In any hobby, you have veterans that most enthusiasts aspire to be, intermediates who think they are veterans, and newbies who are just learning the ropes. Either way you have to start from the beginning.
The brewing process is really quite simple. You start with sugars that are converted from starch in the grain during the mash, boil it to sterilize and add hops for bitterness and flavor, cool the "wort", and add yeast that converts the sugars into alcohol and CO2. Bottle it up and you've got beer.
That's the simplistic view, of course, but those are the basic principles. Vary the kinds of grain, hops and yeast (along with small changes in the steps), and you've got different styles. I'm one for jumping right in, so let's define the different types of home brewing:
Extract
Most people getting into homebrewing start with extract kits. This means that instead of having to mash the grain to convert starch into sugar, you are given a concentrated form of the wort that was mashed at the factory and evaporated down. These extracts are typically made from the base grains, or the grains that contribute most of the sugar in the mash. We'll get into specific grains later.
In this case, the brewer starts the process from the boil, adding the extract as if they had done the mash. While this is an easy way to jump into brewing, you'll pay a price of course for having some of the work done for you. Compared to mashing yourself using malted grain, you'll typically pay 3 times as much for extract to get the same amount of wort.
That being said, you have to crawl before you can walk, and focusing on the downstream side of brewing, sterilization, fermentation and bottling, is much more important than worrying about mash efficiency at this stage. Depending on the recipe, extract kits will typically come with a few specialty grains that will be crushed and steeped in the brew kettle prior to boiling to extract some additional flavor, as well as the yeast and any other adjuncts necessary.
Partial Mash
The partial mash is where some brewers typically dabble in mashing. This involves mashing about half of the grain bill in either a small cooler with a screened drain or in a bag in the brew kettle. The rest of the fermentable sugar is added as extract as before. This is a nice step because most people just getting into brewing don't have the capacity for large volumes of water and wort, and for the price of a mesh bag you can start brewing from grain and understanding the intricacies of starch conversion, efficiency, etc. We'll go into examples of this later.
All-Grain
This is where commercial brewing and homebrewing start to align. In all-grain brewing, you start with crushed base grain, specialty grains, and you create all the fermentable sugar for the wort by mashing. It's not really any different or more difficult than partial mashing, but it takes bigger equipment. The easiest way to start all-grain brewing is a technique called brew-in-a-bag, where you only have to have one large kettle and a 5 gallon paint strainer bag (and a good set of muscles or a pulley). All-grain brewing can be as simple or as complicated as you want, and the nice thing is that all the different setups make great beer.
The next obvious question is what equipment is necessary to start brewing. For simplicity's sake, we'll start with extract brewing, since you'll use most of this equipment for all the techniques.
This might be a good place to step back and say homebrewing is likely not going to be a good way to save money. Yes, over time your cost per bottle will be surprisingly low compared to prices in the store for similar beers, but you have to amortize the cost of the equipment you'll buy getting there. Right now I'm making beer at around $0.20 per bottle, but I take that with a grain of salt when I look at all the crap I've bought over the years. Hobbies cost money, no doubt, but how many hobbies also taste delicious?
The brewing process is really quite simple. You start with sugars that are converted from starch in the grain during the mash, boil it to sterilize and add hops for bitterness and flavor, cool the "wort", and add yeast that converts the sugars into alcohol and CO2. Bottle it up and you've got beer.
That's the simplistic view, of course, but those are the basic principles. Vary the kinds of grain, hops and yeast (along with small changes in the steps), and you've got different styles. I'm one for jumping right in, so let's define the different types of home brewing:
Extract
In this case, the brewer starts the process from the boil, adding the extract as if they had done the mash. While this is an easy way to jump into brewing, you'll pay a price of course for having some of the work done for you. Compared to mashing yourself using malted grain, you'll typically pay 3 times as much for extract to get the same amount of wort.
That being said, you have to crawl before you can walk, and focusing on the downstream side of brewing, sterilization, fermentation and bottling, is much more important than worrying about mash efficiency at this stage. Depending on the recipe, extract kits will typically come with a few specialty grains that will be crushed and steeped in the brew kettle prior to boiling to extract some additional flavor, as well as the yeast and any other adjuncts necessary.
Partial Mash
The partial mash is where some brewers typically dabble in mashing. This involves mashing about half of the grain bill in either a small cooler with a screened drain or in a bag in the brew kettle. The rest of the fermentable sugar is added as extract as before. This is a nice step because most people just getting into brewing don't have the capacity for large volumes of water and wort, and for the price of a mesh bag you can start brewing from grain and understanding the intricacies of starch conversion, efficiency, etc. We'll go into examples of this later.
All-Grain
The next obvious question is what equipment is necessary to start brewing. For simplicity's sake, we'll start with extract brewing, since you'll use most of this equipment for all the techniques.
This might be a good place to step back and say homebrewing is likely not going to be a good way to save money. Yes, over time your cost per bottle will be surprisingly low compared to prices in the store for similar beers, but you have to amortize the cost of the equipment you'll buy getting there. Right now I'm making beer at around $0.20 per bottle, but I take that with a grain of salt when I look at all the crap I've bought over the years. Hobbies cost money, no doubt, but how many hobbies also taste delicious?
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