Hops + sugar + yeast ... is that all I need?

[dazp1970]

Extract brewing, or brew in a bag

I went straight from kits to brew in a bag (it all grain but less equipment)

Never heard of brew in a bag before. Looks like an interesting concept. I might give it a try!

[dazp1970]

If you are just trying to make the cheapest possible beer you will struggle to beat a budget 1 can kit plus a kilo of sugar. ............

No no no no no!!... That would be far too expensive with costs in the region of £15!! If you want really cheap beer, 4kg pale malt (about £5), 50g hops (about £3), 1 pack of yeast (about £2),...... pale ale for £10!

I'm sounding naive here, but is this all I need to do:
- boil the 4kg of malt (I assume you have to boil it),
- then mix it with some boiled hops (straining the hop mix to filter the actual hops out),
- add some cold water to bring the temp down,
- and then add the yeast?

[jmc]

If you are just trying to make the cheapest possible beer you will struggle to beat a budget 1 can kit plus a kilo of sugar. ............

No no no no no!!... That would be far too expensive with costs in the region of £15!! If you want really cheap beer, 4kg pale malt (about £5), 50g hops (about £3), 1 pack of yeast (about £2),...... pale ale for £10!

I'm sounding naive here, but is this all I need to do:
- boil the 4kg of malt (I assume you have to boil it),
- then mix it with some boiled hops (straining the hop mix to filter the actual hops out),
- add some cold water to bring the temp down,
- and then add the yeast?

digdave was referring to brewing with pale malt grain. aka 'All Grain' brewing.
You need to mash the grain to convert / extract the starches to fermentable sugars,that's why you need extra kit for AG brewing.

BTW: If you boil grain without mashing you'll get a starchy porrige like wort that wouln'r ferment well.

Extract brewing is a common next step up after kits, where you use dried or liquid malt extract (DME / LME)
If you tried Dave's recipe with 4Kg of DME you'd have an extract brew.

Suggest you read GW's Brew Your Own British Real Ale

Lots of info on the process and lots of Extract recipes you can try.

[liquidman]

If you go for brew in a bag, all you do is:
Buy a couple of meters of net curtain. You use this as a Net or bag to hold the grains in.
Mashing is the process where you convert the insoluble sugar in grain (i.e.:starch) in to soluble sugar.
to mash:
In a pan, you heat your brewing water to 70 degrees C and add aprx 5kg of grain. This will drop the temperature of the mixture to around 66 degrees

Leave alone for an hour for conversion of the starch to take place. (there's alot of science that goes on, to start please feel feel free to ignor it),
Using your net curtain, remove your grain from the pan -let it drip dry or give it a sqeeze to get most of the water out.
bring the liquid to the boil and add your hops.
Boil for an hour
chill the liquid and add yeast
once fermentation has finished, you have beer!

People pretend making beer is complicated, it is, but the difficult bits can safely be ignored to start with

A

[Chicken Dipper]

Daz

Your curiosity will no doubt lead you to all grain brewing, as it did me. The guys on this forum have helped me emencely, and they know their craft inside and out. I would recommend that you buy Graham Wheelers book too, it answered a lot of questions for me, but also read through this website too. There's so much knowledge to gain from other's experiences.

The key is not to be put off and keep asking questions!

Good luck, Chris