Welcome to Ales Meant for Ailments!

What is Ales Meant for Ailments?

It is a project started by Shawn Henry, dedicated to helping beginning home brewers find their way through the process of getting ready to brew at home. Read on for Shawn's recommendations for getting yourself prepared to move from beer purchaser to personal beer producer.

How does someone brew their own beer?

The process is far simpler than it may seem at first. There are just a few simple steps to follow.

1. Boil the beer. (wort). The process is not too complex; with most recipes, bring the water and malts up to a boil, add hops, and boil for a set time. Other recipes require additional steps, but as you get more familiar with the process those additional steps become second nature.
2. Cool down the wort as fast as possible. You can put your kettle directly in a bath of ice water, but make sure you keep the lid vented. Otherwise you run the risk of rapid cool-down causing the walls of your kettle to collapse. Alternately, use a chiller.
3. Pitch the yeast. Once the temperature has reached the ideal temperature for whichever yeast you use add the yeast and close your fermenter with the air lock in place.
4. Ferment. This process can take anywhere from 3 days to 2 months depending on what you are brewing. Use tools such as a refractometer to measure the alcohol content along the way so you'll know when it truly is ready. Some beers only require one fermentation step. Others require two fermentation steps, so for those you'll need both a primary fermenter and a secondary fermenter.
5. Bottle. During this process, you move the beer from the ferementer into a bottling bucket and add the priming sugars which will add carbonation while the beer matures in the bottle.
6. Mature the beer. During this process, let your beer sit in the bottles in a temperature controlled environment, such as a cellar, while it does the rest of the work. Some beers get better with age, others need to be drank within a time frame. Be sure to mark your beers with a bottle date so you know how long they've been sitting around.

Think you're ready to get started?

If so, I recommend buying kits that require only 1 fermenter until you get more familiar with the proces. I also recommend following the recipe to the letter. I've tried, and quickly dumped out, many a beer from a newer brewer who thought that a spoon of cinnamon, or maybe some nutmeg, would make a fantastic addition to their beer. My experience has taught me that additional flavors should not be added until you have built up a baseline by trying other recipes to understand how they affect the final product.

Before you do, calibrate your palette

My final piece of advice for anyone getting started is to calbirate your palette. Maybe like me, you've already tried nearly every beer that shows up in the local craft beer store. If not, then start now. Having a more diverse background in the beers and flavorings that are already out there will most assuredly help you predict what your beer will end up like, as well as if your target flavor is something anyone else will drink.