celsius, but temperatures as high as 24 degrees Celsius are allowed. Cooler temperatures mean that the beverage could take one or two more days to complete. When it's done, use the hydrometer to test for readiness. It should show 1,008 for dark beer and 1,010 to 1,015 for light beer. Enjoy!