Thought a good first post would be one that covers one of the basics of home brewing.
As Chas mentioned yesterday, sanitising is king. The reason is that any bacteria that gets in can ruin your beer.
The beer making process is basically:
- Make a tasty sugary liquid.
- Add yeast which turns the sugar into alcohol.
- Make it bubbly.
Now there is obviously a lot more going on than that.
The tasty sugary liquid is called wort. And I’ll be using that name going forward, even though “tasty sugary liquid” does sound awesome.
Your wort is very vulnerable to all types of bacteria. Whatever gets there first will go crazy eating and growing. We only want the yeast to do that.
Hence making sure everything that touches the beer is:
First cleaned of any dirt, liquid, grime, dust, gung, bits, and whatnot.
Second sanitised to kill all bugs, bacteria, yeast, and tiny bad things.
Finally rinsed (if needed) and kept free of contamination.
This process can take a long time. Sometimes longer than all other steps combined! But if you get it right, which isn’t hard, then you’re well on your way to make tasty home brew beer.
-Mikey
We make home brew 