We know what’s on your Christmas list: to brew and drink amazing craft beer. At our radically open brewery we are spreading the brew love by sharing with you the 5 stages of brewing the perfect craft beer.
Mash It
Start off with a nice long steep. This first step is where your grains come into play. Throw your barley into the mash tun and treat it to a lovely hour long soak in water somewhere in the area of 68°. This is where you’ll extract fermentable sugars from your barley by activating its malt enzymes and creating wort. Your inner lab geek has the opportunity to shine and UBREW pros are on standby for every stage of the process.
Boil it
This part of the brewing process is a crowd favourite. Transfer your wort into the boiling copper and get ready to introduce your number 1 love: hops. The hops are what really determines your brew outcome, so play around! As course brewer Nathan said “It gave me an insight into what contributes to the different tastes I really enjoy in beer and not often do you get to compare and contrast such a variety in one place”. Just remember, hops added at the beginning of your hour long boil contribute to bitterness, while hops at the end of the boil make up the aroma.
Ferment it
Time to cool down your wort and wait for the magic to happen. Run your hoptastic liquid through a chill plate into the fermenter, throw some yeast in and leave it in a perfectly tempered room for about 2 weeks. The first five days will be your fermentation period, where sugar turns to alcohol, and the last seven days will a loss potent secondary fermentation, where less than delicious bi-products are gobbled up by your yeast and the UBREW team will add dry hops to really bring out a hoptastic aroma in your beer.
Bottle it
Once you are satisfied that your brew is fermented, time to bottle or keg it! Keep it as clean as possible with the right supplies and make sure you add some more fermented sugar to carbonate your beer.
Drink it
Arguably the best part of craft beer brewing process: the taste test. We’re guessing you know how to proceed with this one, but if you don’t UBREW is around to lend a helping hand.
For those of you who want to try out this process while tasting some international craft beer, pop into UBREW! Or better yet, make this the Christmas gift that just keeps giving with one of our brewing course experiences.
