Intro
Over the years I did brew beer multiple times, first ~2004 with a Bier-Kwik style syrup set. Then 2011-2013 with malt. Now after many years of having my brewery stored away mostly in one 130L IKEA box it was time for me to brew again.
I however upgraded my kettle to a 50l stainless steel pod and I also got a malt mill, so I can mill malt just in time, removing the need to buy small quantities when needed.
Another major change for German home brewers, last time I brewed the yearly tax-free amount was 200 l, and you had to inform the Zoll (Customs) before you started each batch. Now starting with 2025 you can brew up to 500 l tax-free per adult household member and also no longer have to inform authorities when you brew, Erhöhung der steuerfreien Menge und Wegfall der Brauanzeige.
Here you can see my brewery (and woodworking shop and garage).
Brewing beer
There are a lot of different methods of brewing beer, some as old as human civilization. I will walk you through the method I use by describing my last brew, a Münchner Dunkel (Recipe Post).
Malting
We want to use the starch in barley grains and convert it into sugar, alcohol and CO2. Once we have yeast digestible sugars the yeast can do the rest. In order to turn the starch to different sugars we need enzymes, and we get those by letting the barley sprout and then stop the process with heat and dehydration, the product of this process is called malt, which I buy mostly from Weyermann. They are the world’s largest producer and even if I take a 10+ year break from brewing I still can get my known ingredients. :D
- More details in: Wikipedia Malting
Milling
We need to break up the grain to get the ingredients in solution, but we also do not want to grind it into powder to retain part of the barleys husk to use as a filter in a later stage. I use a low price malt mill with two large metal cylinders spaced 1.2 mm apart (adjustable).
After the malt is broken up the shelf life is greatly reduced, due to the now ongoing oxidation. Malt can safely be stored for 2+ years, but once turned into grist it should be used up in days. Yes there are people who use it for longer, but I would not take the risk, if you strive for consistency while iterating on your recipes.
Here you can see my mill, driven by a power drill.
Mashing
We now need to break up the starch into different sugars and transfer them into our water.
I heat the amount of water needed for the main pour in a large 50l pot equipped with a thermometer and ball valve, in this case 20 l to 55 °C. Now the grist can be poured in while constant stirring.
- More details in : Mashing
Protein Rest
Rests are plateaus, where the temperature is held for a predefined time to aid chemical process. The first is called protein rest, its purpose is to let the enzymes protease and peptidase break up protein into small amino acids. This should result in better available nutrition for the yeast and higher quality foam in the end product, but given good quality malt it is considered obsolete by some.
- I take 5 minutes at 55 °C, so the effort is fairly low.
1. Saccharification Rest - β-Amylase
The first saccharification rest or sugar rest is to break up starch into maltose, a sugar that can be digested by yeast and therefore will be turned into alcohol and is produced by an enzyme called β-Amylase. If we stay longer on this plateau we will turn more starch into maltose, getting a higher alcohol concentration and a leaner more dry beer.
The optimal temperature for β-Amylase is around 62 °C (58 to 65 °C), temperatures above 65 °C can already damage it.
- For this beer I rast at 63 °C for 25 minutes.
2. Saccharification Rest - α-Amylase
The second saccharification rest is to produce dextrin, a sugar that is not fermented by yeast and therefor makes the resulting beer sweeter. Dextrin (as well as some maltose) is produced by α-Amylase which operates best between 70 and 74 °C, it denatures at temperatures > 78 °C.
- For this beer I rast at 72 °C for 30 minutes.
For this is the last rast here we need to make sure all starch is converted to sugar. We do this by putting a bit of mash onto a white surface (I use a serial bowl) and put a few drops of N50 iodine solution into it. If after a few seconds the iodine turns black / dark we still have too much starch left. Once the iodine stays brown and does not change in color we can proceed.
- In my case after the 30 minutes the test showed no starch and I could proceed.
Lautering
Now that we removed from the malt what we desire, we can separate the washed out malt from the liquid which we now call wort.
In my case I open the ball valve in the kettle and let the ingredients flow into the lautering vessel, a ~ 30 cm silicone hose helps here to create the necessary suction to pull larger particles through the bottleneck in the valve. A 1/2 inch valve works for me with some amount of poking, but an ideal cattle would use a 1.5 or 2 inch (ca. 5 cm) one.
My lautering vessel is a 30 l plastic bucket with a valve at the bottom and a stainless steel sheet that has small slits in it, called MattMill Läuterblech.
The slots in the sheet are way too large to filter out small particles, they are just the holder for the filter, the barley husks.
After transfer, we let the mixture sit and settle for about 15 minutes. Then we can open and close the valve repeatedly, transferring wort into a small container. The first few liters will be cloudy and full of particles, it needs some time for the barley husks to compact and filter effectively. Until the output is clear, we put it back on top. Once the output has the desired clarity we adjust the valve to a steady flow that does not dry out or compact the filter too much. This setting depends on your setup! For me, I open the valve to around 3/4, and I do only attach a 10 cm hose, to not create too much suction! If you drain the wort too rapidly the barley husk filter compacts and gets clogged.
Once the water level over the filter goes below ~3 cm, I start adding the post pout, additional water that is heated up and kept at ~ 80 °C.
I have an 30 l electric cattle, which I keep full and warm, for hot water can be used for a lot of things during brewing, especially cleaning.
I pour in the water in 2 l batches without digging up the filter bed, by fist laying a plate in the bucked and then pouring slowly onto it.
- In my case I poured 16 l in 2 l batches until the outcome was very light and had only ~ 4 °P.
After all wort is moved to the kettle I steer it and measure the sugar content with a refractometer. The sugar content before boiling needs to be lower than the desired one, for it will increase in the process.
Hops Cooking
The wort can now be cooked to remove unwanted tastes, denaturalize all enzymes and extracts flavors from hops. It also helps to sterilize the wort itself and all items coming in contact with larger amounts, like the fermentation vessel.
Hops can be added at various stages, if it is added before boiling, most floral aromas will be boiled away and only bitterness remains. If added after boiling it will add much more complex flavors and less bitterness.
- In my case I boiled for a total of 70 minutes and added
- 24 g Tettnanger before boiling
- 36 g Tettnanger 10 minutes before end
In most recipes only the time is given for which the hops are boiled, so if you read “70 minutes boiling, 36 g Tettnanger 10 minutes” that does not mean to add it after 10 minutes, but to add it 10 minutes for the boiling ends, so in this case after 60 minutes.
After boiling the heat is cut and after around 5 minutes one of the most magical moments in brewing happens, the whirlpool. I use a paddle to stir the wort in one direction! After the whole wort rotates in one direction, it is left alone for 15 minutes. After this time the wort is not moving anymore and most of the hops and other particles have formed a cone in the middle of the kettle. We now can slowly drain most of the wort without the impurities. I open the valve half way and let the wort flow through a small hose into a filter. If the whirlpool was done correctly the filer is barley needed for the impurities stay behind. When the hops cone starts to break up I close the valve.
- In my case I had to leave 0.2 to 0.4 l of wort behind to not drain out the impurity cone.
- The refractometer showed 14 °P instead of the desired 12.4 °P, so I deluded the wort with boiled water until ~ 12.4 °P was reached.
Fermentation
I pour the hot wort into a 30 l fermentation bucked, sterilizing it in the process. Around 10% of the wort (depending on the sugar concentration and desired carbonization) is separated and stored in the freezer. I use plastic lab bottles for this process. The fermentation bucked is placed in the fridge. After one night at around 4 °C the wort is cool enough to add the yeast. More professional brewers will use specialized coolers to cool down the wort with in minutes, to reduce the time until the yeast can be added. You can directly pour an 11 g bag of dehydrated yeast on the cooled wort. A good temperature is around 15 to 25 °C, never over 30 °C, to not damage the yeast.
- In my case I use SafLager W-34/70 yeast, a lager yeast which I ferment in my fridge at around 10 °C which results in 12 °C in the barrel, for the yeast slightly heats it up.
I also did a small pre-brew to multiply the yeast beforehand, and so I poured around 1.5 l of yeast starter on the wort. This step is very overengineered, and I only do it because it’s fun not because of necessity. Don’t be like me and make things more complicated than they need to be. ;)
If you do want to multiply bottom-fermenting yeast, make sure to use a magnetic stirrer to keep the yeast cells in solution. Otherwise they will layer on the bottom.
Bottling
After around 2 weeks the fermentation is compleat. You can use the refractometer and calculate if the sugars are consumed or just wait for the fermentation lock to stop bubbling / moving for 2 days.
After the fermentation is completed I drain the beer slowly into another bucked, trying to leave as many impurities in the fermentation barrel.
In the second barrel I mix in the 10% wort that was stored frozen to introduce enough fermentable sugar for the bottle fermentation. If you want to be safe you can also boil and cool the wort just before adding.
I now use a stainless steel bottle filler to fill up clean and sterilized bottles from the bottom up. You can also use a piece of silicone tube. It is important that you fill from the bottom to not introduce unnecessary oxygen or create foam. If you use the same bottle filler as I do, make sure to clean it intensely, mine came with mineral oil and metal shavings.
The bottles must be clean and bacteria free. When I get my bottles either from drinking store bought ones or used ones from my local beverage shop I clean them deeply in my garden and then soak them in water for multiple hours to remove the labels. After cleaning, I visually inspect every bottle. There must be no residue left in it and if you use flip-top, as I prefer, the seals need to be in pristine condition. Here we have the container-deposit legislation where you can exchange bottles. So you can get any amount of bottles you want from a local store and once you no longer need them you get a 100% refund. So I pick the bottles and crates I like best, at most times 0.5 l.
If I want to use crown cork, I pick Erdinger Naturradler, because I like the bottles, the labels are easily removed, and you can store the bottles in the crate upside down for drying. Augustiner crates for example have too large holes in the bottom and the bottle heads tend to stick out. For flip-top I used Altenmünster before but now try Mönchshof for the lighter bottles and availability. I also have some 1 l bottles from Schumacher, and 2 l from Altenmünster.
After the bottles are cleaned I store them in my garage. On the day of filling they need to be sterilized, to prevent infections. You can simply put them in the dishwasher at >= 70 °C, or fill them with hot water. Manually inspect each bottle to make sure they contain no liquid and all seals are in pristine condition. Before filling, they must cool to ≤ 30 °C.
Bottle fermentation
I drain the beer from the main fermentation tank into a mixing container. When drained slowly the majority of the yeast stays at the bottom.
The yeast is collected and can be stored in the fridge at ~4 °C for multiple month.
In the mixing bucket the beer is mixed with the pre-calculated (~10%) amount of worth to introduce enough fermentable sugar for the bottle fermentation.
After filling, the bottles are stored at the desired fermenting temperature for 14 days, in my case 12 °C. During this time the yeast will process the added sugar into alcohol and CO2. If calculated correctly the beer will be nicely sparkling. If you added too little it will be stale, if you added too much, the bottles can explode! Therefore, you should check periodically! I have two test bottles with pressure sensors, but you can also open a bottle after a week and then immediately close it again.
To indicate which beer I have in which bottles, I use simple paper strips as labels, wrap them around the necks and secure them with a staple. This method is simple, cheap, and the labels are easily removable.
- Example labels as PDF: beer-label-md.pdf
- Example labels as ODS: beer-label-md.ods
Lager / Aging / Curing
In Germany this is currently not widely used, but most of the world calls Untergäriges (beer produced by bottom-fermenting saccharomyces pastorianus) lager. As a rule of thumb all bottom-fermented beer should be stored some time at low temperature to improve flavour. There are also some ales where this is done, like the local specialty where I come from Altbier.
The beer I currently brew, Münchner Dunkel, calls for 6 - 8 weeks storage at 4 °C.
While writing this, 2025-10-05, my beer is still in the main fermentaition and should be ready for Christmas and New Year celebrations.
Afterword
When brewing for me everything falls in place. I had accidents before, exploding bottles, leaking barrels … but in the end I always manage to get beer at a quality that my fiends happily drink it all. But in order to improve, tune your process and develop your own recipes, consistency is key. The main reason I write this here is for myself. So I can get back, should I ever decide to take a decade long break again.