Learning how to homebrew beer is one of the most rewarding hobbies you can take on. Indoor growing and homebrewing are two of my favourite hobbies, and I think the two go hand in hand. You may have seen my top post on reddit: MicroGrowery meet MicroBrewery.

I have been compiling my brewing methods for years and will be sharing my process for making quality brews at home. My philosophy for brewing is much the same as for growing: a scientific approach with an emphasis on minimizing the amount of work required without compromising on product quality.
Overview
Extract vs Grain
One of the first questions you need to ask yourself is if you want to brew using malt extract or steep the sugars directly out of milled grain (all grain brewing).

Malt extract is cheaper but will result in a caramel like characteristic to all of your beers. If you like hop heavy beers or dark beers (e.g dark stout like Guiness) you can get by with malt extract. Malt extract comes in liquid and dry form. When I was brewing with malt extract I bought liquid malt extract (LME) in 2.5 gallon jugs from OntarioBeerKegs and would split it into 1 gallon jugs which I would freeze. 1 gallon of LME would make 10 gallons of beer at ~5%.
After moving to all-grain there is really no going back. The nutty, honey, malt character you get from all-grain brewing is unmatched. Every sip tastes like the last bit of milk in a bowl of cheerios. All-grain brewing does require more equipment (malt mill & cooler for steeping) but it is 100% worth it, especially when you start buying 55lb sacs of different types of grains.
My Outdoor Brew Station
One day I will have an epic indoor brewery like the Electric Brewery but until then my propane burners do me just fine. I love brewing outdoors, even during harsh Canadian winters I brew outdoors, using a large fan to cool down the steaming hot brew after the boil. Propane is cheaper than electric in Canada, and brewing outdoors means you don’t have to worry about exhausting the massive amounts of steam that are created during a 1 hour boil.

Bottling vs Kegging
There are two options for homebrewers, with canning being prohibitively expensive at small scale, those are bottling and kegging. I believe there should only really be one option for brewing and that is kegging. Bottling is a huge pain, leaves yeast trub in the bottles, and adds an extra 2-3 weeks to the brewing process (which can sometimes be as short as 7 days overall with kegging)

The reason bottling adds so much time to the brew process is natural carbonation. With bottles you add a precise amount of sugar right before bottling. The remaining yeast convert this sugar into CO2 which carbonates the beer. With kegging you just put the keg under pressure and can carbonate it instantly.
How Long Does it Take to Brew Beer
As discussed above with kegging you can really cut down on you overall time. My typical turnover range is is 7-18 days. I think even hoppy beers benefit from at least 7 days from grain to glass, as too fresh a beer will taste “green”. I usually turn around my ales in 7 days and lagers in 14 days, keeping me on a weekly schedule.
- Brew day (1 day)
- prep 1 hour
- mash 1 hour
- boil 1 hour
- clean up 1 hour
- Fermenting 4-12 days
- Ales 4-8 days at 68F
- Lagers 8-12 days
- 4-8 days at 55F
- 4 days at 68F
- Cold Crashing 1-2 days
Lagers of course require a ‘lagering’ period at near freezing temps, but that can be done while the keg is tapped so I don’t include it in the overall time. Lagers always seem to hit their prime as you’re finishing the keg.
Basics of Brewing
Yeast consume sugar and produce CO2 and alcohol. To make beer you steep grain (called mashing) to create a sweet liquid (wort). The liquid is boiled to sterilize the solution and boil off DMS among other things.
The liquid is cooled and a yeast is introduced. There are two types of yeast used in brewing. Ale yeast- ferment at room temperature (65-68F). Lager yeast prefer colder temperatures (50-55F) and produce more crisp beers, but take longer to ferment.

Ales are typically used for hop forward, high terpene beers to shorten the brewing time as the high hops have a much shorter shelf life. Hops used are usually west coast hops like Mosaic, Citra, Amarillo and Cascade.
Lagers are typically grain forward beers that shine in their maltyness and light crisp flavor. Hop varieties used are include noble hop varieties such as Saaz, Northern Brewer and Hallertauer.
Many hop heads may be surprised to learn that lagers actually take more skill and effort to brew than hoppy IPA’s. This is because in a lager you have less terpenes to cover up any mistakes that may be present in your beer (water chemistry issues, esters from fermenting temperatures that are too warm and so forth).

ABV and IBU
The two most common acronyms you see describing beer are :
Alcohol by Volume (ABV) – calculated by measure starting and ending sugar levels, allowing you to deduce how much sugar was converted into alcohol. Typically a refractometer is used to measure starting sugar level and a Hygrometer is used to measure final sugar level. I typically brew 5% beers that start at 1.050 specific gravity and finish at 1.010 SG. Brewer’s Friend has an easy to use ABV calculator.

International Bitterness Units (IBU) – Are a commonly agreed upon measure of bitterness, primarily represented by the amount of isomerized alpha acids present in the beer. This is typically a function of
- (1) Alpha Acid content in hops used
- (2) Amount of Hops Used
- (3) Amount of Time Hops were Boiled.
The last point sometimes causes debate as many brewing calculators assume if boil time = 0, then IBU = 0. The reality is that post-boil hop additions do impact bitterness, but that’s a discussion for another article.
When building your own recipes IBU’s are used to balance out the sweetness and alcohol in a beer. At IBU 0 a beer would taste sweet and heavy. Typically a higher ABV requires a higher IBU to balance the beer. I don’t like overly bitter beers and rarely brew anything above 30 IBU.
Equipment
Here is my equipment list:
Grain Equipment:
- MaltMuncher 3 Roller Malt Mill
- Large Floor Scale
Boiling Equipment
- 2x 25 Gallon Brew Kettle
- Upgraded with 1.5″ TC Weldless Fitting
- and 1.5″ Sanitary Butterfly Valve
- 2x Bayou Classic Burners
- I have both the KB4 and larger KB6. for almost all applications the KB4 is plenty(I have a hard time getting good pressure on the KB6 even with large tanks)
- 2x 40 lb Propane Tank (the bigger the tank the better for brewing due to pressure, especially if you plan on brewing in the cold)
- Extra Large 24″ Whisk
Mashing Equipment
- 70 Quart Cooler (10 Gallon Batches)
- 120 Quart Cooler (10-15 Gallon Batches)
- Cooler Mash Tun Conversion Kits (make sure you get a long 4″ male to male nipple)
- Thermometer
- pH meter
Fermenting Equipment

- 6.5 gallon white buckets (you need more than 5 gallon capacity to brew a 5 gallon batch, accounting for yeast, trub and head space)
- Auto-siphon – allows you to easily transfer from fermenting bucket to keg
- Refractometer (determining starting sugar level)
- Hygrometer (determining final sugar level)
- Fermenting Keezer
Kegging Equipment
- 20 lb CO2 Tank
- 5 lb CO2 Tank (portable, and backup tank)
- 5 Gallon Ball Lock Kegs
- Keezer
- 7.2 cu ft deep freezer
- temperature controller
- small 120v fan
- 3 way manifold (serving pressure 8-10 psi)
- 4 way manifold (carbonating pressure 40-60 psi)
- 3x Liquid & Gas Disconnects (Ball Lock)
- 3x Taps
- Perlick Tap
- Tap Handle
- Shank (2″)
- Shank Nipple
- Drip Tray

Ingredients
- Gelatin (makes your beer more clear. 1g per gallon added at time of cold crashing)
- pH Down (increases mash efficiency) I shoot for 5.5 pH. Takes approx. 15 mL to bring my pH 7 tap water to 5.5 when brewing 10 gallon batches (add to the mash water which is typically 8 gallons for a 10 gallon batch with 8 or so gallons of sparge water). Not necessary for extract brewers.
- Yeast
- Safale US-05 for Ales
- Saflager 34/70 for Lagers
- Bulk Grains (Buy in 50lb sacs)
- 2-row
- Marris Otter
- Vienna
- Munich
- German Pilsner
- Speciality Grains
- Honey Malt (for IPA’s)
- Flaked Oats (for NE IPA’s)
- Roasted Barley (for stouts and porters)
- Wheat Malt
- Aroma Hops (added after boil)
- Mosaic
- Amarillo
- Citra
- Cascade
- Centennial
- Bittering/Flavour Hops (added before/during boil)
- Magnum (typically lowest $/IBU)
- Tettnanger
- Saaz
- Northern Brewer
That’s it for now. I will be adding to this guide periodically. Happy brewing