Welcome to the final installment of the how to brew your own beer series. So far we’ve talked about what kind of equipment you need in order to brew, how to brew beer using a basic extract recipe kit, and today we need to talk about bottling your creation. While we’re going to talk about bottling your beer today, I also want to let you know that this is only one of the ways to prepare and store your beer. A lot of people end up moving on to kegging their own beer which can save a lot of time and make it very convenient for serving at home, but it’s also a little more costly and requires some special equipment. Since we’re looking to frugally brew some beer the best option to start with is with standard bottles.

We also need to establish what bottling actually accomplishes. Not only does it make your beer easy to store in single serving size bottles, but it adds the carbonation that beer needs. If you’ve tasted your beer so far in your fermenter you probably noticed that while it tastes like beer, it’s flat. The fizz you get from carbonation is created by carbon dioxide that is dissolved into the solution. To do this, we need to transfer the beer into a sealed container and introduce something that will create the carbon dioxide. The good news is that the yeast you used to make your beer also makes carbon dioxide as a byproduct so there’s really little that has to be done. But since your yeast have already converted all of the fermentable sugar during fermentation we need to introduce a little more sugar when we bottle so that they can crate just enough carbon dioxide to make the perfect beer. We’ll talk about that a little more later on.

Bottling Equipment

Bottling is pretty easy, but it does require a few specialty items. If you purchased a complete brewing equipment kit then chances are you already have everything you need to bottle your first batch of beer. At the very minimum, this is what you’re going to need:

• Approximately 48-54 twelve ounce beer bottles for a 5 gallon batch of beer. You may also use about 25 bombers (22 oz. bottles). Any bottle you use should be regular pry-off tops and not twist-off tops.
• Enough new bottle caps to cap your bottles.
• Bottle capper. Most kits come with a standard inexpensive wing capper, but there are others that work fine as well.
• 5 ounces of corn sugar. Again, this usually comes with every ingredient kit so you should have already received a bag with the correct amount.
• Bottling bucket and/or some siphon tubing.
• Sanitizing solution. Remember, anything that touches your beer after the boil must be sanitized!
• A beer to enjoy during the bottling session.

As I mentioned in the post that talks about equipment, most kits you buy will come with everything you need already, but if you’re piecing together your own equipment then it’s good to make sure you have at least what is listed above. In this example I’ll be showing you how to bottle with a bottling bucket, a bottling wand, and a basic wing capper.

The Bottles

There is no reason to buy bottles. Your local or online brewing supply store will certainly sell you empty bottles, but that’s wasting money. There are two easy ways to get the bottles you need. First, just save the bottles from the beer you or your friends drink. Once you clean them and remove the labels they are just fine to use. The other thing you can do is hit up your local restaurant or bar that serves beer and ask if you can take some empties off their hands. Some will gladly give them away and others might charge you the deposit amount (5 or 10 cents per bottle).

Just as a reminder, you want brown beer bottles with the non twist-off tops. The twist tops don’t always seal with a pressed on cap properly. And the brown glass is important because UV light skunks your beer. The brown bottles will block most of the harmful light making sure your beer tastes as fresh coming out as it did going in. Clear or green bottles will work, but you’d have to be very careful to make sure they are always stored in a dark location. I personally just stick to brown bottles so that it’s one less thing to worry about.

Cleaning and Removing the Labels

So, you’ve acquired the necessary bottles but you’ve just realized that taking the labels off is nearly impossible. Don’t worry, I have an easy trick that will remove almost all of the labor. Here’s what you need:

That’s it. You just need some Oxiclean. You will see a bottle of Goo-Gone in the background, but that’s not needed. That’s what I tried using when I first started and had no idea there was an easier way. With just some basic Oxiclean you can have your labels removed in no time with virtually no effort. Not only that, but it’s the perfect cleaner for your bottles which is essential when bottling your beer.

The easiest way to do this is to take half of a scoop or so of Oxiclean and put it in a sink full of warm water. Then, you just need to take your bottles and let them soak in the sink. Make sure you hold the bottles under the water until they fill up so they sink. Then just let them soak for an hour or longer. The longer they soak, the easier the labels come off. Here’s what the bottles look like in the sink after a little soak.

You see that bottle in the foreground? The label has actually removed itself from the bottle just by sitting in the water. All that’s left on the bottle is some of the adhesive residue that rinses off with a little rubbing. So, once your bottles have been soaking and the labels are easily coming off, just turn on the faucet and rinse any of the adhesive left on the bottle and rinse them out real good. I keep a sponge or SOS pad handy for the occasional stubborn labels. The best part is that you only have to do this once and the bottles can be reused forever.

Making Sure Your Beer is Ready to Bottle

You can’t just bottle your beer whenever you want. It has to be ready. What that means is the fermentation has to be complete. The fermentation process gives off carbon dioxide so if you put your beer into bottles before the fermentation has stopped, you could end up with exploding bottles due to over carbonation. That is dangerous and clearly a waste of good beer. So, to make sure your fermentation is complete and ready to be bottled you need your trusty hydrometer. This is the only tool you have that can tell you that your fermentation is complete.

After a few weeks when you expect your fermentation to be completed you’ll want to take a few hydrometer samples. Remember, a hydrometer measures the specific gravity of the liquid. Dense liquids have a higher reading than less dense liquids, and alcohol is less dense than water. Over time your hydrometer reading will decrease in value as the dense sugars are converted to lighter alcohol during the fermentation. Once your hydrometer readings stop decreasing in value it’s safe to assume that there is nothing left for the yeast to convert and the fermentation is over. You typically would like to see the same hydrometer reading for a few consecutive days. If you’ve taken a few samples and see no further changes and your readings are close to what the recipe calls for, you should be ready to bottle.

Here’s a picture of my hydrometer sample before bottling. Excuse the bubbles, but after I got those to settle the reading came out to about 1.008. Not only is the hydrometer good for checking on the progress of your fermentation, but it can help you estimate the alcohol content of your beer. There’s a simple calculation you can use: (starting gravity – final gravity) x 131 = alcohol content by volume. For this particular beer I had a starting gravity of 1.055 and a final gravity of 1.008. So doing the math I get (1.055 – 1.008) x 131 = 6.16% ABV.

Sanitation

Now that we’re sure our beer is ready to be bottled it’s time to sanitize everything. Remember, now that we’re past the boiling phase of the beer making process everything that comes in contact with your beer needs to be sanitized to minimize the risk of contamination from wild bacteria or yeast. So, we need to sanitize the bottling bucket, bottles, caps, and any tubing equipment that will be used to siphon the beer.

The easiest way to do this is to mix up a 3-4 gallon batch of Star San solution in a spare bucket. We can then use this bucket to dip all of our equipment in and even use for sanitizing the bottles.To start, I’ve went ahead and dumped in all of my small equipment right into the bucket.

Obviously, some of the larger and rigid items won’t extend all the way into the liquid so you can just use a sponge or something soaked with the sanitizer solution to wipe everything down. For the siphon tubing I actually just create a brief siphon and let the solution run through the tubing for 15 or 20 seconds. And don’t forget to sanitize the bottling bucket! Just put a few inches of the liquid in the bucket and use a sponge or something to wipe down the insides and then let it drain out through the spigot. I don’t have it pictured here, but I also take a small bowl and fill it with some of the Star San solution and then dump my bottle caps in there and just let them soak until I need them to cap the bottles.

For the bottles themselves you have a few options for sanitation. Some dishwashers actually have a sanitation cycle these days, so I know some people just put all of their bottles in there and run that cycle. Then when it comes to bottling time they just open the dishwasher and grab the bottles out as they are needed. Personally, since I already have the bucket of solution out and ready I just use that for the bottles. I take six at a time and place them all into the bucket. I push them down slightly so that they fill up with some of the solution. Then as I need them I just reach in and grab one, drain the excess sanitizing solution and move directly to the bottle filler. It’s a no-rinse sanitizer so there’s no need to worry about drying them off.

Adding Priming Sugar

Remember how I mentioned above that we need a little bit of sugar so that the yeast can create the carbon dioxide needed for carbonation? That’s where the 5 ounces of corn sugar comes in. Since this usually comes as a 5 oz. package right with your beer ingredient kit so there’s no need to measure anything. What you do need to do is get the sugar into the beer and equally mixed. Sounds easy, right? Well, there are a few things to consider. The corn sugar doesn’t dissolve well at room temprature. In addition, you don’t want to stir up your beer trying to mix the sugar in. This can create nasty oxidation and mix up all of the gunk that settled to the bottom of your fermentation bucket.

So, here’s the trick. Simply take about a cup of water and put it in a small pot and bring it up to a boil on the stove. Once it’s at a boil just dump in your corn sugar and stir until dissolved. Remove it from the heat and bring it down close to room temp. I usually just boil it with a lid on and then set the pot in a sink full of cold water for a few minutes until the pot is cool to the touch.

Once cool go ahead and add it into your sanitized bottling bucket. What we’ll do now is siphon the beer from the fermentation bucket and into the bottling bucket. This will carefully transfer the beer from one container to the other while at the same time swirling around the sugar water so that it’s perfectly mixed equally throughout the whole beer.

To do this step you’ll first want to pop the top on your fermenter if you haven’t already. What you should see is a rich gold to brown liquid that is your newly fermented creation. Don’t worry about all the nasty looking stuff floating or sticking to the side of the bucket. It’s harmless.

Next, you’re going to want to get a siphon going to move this beer down into your bottling bucket with the priming sugar water. I just use my kitchen table and set the fermenter on that and the bottling bucket on the floor. I have an auto siphon so I just give that a good pump and it gets the siphon going.

Make sure your siphon tube is sitting all the way on the bottom of the bottling bucket if possible. This minimizes splashing and aeration of the beer that can lead to the oxidation I was talking about. You can see how the siphon creates a good swirling motion and starts mixing with the priming sugar.

If you have a racking cane or auto siphon that came with your kit you can just sit back and relax for a few minutes while the beer transfers. While these items aren’t required, like I mentioned in the equipment section, they are inexpensive and handy tools that make your job a little easier. Here’s my auto siphon just hanging out and doing its thing while I now have a few minutes I can start getting my bottles ready or something.

Preparing the Bottling Bucket

The bottling bucket has a spigot at the bottom that makes filling your bottles easier. Simply set your bucket on the counter or table and you can sit down and easily fill your bottles. But, there’s one problem. The spigot by itself doesn’t “quietly” fill the bottles. When you turn on the valve and let the beer drain into the bottle it’s falling to the bottom of the bottle and through the air which can potentially lead to oxidation. It will get the job done, but there’s an inexpensive fix.

Try attaching a piece of siphon hose or something called a bottling wand to the spigot. With either of these you can insert them into the bottom of the bottle while filling and minimize any aeration. In my case I opted for a bottling wand. At just a couple of dollars it was worth every penny. The unique thing about the wand is that it’s rigid and has a valve on the bottom. Beer only comes out when you push on the valve like you could by sliding it into a beer bottle and touching the bottom of the bottle. Once you pull the bottle off the beer stops coming out. This now also eliminates the need for always turning the spigot on and off to fill each bottle.

Here’s what my bottling bucket looks like with the wand attached:

Filling Your Bottles

Once you’ve completely transferred the beer into your bottling bucket and prepared the bucket for action, it’s time to start filling bottles. The process is pretty simple. I just sit down on the floor and have the bucket of sanitizer to my left with six bottles soaking. I have the bottling bucket right in front of me, and my bottle caps and capper to my right. Then I grab a sanitized bottle and fill it, leaving an inch or two of head room in the bottle.

As each bottle gets filled I set it down to my right and place a sanitized bottle cap loosely on the top. I do this six bottles at a time. For one, that’s how many bottles comfortably fit into my sanitizing bucket, and second, it minimizes the potential loss if I tip over a few bottles during the process. Here are six bottles with the caps just sitting on top and ready to be secured.

Once the caps are sitting on top the only thing left to do is to use the capper and crimp the caps on the bottles. With the wing capper I have here that is easy enough. Simply center the round center piece on the bottle and push down with both hands. It takes very little effort and only a few seconds to do.

Once your caps are secured your job is done! Now all you have to do is wait for the yeast to work their magic.

Bottle Conditioning

You need to have patience with your beer. This is very hard to do with your first batch, but it takes time to condition your beer so that it’s properly carbonated and ready to drink. How long does it take? Unfortunately, each beer is different and there is no magic number. There is a general rule of thumb that says you should let your beer sit in the bottle for 3 weeks at around 70 degrees. Too cold and the yeast will take longer to carbonate the beer. Too warm the yeast might carbonate it a little faster, but it won’t give your beer enough time to mature and reach the flavor profile you want.

So, once you’ve bottled all of your beer you need to put it in a dark corner of the house and forget about it. No, don’t crack one open after 3 days just to see if it’s done yet. It isn’t. Some beers will come around in just a few weeks while others can actually take a few months. Typically your higher gravity and darker beers will require a longer aging period to reach their peek compared to light beers.

I remember my first batch and although I tried to be patient and wait for the beer to finish, I ended up trying some too early. After one week in the bottle I gave one a try and felt disappointed. It tasted like beer, but it was a tad too bitter and wasn’t as refreshing as I expected. So I waited a few more weeks. At the 3 week mark it was much better. The bitterness toned down, it had much more carbonation, and tasted more like what I had expected. Even so, it still wasn’t perfect. Then I let about 24 of them sit in the closet for about 3 more weeks for 6 total. Once I opened one of those it was like tasting a totally different beer and it was even better.

The point is that time helps your beer. It’s difficult for you, but your patience will be rewarded. So, when you feel your batch is done and ready to consume, don’t throw a party and go through the whole batch at once. Make sure you set some aside and give it even more time just to learn how the flavor changes. This will help you create even better beers in the future.

Serving Your Beer

Now that your beer is done it’s time to serve it. A couple of things you need to be aware of when serving homebrew. For one, this beer is bottle conditioned. This just means that you use the yeast that’s already in the beer for carbonation. Unlike mass produced beer that filters everything out, you’ll still have yeast in your bottle. After carbonation and then spending some time in the refrigerator it will settle out and collect at the bottom of the bottle. It’s harmless and actually good for you, but it can alter the flavor if you drink it.

For this reason you shouldn’t drink your homebrew straight from the bottle. Actually, you shouldn’t drink any beer from the bottle if you want to really experience all of the flavors and aromas that a good beer has. So, be sure to pour it into a glass. When the yeast settles to the bottom of the bottle you can basically pour all but the last quarter to half inch into the glass and most of the yeast will stay back in the bottle.  Also, since the yeast does settle to the bottom it’s a good idea to store your bottles upright in the refrigerator.

Don’t worry about cloudy beer. Most people are used to drinking crystal clear beer, so seeing a freshly poured glass of hazy beer can concern some people. It’s fine. Again, we’re brewing beer in a bucket in our basement, not in billion dollar facilities with high-tech filtering equipment.  A hazy beer doesn’t mean it’s bad and it has no effect on flavor. Even without filtering equipment it is possible to make crystal clear beer at home. It has a lot to do with your process, how fast you cool the wort after the boil, and the ingredients you use. I’ve had some beers come out cloudy while others are clear from day one. I’ve even had others that after a month in the bottle were cloudy, but after sitting for a few more weeks turned crystal clear. So, just don’t get hung up on the clarity of your beer at this point.

Wrapping Up

Well, that’s about it. It’s been a long few weeks with a lot of information and pictures to digest, but hopefully you’ve learned how to brew your own beer. As you have probably seen, it isn’t incredibly difficult and only requires a few special pieces of equipment and some spare time. It’s a fun hobby that’s unique in that you get to enjoy your creation and share it with others. And let’s not forget the possibility for frugal gift ideas from your beer. You might make a special holiday batch to give out over Christmas, or maybe you brew up a special beer for your brother’s birthday. Whatever the case is, you now have a really neat and unique gift possibility.

And this really only just scratches the surface of homebrewing. Once you get your feet wet with a few extract recipe kits you can move on to creating your own recipes from scratch. Then, you might move from extracts to all-grain where you start with just raw bulk grains. The possibilities are endless, so get out there and start brewing.

About the Author: Jeremy is a retirement planning specialist and founder of Generation X Finance and the guide to Financial Planning at About.com. To learn more, follow Jeremy on Twitter.

How to Brew Your Own Beer and Maybe Even Save Some Money – Bottling

Welcome to the second installment of the how to brew your own beer series. Last week I discussed what kind of equipment you need, how much it will cost, and where you can find it. Once you have all the equipment, you’re basically going to be cooking and following a recipe. Simple enough, right?

Even though the process is simple, there are some tips and tricks you can use to help you avoid mistakes and make a better beer. In today’s post I’m going to walk you through the process of starting your first extract beer from the initial boil to the final addition to the fermentation bucket. Once you put the beer in the fermentation bucket it’s essentially out of your hands and your yeast will be doing all of the work.

After this post and getting through the actual brewing process. we’ll wrap up next week with the final stage of bottling. From there it’s just a waiting game to let the carbonation build up and for your beer to mature a bit before enjoying your final product. Dial-up users, I apologize in advance, but there are a lot of pictures in this post. So, let’s get brewing!

Your Ingredients

To make beer you actually only need a few ingredients. You need water, malted gains, hops, and yeast. Within that basic framework you still have an almost infinite number of combinations to make any type of beer imaginable. For this tutorial I’m going to be talking about making beer from a malt extract recipe. Without going into detail, this just means that your barley has already been malted and their sugars condensed into a concentrated extract. This extract comes in either a dry powder or liquid syrup form. If you weren’t using an extract, you’d have to buy the bulk grain yourself and go through the process of mashing and extracting the sugars out of the grain yourself. This is what a lot of homebrewers do and it’s called “all grain” brewing, but we need to learn to walk before we can run. All grain brewing is a great way to obtain even more control over your beer, but it is a little more work and can require some additional pieces of equipment that might put homebrewing out of a beginner’s budget. So, we’ll stick to the basics and then you can decide later if moving to all grain is something you’d like to do.

Let’s take a look at your typical extract ingredient kit. Here’s my latest kit that I purchased from Midwest Supplies for an Ordinary English Bitter. The standard kit with dry yeast only costs $25.

As you can see in the picture, there isn’t much to this kit. At the top left the two containers you see contain the malt extract. This recipe called for 3.3 pounds of a gold extract and 1.4 pounds of the pale malt in a can. Below that you’ll see a bag full of raw crushed grains. These are specialty grains that get steeped in the water to extract some added flavor and body for the beer. To the right of that is what looks like a mesh sock. It’s just a muslin bag to hold the grain while it steeps. To the right of that in the two shiny bags are the hops. In most kits you’re going to see hop pellets. These are just hops in their whole form processed and pressed into small little pellets. Finally, at the top right there is a bag of priming sugar. This is the sugar used at the very end for the bottling stage which we’ll cover next week. This little bit of sugar is what the yeast need to produce enough CO2 in the bottles to give them the appropriate carbonation. So, we won’t be using that right now.

One thing you don’t see in the picture that should come in your kit is the yeast. I apologize, but I forgot to take the picture until I had already created my yeast starter and threw away the package. But most kits will come with a little packet of dry yeast, or if you upgrade, some live liquid yeast. I’ll talk more about yeast in just a little bit.

Before getting started I want to set some expectations for you so that there aren’t any nasty surprises during the process. First, you need to consider the time it takes to complete a brewing session. Don’t attempt to brew unless you have at least 4 hours of uninterrupted time available, at least for your first couple batches. The complete process takes a bit of time. If you have steeping grains, they usually need 15-30 minutes at around 155 degrees. After that, you need to bring your water to a boil, which might take another 15 minutes. Once you begin boiling, most recipes call for a 1 hour boil. After the boil, you then need to cool the liquid down to 70 degrees or less, which if you’re using an ice bath can take upwards of another half hour or more. Once you factor in the prep time and cleanup, you’re easily looking at 3 hours at a minimum, but being your first time it will take a little longer. Once you start you really can’t stop, so just be aware going in that you need a decent block of time set aside.

Initial Steps and Steeping the Grain

To get started, all you need is your boiling pot and a thermometer. As I discussed in the equipment section, as long as you have a pot that can boil a few gallons of water with some room to spare, that’s enough to get started. If you have a larger pot or can afford something that is up in the 20-30 quart range, by all means that will be helpful. Most recipe kits will come with instructions that discuss using a 1.5-2 gallon boil, but I happen to have a 5.5 gallon pot so that’s what you’ll see in the pictures. I happen to use 4.5 gallons of water.

So, go ahead and fill your pot with water. The general rule of thumb is that if your water is good enough to drink, it’s good enough to make beer with. If you have questionable water or very high chlorine you might want to use some bottled water from the store, but at this stage we aren’t going to concern ourselves with the science behind water quality. When you fill your pot you should make sure to give yourself at least a couple inches of head room as we’re going to be adding things to the water and bring it to a rigorous boil.

Here’s my pot shown with the probe thermometer attached. If you don’t have a dedicated probe thermometer you should be able to use any cooking or meat thermometer. We only need the thermometer if you’re steeping grains in the beginning, which in this case we are. That’s because you ideally want to steep your grains in water that’s between 150-170 degrees and it can be tough to estimate that temperature without one. But if you don’t have one, don’t worry. Just get your water hot, but not boiling.

Once your water hits the target of about 155 degrees or so, it’s time to add the steeping grains. Ideally, your homebrew supply store crushed the grains for you, but if they didn’t, you’ll want to take a rolling pin or something else hard and lightly pound them to crack the hulls. Like I mentioned above, your grains should have also come with some sort of cotton or mesh sack to put them in. Go ahead and cut a corner off of the plastic grain bag and then dump the grain into the sack as seen here:

It stretches a lot, but don’t worry, the grain won’t come out. It is very important you use some sort of bag or straining device because you only want to leave these in the water for up to 30 minutes, and never at boiling temperatures. Extended periods of time or excessive temperatures can extract the tannins from the grain husks and add a very bitter and astringent flavor to your beer, so you need to be able to easily remove the grains from the water. Once your grains are in the sack you’ll have something like this:

It’s good if you have a long end on the sack so you can tie it off to the handle of the pot, but you can also just tie a knot in it and let the whole thing float in the water and then fish it out with a spoon or something when you’re done. Easy enough, so now all you have to do is add it to your water that’s hopefully sitting at roughly 155 degrees. Once you put it in you’ll start to see some stuff floating around and the color of the water starting to change. That’s fine, and just think of it like making a big cup of tea.

Next, just go by the directions and let the grain bag steep for as long as the recipe says. It will usually call for anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes. You might have to turn your heat off on the stove in order to keep it at the right temp, and that’s fine. Just make sure it doesn’t get all the way up to a boil.

After time has elapsed you need to remove the grains. For this you’ll just want to lift the bag out of the water and let everything drain out of the bag. Now whatever you do, resist the urge to squeeze the bag or try to get every last drop out. Doing so can also add excess tannins to your brew which can lead to astringency. So, just hold the bag long enough to get the bulk of the water out. You can then discard the grain and bag (unless you have a reusable nylon bag or something).

The Boil

Now that you’ve steeped your specialty grains (assuming your kit came with any) it’s time to move on to the boil. This is where the real magic happens. Once your grains are removed, go ahead and crank up the heat and bring your water to a boil, or close to it. Once you’ve reached that point turn off the burner because we’re going to add the malt extract. You don’t want the extract to scorch on the bottom of the pan, so that’s why we’re killing the heat for the time being. If you have liquid extract like I do in this recipe, it’s a good idea to let the container to sit in a sink full of hot water for 5 minutes or so to thin out a bit so it’s easier to poor. It is a pretty thick syrup and you want to make sure you get as much of it out of the container as you can. If you have dry powder extract you can just add it right in. Here I am adding my extract.

You can also dunk the extract container into the hot water a few times and slosh it around to help get the last little bit of extract out. Once the extract is added you want to grab a big spoon or any other utensil that will reach the bottom of the pot and stir things up until it’s all dissolved. Again, to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom that can be scorched once added back to the heat. In my case, I bought an inexnepsive brew paddle for about five dollars since I didn’t have a spoon long enough to work with my pot.

After your extract is all mixed in you’ll want to bring it up to a boil. At the same time, this is where you have to be careful. Do NOT turn your back on this pot at this stage. As your liquid, now considered wort, comes to a boil you’re going to reach what’s called the “hot break” stage. As the boil just starts to get going you’ll notice some foam collecting at the top like this:

The foam is caused by proteins in the wort that coagulate due to the rolling action of the boil. The wort will continue to foam until the protein clumps get heavy enough to sink back into the pot. You’ll start to see particles and clumps of protein circulating in the wort that kind of looks like egg drop soup. This is called the hot break and may take anywhere from 5-20 minutes to occur, depending on the amount of protein in your extract. Don’t be fooled by this harmless looking foam! It can go from harmless to a boiling over disaster in a matter of seconds, and trust me, you don’t want to deal with cleaning up boiled over wort on your stove.

So, watch your boil closely at this stage. If you see the foam start to rapidly rise, immediately take it off of the heat. Another good option is to have a spray bottle filled with water handy and you can combat it with a few sprays. Either way, you want to avoid having it boil over the side of the pot. Once you’ve passed the hot break phase and hopefully avoided any boil overs you should have a nice rolling boil going that looks more like this:

Adding the Hops

Once you’ve reached a good boil your recipe will likely call for the first addition of hops. The first hops you add are going to be the bittering hops. Without going into the science of it all, as hops are boiled they release alpha acids that contribute to the bitterness of the beer. Most recipes will call for some amount of hops to be added at the beginning and then being boiled for a full 60 minutes. Other hops are added at later points in the boil depending on recipe. The later hops add less bitterness and more flavor and aroma. I’ll save all of the details on how to utilize hops in your beer to one of the many books out there on homebrewing, but for now you’re just going to follow your recipe instructions.

In this recipe, it calls for adding 1.5 oz of UK Goldings hops for 60 minutes. So, once my boil is good and rigorous, I dump them in. This is another time to be careful because adding hop pellets can also trigger a major foam up and cause a boil over, so add them slowly to make sure you don’t get any surprises.

Once you’ve added the hops your work is done for a while. At this point you’re probably going to set a timer for 60 minutes and then just make sure you have a continuous and rolling boil, stir every 5 minutes or so and make sure nothing is scorching on the bottom, and add any additional hops later on as per the recipe. While we’re talking about the boil, one thing you do want to consider is the intensity of the boil. To make sure the hops are utilized properly you want to maintain a rolling boil. That means you want more than a simmer with just a few occasional bubbles, but not boiling so violently that you’re on the verge of overflowing your pot non-stop. You just want to keep a good constant hard boil that has the surface of the wort dancing and churning.

I actually just wanted a good excuse to try out my new video camera, but I recorded a few seconds worth of a good boil to give you an idea of what you want to see. It also illustrates why it’s important to have some head room in your pot.

Cooling the Wort

Once your boil is completed, it’s time to cool the wort. You need the wort to be at or close to your ultimate fermentation temperature. For one, yeast will die if the water is too hot. Since you need your yeast to make beer, that’s not a good thing. Second, your need your yeast to begin working at what’s close to their optimum temperature so that they don’t produce too many esters or off flavors in your beer. For most ales, that means you want to get down to the 60-70 degree range.

You have a few options when it comes to cooling down your wort. The easiest is to simply fill your sink with cold water and some ice and then set your pot into it. This will begin transferring the heat from your boil pot into the surrounding water. While this works, it does take a little bit of work as you’ll need to regularly drain the water from the sink every 5 minutes or so as it starts to warm up and lose its cooling ability. So, make sure you have a big bag of ice on hand if you’re going to use this method.

You can speed up this process by regularly stirring the water bath and the wort inside the brew pot. This is important, but make sure that the spoon or other utensil you’re using to stir your wort is sanitized as we discussed in the equipment section! Once your wort falls below about 170 degrees it’s possible to get an infection from outside bacteria, so anything touching your wort from this point forward must be sanitized. With that in mind, just make sure you’re careful to keep a lid on the pot and to only stir it with a sanitized device.

This ice bath process could take anywhere from about 20 minutes to nearly an hour depending on how much water you boiled. Have patience, because getting your wort to the optimal temperature will yield far better results. This might mean changing the water a dozen times and going through a 10 pound bag of ice. Again, you ideally want to get your wort to below 70 degrees before adding your yeast, and the closer to 60-65 degrees the better. Use your probe or whatever thermometer you have on hand to check the temp. If you don’t have one, try to estimate by touching the pot with the back of your hand and when it’s cool to the touch, it’s probably getting close.

I used the ice bath method for my first few batches, but as I began to get frustrated with the length of time it took to cool the wort and my larger boil size, I opted for the second method of using a wort chiller. A wort chiller is simply a device that uses coils of tubing to expedite the heat transfer needed to cool the wort. There are both immersion and counter-flow chillers, but I decided on an immersion chiller. That means I actually immerse my coils of tubing into the wort and then pump cold water through the coils to cool the wort. Here’s a picture of my immersion chiller in action and hooked up to the sink:

It’s a relatively simple setup. Cold water goes in one end from the faucet and spirals down the copper tubing coil and then the hot water comes out of the other end and back into the sink. Here’s a close up from the inside of the brew pot:

Again, I leave my brew paddle in there so I can constantly stir the wort around the coils as that helps speed up the cooling process. With this setup I can cool about 4 gallons of boiling wort to 60 degrees in about 15 minutes. When I was using an ice bath this process took me nearly an hour with the same amount of liquid so it has really freed up some of my time. Again, this is completely optional, but can be very handy to have. I made this chiller myself by picking up a 50′ coil of 1/2″ copper tubing at Lowes along with a few fittings and hoses for around $60 total. You can buy these chillers already made from most homebrew shops, but one of this size would run you north of $100.

Transferring the Wort to Your Fermenter

Once you’ve cooled your wort down to the desired temperature you can add it to your fermenter. Like I discussed in the equipment section, this will probably mean a big plastic bucket. Keep in mind that since you’re adding cooled wort to your fermenter, you need to make sure it’s completely sanitized! So before dumping it in be sure to sanitize the entire inside of the bucket and the lid with your sanitizing solution of choice. I recommend Star San since you don’t have to rinse it, but you’re free to explore other options.

The other thing you want to consider is aerating the wort at this stage. Your yeast need oxygen in order to do their job, so it’s at this point you want to introduce as much oxygen into the mixture as possible. I do this by using a big plastic strainer that fits perfectly over the mouth of the bucket as seen here:

All of the little holes will help introduce oxygen into the mixture as it’s poured. If you don’t have a strainer that works, don’t worry. You can do without one and simply use a sanitized spoon or whatever you have to help stir up the wort in the bucket or put the lid on and slosh things around a few times. You also have a few options when pouring the wort into your fermenter. The strainer can help keep some of the larger hop particles and stuff out, but many people simply dump everything right in. It’s really up to you, but you’ll make good beer either way.

Finally, you have to then top off the wort with enough water to get you to the total amount called for by the recipe. Most recipes are for 5 or 5.25 gallons of beer, so depending on how much you used for your boil, you might need to add a few more gallons of regular water to your fermenter. Again, you have a few options. The cheapest is to just use your own tap water to top off. If you do this, to be safe it’s a good idea to boil the water first, preferably a day or two ahead of time, and make sure you’ve killed any bacteria or anything that could be in your water and contaminate your beer. Or, you can simply use a few gallons of bottled distilled water from the store that should already be free of any contaminants.

And here’s another good tip. If you plan ahead and refrigerate your water you can reduce your time spent with the pot in the ice bath since the cold water you add will reduce the temperature of your wort. In my case, I have to add just shy of one gallon of water to my fermenter to bring me to the 5 gallon mark.

Taking Your First Gravity Reading

Once you’ve added your top off water and mixed it up real good it’s time to take your first gravity reading with your hydrometer. This is important for a few reasons. First, you want to make sure your gravity is close to what the recipe calls for. Your recipe kit should list what the expected target original gravity is. This just tells you how much sugar is dissolved in the wort and if your numbers were somehow way off it could detect a problem in your process. Second, this will help you know when the fermentation is complete and even calculate the alcohol content of your beer.

To take a gravity reading you need a hydrometer, which should have come with your brewing kit. If not, hopefully you purchased one separately. Next, you have a take a sample of your wort. Again, whatever you use to take this sample, make sure it’s sanitized! You can use a turkey baster and suck some up and put it into a tube of some sort or even purchase a device called a wine thief that’s meant specifically for this job. Either way, once you have the sample drawn you need to stick your hydrometer in and see where it reads. Make sure you spin it and get all of the bubbles off to ensure a correct reading, but after all said and done you should see something sort of like this:

Do you see how the surface of the liquid rises up in the middle? That’s what you want to read, so in this sample I consider it a 1.032. Keep in mind that hydrometers are typically calibrated to 60 degrees, so if your wort is warmer than that when you test, refer to the chart that comes with it in order to correct the reading. But my wort was at about 64 and that didn’t call for any adjustments to the reading. Once you know your starting gravity take a note of it in your brewing notebook because you’ll have to refer to it later.

Pitching the Yeast

Pitching is just a fancy word for adding the yeast. Once your wort is cooled down and you’ve topped off with water, the last thing you need to do is add the yeast to the mix. There are two kinds of yeast available to the homebrewer: dry and liquid. Dry yeast is the standard that’s sent with most kits and the cheapest. You’ll receive directions with the kit that talk about how to rehydrate the yeast, but generally it just means dumping the packet into a cup or so of warm water about 20 minutes before you’re ready to add it to the wort. Truth be told, some people don’t even do that and just dump the dry packet right into the wort. But for now, let’s just follow your directions.

In some cases, you’ll actually be required to, or be suggested to use liquid yeast. There are some yeast strains that just aren’t available in dry form so it’s possible you’ll encounter this. If you do have a liquid yeast it’s best to make what’s called a starter about a day in advance. I’m not going to go into the details here, but briefly, it’s simply where you create a mini batch of wort (usually just 1-2 liters) and add the liquid yeast to that about 12-24 hours before pitching into your main batch of beer. This just helps ensure that the yeast are really alive and viable while also giving them a head start so they can multiply before you dump them into your beer. You just want to make sure you are putting enough yeast into the batch so you can reduce stress and help make your fermentation go as smoothly as possible.

Once you get into using liquid yeast and making starters you might go as far as I did and make a custom stir plate to help keep the starter constantly moving and adding oxygen into the mix to speed up the process. Again, totally unnecessary if you’re using dry yeast, and not even really necessary if you’re making starters with liquid yeast. But I think it looks cool and it’s a great conversation starter when company comes over and sees what appears to be a crazy science experiment going on in the kitchen.

After you have re-hydrated your dry yeast or prepared your liquid yeast the only thing left to do is dump it into your fermenter. As you can see here, I’m just dumping in my 1 liter starter, but you would do the same if you had your dry yeast sitting in a cup of warm water.

Let the Fermentation Begin

After you’ve pitched your yeast, the last thing you need to do is snap on the lid (sanitized of course!) and stick your airlock in place. With the airlock you have a few choices. You can fill the reservoir with a little bit of your sanitized water solution or just use some cheap liquor (preferably vodka). You just want a liquid in the airlock that will kill any bacteria that try to get in while at the same time remaining harmless in the event the liquid gets sucked back into your beer.

Now all you have to do is set your fermentation bucket in a cool location. Remember, your yeast will probably want to maintain temperatures in the 60-70 degree range, so a cool basement is ideal. This is where the liquid crystal thermometer on the side of your bucket will come in handy. Here you can see my batch chugging away at around 64 degrees or so:

Temperature control is extremely important when making beer. In fact, it’s probably one of the most important factors in brewing a great beer. If the temps get too high, the yeast will produce off flavors and other byproducts that can significantly alter the taste of your beer. If the temps drop too low (usually below 60) the yeast can go dormant and stall out your fermentation. So really, you want to keep your beer at a constant temperature in the mid-60s if at all possible to ensure you make the best ale (lagers are a completely different story and require cold fermentation temps).

Also keep in mind that fermentation is an exothermic reaction, meaning just because your bucket is sitting in a 65 degree room doesn’t mean your beer is at 65 degrees. In fact, during the most active stage of fermentation you could see your beer be as much as 8-10 degrees warmer than the outside air. Typically this only lasts a few days, but that alone is enough to give your beer some undesirable flavors if left unchecked.

If you don’t have the ability to keep your beer at the require temps, there is an easy solution. Find yourself a bucket or tub that’s larger in diameter than your fermentation bucket. Fill it with cold water and then set your fermenter inside of it and then add some ice or frozen water bottles. This should help keep the temps down to where they should be. This is usually only a problem during the most active fermentation stage, so generally after a few days to a week you can remove it from the water bath and leave the fermenter at ambient temperature, hopefully still 70 degrees or less.

Patience is a Virtue

The key to making good beer is patience. If you’ve even followed your recipe instructions even halfway right, given enough time you will produce some good beer. Remember, the yeast are in control once you’ve done everything above. You’ve simply created an environment that’s perfect for them to carry out their job, so now you must wait. The problem most new home brewers face is trying to rush their beer. Your first few are exciting, I know. You will want to pop the lid on your fermenter every day and try to put it into bottles as soon as possible, but resist the urge.

Most kits will tell you that your beer will only take about a week to complete fermentation. That’s not long enough. It might be true that your fermentation is complete, but it doesn’t mean the yeast are done and it’s ready to bottle. Even after the main fermentation your yeast are hard at work cleaning up after themselves. This process will help mellow any off flavors that might have been produced and help make your beer even better. So at a minimum you should let your beer sit in the fermenter for two weeks even if your instructions tell you otherwise. In fact, if you can let it go three weeks, you’ll be rewarded.

I know you want to see how your first creation turned out as soon as possible, but the time will come soon enough. Instead of worrying about your beer that’s already done, use this time to learn more about the brewing process and expand your beer knowledge. Then start planning what your next brew is going to be.

Keeping Good Notes

To consistently make good beer, you need to keep good notes. From brew day to tasting your first bottle six to eight weeks may have passed, so do you think you can remember every little detail of how you made that beer if it’s really good and you want to make it again? Even when following a recipe with set ingredients there are so many variables in play that it’s difficult to make the exact same beer twice unless you have a detailed record of what you did. Just adding hops 5 minutes late or for a few minutes longer can have an impact on the flavor. The length of time it takes to cool the wort can greatly alter the clarity of the final beer. And even more important, just a degree or two difference in the fermentation can totally change the flavor of your beer.

So, make sure you keep good notes! You’ll be thankful you did once you find a beer you like and wish to make it again. Also, it can help you spot errors in your brewing process so you can learn from your mistakes. It doesn’t matter how you take notes, but there are a few things you’ll want to include for sure.

Include in your notes:

• Recipe kit and batch size – If you get a pre-made kit, take note of where you got it and how much you paid for it. Make sure you write down how big of a batch it creates as well.
• Date - This is important on so many levels because you want to to be able to see what day you brewed, when you took gravity readings, and anything else along the way so you can track your progress. Since some beers take literally 3-6 months to finish, having dates will be important.
• Detailed ingredient list – Even if you’re using a kit, make sure you write down each ingredient separately. This way in the future you can try recreating the beer without the use of a kit or can tweak it by altering just one or two items.
• Gravity readings – Your gravity readings are your only true measure of what’s going on with your beer, so any time you take a reading be sure to record what it is and the date. Also note what the recipe calls for as expected readings so you can see how close you are.
• Process and times – Make sure to record your process and the time it took to do everything. Make note of how long the boil lasted, how long it took to cool the wort, and list any details about the process that made the job easy or hard.
• Temperatures - Finally, the most important thing to keep record of are your temperatures throughout the process. Record the temp of the steeping grains, what the temp was when you added the yeast, and what temp the fermentation bucket was at various intervals.

There is a number of free and commercial brewing software packages out there that can help you do this on the computer, but for me, nothing beats a good paper notebook. I spent a few dollars and bought a nice leather covered notebook with thicker pages. I figure I can easily list about 100 recipes or so in the notebook and because of the quality, it should last for at least another generation. Besides, what if I create some really great recipes and would like to pass them down? It would make a great heirloom to one day pass on. Passing on a CD with a bunch of computer files on it just isn’t the same.

Here’s a sample page out of my notebook:

RDWHAHB

Finally, I’d like to leave you with an acronym coined by Charles Papazian in the book The Complete Joy of Homebrewing: RDWHAHB. It simply stands for, “Relax, Don’t Worry, Have a HomeBrew.” If you take anything away from your first brewing adventure, just follow RDWHAHB. If you think you messed something up or that your beer is ruined, just relax and step back for a moment. Maybe even have a beer or two while you look things over. Chances are your beer is just fine, even if you made a mistake. Truth be told, it’s actually pretty hard to ruin your beer. Sure, you might end up with something that didn’t turn out quite as you wanted, but as long as you have added yeast to some water with sugars from some sort of grain along with some hops, you will make beer. So relax and don’t feel intimidated or overwhelmed by the process.

More to Come

This was a long post and a lot to digest, I know. You might have to read it a few times to let it all sink in. And again, this is just a brief overview of the general process and there’s a lot more you can learn by reading one of the brewing books out there like The Complete Joy of Homebrewing or Palmer’s How to Brew.

Stay tuned next week when I wrap up the series by talking about how to tell when your beer is done, ready to be bottled, and how to bottle and carbonate your beer. Bottling can be seen as a chore by some, but it’s really pretty easy as long as you have the right tools and know your process. So, we’ll cover that soon.

About the Author: Jeremy is a retirement planning specialist and founder of Generation X Finance and the guide to Financial Planning at About.com. To learn more, follow Jeremy on Twitter.

How to Brew Your Own Beer and Maybe Even Save Some Money – The Brewing Process

Last week I introduced this mini-series that will cover brewing your own beer at home. I’ve been brewing for a while now, but I wanted to do a series of posts on this topic because the number one question I get from people is whether or not you can actually save money this way. It is possible to set up a basic home brewing operation and actually save some money in the process, but it’s just as easy to find yourself spending even more money than you intended.

Ultimately, it all comes down to your equipment. This is what will make or break your frugal beer experience. Most of your basic extract beer recipe kits can be had for between $25 and $30. These kits are typically designed to make 5 to 5.5 gallons. All said and done, that gives you in the ballpark of 50 bottles per batch. The math is pretty simple, and for the ingredients alone you’re looking at creating a beer that costs roughly $0.50-$0.60 per bottle. That’s not bad, especially if you’re making a style of beer that typically costs $8-$10 per six-pack in the store.

The problem is that you need more than just the ingredients to make beer. Brewing requires some basic equipment that you just might not have around the house. There’s also some equipment that might not be essential, but will make your brewing experience much easier, faster, and you’ll find those items are worth every penny. So, I’m going to walk you through the basic equipment and tell you what you need as a bare minimum so that you can start your brewing on a shoestring budget and keep those costs as low as possible.

The Mr. Beer Kit

I’m just going to mention Mr. Beer because it’s something a lot of people use to first get started with homebrewing. Mr. Beer takes brewing to the simplest level possible, which is both good and bad. It’s great for a beginner, but at the same time you’re missing out on a lot of the brewing process, have very limited ingredients, and probably won’t make as tasty of a beer as you expected. In addition, it only makes 2 gallon batches and the ingredient kits are actually more expensive than what you can get elsewhere, so it really isn’t a very frugal way to go.

In my opinion, if you already have a Mr. Beer kit that you received as a gift or something, go ahead and use it to get your feet wet. But if you’re starting from scratch and will be brewing for the first time, skip Mr. Beer and move on to better equipment as listed below.

Bare Minimum Brewing Equipment

If you want to save money brewing your own beer, you have to start with buying the right equipment, and only the equipment you need. If you search online for beer making supplies you’ll encounter hundreds of sites all offering a wide variety of equipment “kits” that range in price from about $50 to well over $300. How much do you really need to spend to make your first batch of beer? That’s going to depend a little on what kind of equipment you already have around the house and what you need to buy.

Here’s a picture of what I’d consider the bare minimum:

Let’s cover each of these items in a little more detail.

Boiling Kettle

You need a big stock pot of some sort to boil your beer. Yes, size matters. At the very minimum, you need something large enough to comfortably boil 2-3 gallons of water. Most pots are labeled in quarts, so you’re looking for probably a minimum of a 8-10 quart (2-2.5 gallon) stock pot. If you have something bigger, that’s even better. When you’re making beer, the more water you use for the boil, the better your beer will turn out. This has to do with the darkening of the wort because we’re using extracts and how the hops are utilized. I won’t get into the science behind it, but let’s just say that the bigger the pot you can find, the better your beer will ultimately be. Your beer will still be fine if you can only boil 2 gallons so don’t let that stop you as you’re just starting out.

In this picture you’ll see my pot, which is a 22 quart (5.5 gallon) stainless steel pot. I actually didn’t have a good stock pot other than a tefloncoated 2 gallon pot already at home so I used this as a good excuse to go buy a big stainless pot. I picked it up for $40 at Walmart or some other superstore and it came with a lid. That’s really not too bad and it is also fantastic for boiling corn on the cob, crab legs, large batches of pasta, or whatever. Again, if you already have something that can boil a few gallons, start with that and you don’t have to spend a dime, but over time you will likely want to go bigger.

Fermentation Bucket

The other key piece of equipment is a large enough vessel to handle the fermentation. In this case I almost always recommend a 6.5 gallon plastic bucket, as shown in the picture above. You need at least a 6 gallon container because the fermentation process generates a lot of CO2 and your beer foams up significantly during this process. If you put 5 gallons of beer in a 5 gallon bucket you’re going to have an incredible mess on your hands. You need the extra head space to accommodate all of the fermentation action that will be taking place.

Since you need a larger than 5 gallon bucket, it’s probably something you won’t find out in your garage or at the local hardware store. And actually, that’s a good thing. A lot of those types of buckets are not suitable for food use. There are different types of plastic and there are really only a few that you should consider using for holding food. If you look on the bottom of virtually anything made of plastic you’re probably going to find one of those little triangle recycling symbols with a number inside of it. This is where you can determine whether or not your plastic is suitable for use. The scale ranges from 1 to 7, but only 1 and 2 should even be considered as food grade. If you buy a bucket specifically made for brewing beer or making wine, you can be sure that it’s safe to use. You can typically pick one of these up for around $12-$15, usually with a lid included.

Bucket Lid and Airlock

In addition to the bucket, you need a lid that secures tightly. We want to do everything possible to keep your beer closed off to the outside world. Wild bacteria, yeast, and mold in the air and all around us are your beer’s worst enemy. Your best bet is to get a specialty lid made for your fermentation bucket. Usually if you buy the bucket it will even come with a lid. What makes these lids special is that they usually have a small hole drilled in the top along with a rubber washer. This hole is where you stick in the airlock.

If you notice that clear plastic thing sticking out of the top of the bucket, that’s the airlock. In this case it’s a 3-piece airlock. You fill the reservoir up with some sanitized water and it works by allowing gasses from the fermentation to escape, but no outside air to get in. There are other types of airlocks available as well, so the style doesn’t matter as long as you have one. At just a dollar or two it’s a no-brainer piece of equipment you should buy.

Thermometers

You’ll see two thermometers in this picture. The first one is just your typical probe thermometer attached to the boiling kettle. This one is optional, but very handy. The reason you’d want this is if your beer recipe kit requires you to steep any grains. To steep grains you ideally want to do it in water that’s 150-160 degrees. If the water isn’t hot enough, you won’t extract enough of the flavor and sugars. If it’s too hot, you risk extracting tannins from the husk of the grains which will make your beer astringent and bitter. You can get by without one as long as you estimate your water temps well, but at only $5 or $10, it’s really an expense worth dishing out in my opinion. Besides, it’s a multitasker and can be used in your regular cooking as well. If you already have one, whether digital or a probe, go ahead and use it.

The other thermometer is on the side of the fermentation bucket. This is just a liquid crystal adhesive thermometer just like you’d find on a fish tank. Again, probably not something you have at home already and might have to buy, but they are literally only about a dollar or two. If you buy a brewing equipment kit it should be included, but you can always find one separately or go to your local pet store and grab one. As long as it works in the temperature range of about 50-80 degrees it should be fine. We’ll touch on why this thermometer is important later, but one of the most important things about brewing beer is the temperature, so this is not something you should skip out on.

Cleaning and Sanitizing

With beer, what you put into it is what you’ll get out. That means having very clean and sanitized equipment is a must right from the start. About the only thing that can ruin beer is if it gets infected by an outside contaminant. That’s why cleanliness and sanitation can’t be overemphasized. If you dump your beer into a bucket that hasn’t been sanitized and there are some seemingly harmless bacteria in there it could ruin your beer. It’s also important to understand there is a difference between cleaning and sanitizing. They are not the same. Cleaning removes any dirt, dust, and grime, whereas sanitizing actually kills any potential bacteria, mold, or yeast hanging out on your equipment.

The first thing you’ll notice in the picture above is a big tub of Oxiclean. This is my cleaner of choice, and for a couple of reasons. You might think good old soap would get the job, and you’re right. But, did you know that soap residue can cause problems with the foam and head retention of your final product? You can certainly use regular soap or some other detergent for cleaning, but keep in mind that if you don’t properly rinse it and even a little soapy residue is lever over it can cause your beer to have a very thin head when you pour. Not a deal breaker, but it isn’t ideal either.

The other thing to consider is that brewing is messy and sticky. What you’re boiling is a thick mixture of all sorts of stuff full of sugar and hop particles and it sticks to everything. Your boiling kettle will be a sticky mess and if you’re like me, the last thing you want to do is sit and scrub down all of your equipment. Oxiclean is almost like a miracle cleaner. If you fill up your kettle with water and mix in some Oxiclean and let it set for a few hours you can literally just wipe it up with a damp towel and it’s spotless. Not only that, it’s a miracle bottle delabeler which I’ll talk about in the bottling part of the series. You can pick up a big tub of this stuff at virtually any grocery store, use it to clean other stuff around the house or even laundry. Again, it’s a multitasker and worth every penny if you want to save time and energy. Just make sure you get the one that says “free” on it because it’s free of any scents or additives that you don’t want on your brewing equipment.

Finally, we have to talk sanitation. Everything that touches your beer after you’re done boiling it has to be sanitized. We all know that a little bleach in water is good for the job and cheap, but again, it’s one of those things you might not want to skimp on when it comes to making your beer. If you use a bleach solution, you obviously have to rinse it off so that you don’t get the bleach into your beer. Well, once you rinse it off it’s instantly exposed and has the potential to get contaminated again, which would defeat the purpose of sanitizing in the first place. So, I would have to recommend a no-rinse sanitizing solution specifically made for this task.

You’ll see that little rectangle bottle with the purple label in the picture, that’s called Star-San. It’s a concentrate that you mix with water. This stuff is even used in many commercial breweries. The beauty of this stuff is that you don’t have to rinse it off and it’s perfectly safe. You dunk your equipment in it and it’s sanitized and ready to go without any hassle. A 16 oz. bottle like I have here will last a long time and only costs about $10-$12. I’ve used less than half of the bottle and I’ve done 6 batches of beer. When you consider that it will probably stretch to cover 15-20 batches of beer it makes the added cost well worth it.

Hydrometer

Here’s an item you won’t have at home, yet you’ll need as a brewer. A hydrometer measures the specific gravity of the liquid you place it in. Why is this important? Well when you’re brewing beer, this is the only tool you have that can tell you how your fermentation is going.

You need to make sure your beer is at the correct specific gravity at a few times during the process to ensure the fermentation is complete and that you’re recipe is working as it should. If you accidentally bottle your beer before the fermentation is complete, you could actually have exploding bottles. You don’t want that, so you’ll want a hydrometer instead. These should be included in any basic brewing kit or can be purchased separately for under $10. You can see my hydrometer in action to the left.

Siphon Tubing

Another very important thing to remember about brewing is that once your beer goes into the fermentation bucket, from that point on you want to keep it as still as possible and try not to slosh it around or otherwise introduce any oxygen into the beer. Beer can oxidize and that creates off-flavors you don’t want in your beer. That rules out pouring or dumping your beer, so how do you go about transferring the beer to a bottling bucket or directly into bottles? That’s where a siphon comes in. Whether it’s siphoning the beer into a different bucket or directly into the bottles, you need some tubing.

You’ll need a good three to six feet of some vinyl tubing that can be had at any hardware store or it will almost certainly be included in any equipment kit you buy. You can see in my picture above that my siphon tubing is connected to this long and larger cylinder. This is completely optional, but what I have there is called an auto siphon. It’s basically a big piston that can be used to create the siphon simply by pumping the tube. Not only that, but the intake at the bottom of the cylinder is about an inch above the bottom which helps keep you from sucking up the sediment at the bottom of the beer. This tool also eliminates the need to try and create a siphon from scratch, which many people try to do by using their mouth to suck on the end of the siphon tube. Again, this is a bad idea because your mouth has bacteria on it, and by doing so you’re risking an infection by contaminating the tube that will come in contact with your beer.

You can create a perfectly good siphon without doing that, but it can be a bit of a hassle. In my case, the kit I purchased included the auto siphon tool which I’ve found to be very handy. While I won’t call it a mandatory item to buy, it will make your life a little easier. If you get a kit that comes with one, great. If not, just go ahead and use a plain siphon tube to start and it might be something you upgrade to later.

Bottles and Bottling Equipment

Finally, you need to put your beer into bottles. First of all, you’ll need somewhere around 50 bottles for a typical 5 gallon batch of beer. The great news is that bottles can typically be had for free. Yes, you can actually buy empty plain bottles, but there’s no reason to. You have a couple of options for obtaining your bottles. First, if you already drink beer, just save your empty bottles. It doesn’t get any easier than that. All you have to do is clean them and take the labels off. Just make sure they are not the twist-off bottles! The second thing you can do is hit up your local bar or restaurant and see if they would be willing to give you some bottles. If they normally just toss them out or recycle them anyway they usually won’t have a problem in giving you some. If you’re in a state where they get a deposit back for returning them this might be a little harder, but you might offer them a few bucks and still get them for cheaper than buying bottles at a store. Finally, if you really want you can just go dumpster diving and collect bottles that way.

One word of warning, and that’s to make sure you get brown bottles. UV light skunks beer, and brown bottles block most of it out leaving your beer nice and fresh. Have you ever wondered by Heineken often tastes skunky? That’s because they are in green bottles and are usually sitting on a store shelf for days or weeks at a time under the harsh fluorescent lights. You can still use green bottles if you must, but they need to be stored in a dark closet away from any direct light.

Once you have your bottles you just have to get some bottle caps and a bottle capper. Again, these are specialty items that you won’t have sitting around the house so you’ll have to make the purchase. Luckily, it’s very inexpensive to get some basic bottling tools. If you look at the picture above again you’ll notice that strange looking red tool. That’s a standard wing capper. It will come with most brewing kits or you can buy one for about $15. There are other capping devices out there, but this basic one will work just fine.

Finally, you need the bottle caps themselves. Most kits will include enough caps to get you through one batch, but it’s always good to have extra on hand and buy in bulk for future batches. The more you buy, the cheaper they get. A bag of about 144 caps will run you a little over $3, while you can get a bag of nearly 650 for about $12. When you break it down, you only need to spend about a dollar per batch for caps and the bottles can be reused forever until they break.

A Temperature Controlled Location

Ok, so this isn’t really a piece of equipment, but it is one of the most important things to have when it comes to brewing beer. When you’re brewing, you’re dealing with a living organism. That’s right, you have live yeast doing the magic of creating your beer, and they require a certain environment in order to carry out their task successfully. The most important part of their environment is temperature. Most ale yeasts require temperatures between about 60 and 74 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal quality.

That means you should have an area in your house that maintains a constant temperature in the 60s. For most people this will mean a basement or a cool and dark corner of a closet or something in the house. If you don’t have a basement and no air conditioning and can’t keep your house that cool in the summer, there are options we will discuss later, but it may mean you want to wait until a cooler time of year before starting your brew. The reason is that if your beer is too warm during the fermentation process the yeast will often start to impart off-flavors in your beer which can have a negative impact on the overall taste. The last thing you want to do is spend all the time it takes to make beer and then not be able to keep the temperatures down and end up with something you don’t even enjoy drinking.

Optional, But Very Handy Things to Buy

Everything outlined above should be considered the absolute bare minimum in brewing equipment. Having everything listed there will brew you a perfectly fine batch of beer, but you will be missing some items that can make the process faster, easier, and better equipped to avoid an unwanted contamination. If you were to buy everything above and didn’t need to buy a stock pot you could plan on spending between $40 and $50 for the equipment needed to make your first batch of beer. If you want to get really frugal and ditch the Oxiclean and Star-San sanitizing stuff you could get started for under $40. And all of the equipment listed will last you virtually forever except for the bottle caps which need to be purchased new for each subsequent batch. So, if your budget allows, here are a few other things you might want to invest in to make your brewing process even easier.

Bottling Bucket

Some people might even call this a mandatory piece of equipment, but technically, you can get by without it which is why I didn’t list it above in the totally frugal setup. Personally, I wouldn’t brew without one because it is an inexpensive addition that will make your bottling job a hundred times easier. Here’s my bottling bucket in action.

As you can see, the bottling bucket is virtually identical to the fermentation bucket except that it has a spigot attached to the bottom for draining the beer. In addition, I’ve attached what’s called a bottling wand to the spigot to make bottling even easier and to prevent any additional sloshing around of the beer while filling. Remember, we don’t want to oxidize our beer! The bottling bucket can be had for another $12 and the bottling wand for another four or five. Trust me, for another $20 on equipment that might last a lifetime and make your job a lot easier, I’d strongly recommend it. The good news is that almost all pre-made brewing kits will include a bottling bucket anyway so the decision is an easy one.

Additional Fermentation Vessels

Making beer takes time–sometimes months. You can expect a typical beer to take three weeks in the fermentation bucket and another three weeks in bottles before its ready to drink. That’s six weeks minimum from boiling to drinking, so most people like to have a spare fermentation vessel on hand so that you can get started on another batch while the first one is going on. If you just have one fermentation bucket, that means you can only have one batch of beer going at a time.

So, plan on picking up a couple extra after you have decided that you enjoy making beer as a hobby. This way you can keep a pipeline going and will have more freedom to experiment with your beer. Buckets are cheap and easy to clean, and at $12 or so it’s worth adding a couple more of those to your arsenal. Another option is called the carboy. These are typically 5-7 gallon glass or plastic containers that look like those water cooler jugs. These can be helpful to have once you get into beers that need many months to mature, dry hopping, adding fruit, etc. The downfall is that these are harder to clean due to the small opening and will require some additional care. The more you learn about the brewing process you’ll determine if this is something you want or if you’ll just stick to buckets. And don’t forget, if you’re picking up more fermentation vessels you’ll also need additional airlocks for them.

Wort Chiller

Finally, an item that will certainly help you improve your overall quality once you start doing larger boils (3+ gallons) is a wort chiller. Ideally, you want to cool your wort (beer) down after the boil to about 60-70 degrees in the shortest amount of time possible. For one, the quicker you can do this, the less of a chance that something will end up in your beer that you don’t want and contaminate it. Second, a rapid cooling will help ensure a good “cold break” which means a lot of the proteins settle out and will give you a clearer finished product. When you’re working with smaller volumes of water it’s easy enough to just cool the wort down by sticking your pot into an ice water bath. But once you start trying to cool down a lot of water it ends up taking a lot of ice, a lot of cold water, and it will still take a lot of time.

Unfortunately, wort chillers aren’t all that cheap since most are made of copper tubing. Depending on the size, they can run anywhere from about $40-$100. If you’re handy with copper tubing and some basic tools you can actually make your own, which I did, and spend about half as much. In the next post in this series where I show the brewing process I’ll talk a little more about the cooling of the wort and show you a wort chiller in action. Again, this item is completely optional, but it will be very handy to have once you start doing bigger boils and it can really cut down on the total brewing time.

Buying an Equipment Kit vs. Individual Pieces

Now that you know what you’ll need to get started, should you buy one of the readily available brewing kits or just buy the things you need individually? If you ask me, it’s almost always cheaper to buy a kit if you need to buy almost everything anyway. If it comes down to where you only need to buy a couple of the items you can get away with just buying what you need, but if you need a bucket, tubing, bottle caps, a capper, and all that stuff, if you added it all up you can probably get it all as a part of a kit for less.

For example, here is a basic brewing starter kit that has everything I talked about above, a bottling bucket, a small handbook on making beer, and enough bottle caps for your first batch and it’s only $60. That’s not bad, and it comes with all of the equipment you need. If you want to take it one step further, here’s another kit that comes with the same core components but also includes ingredients for creating your very own first beer for $94. You can figure it’s about $65 or so for the equipment and another $30 for the ingredients. That kit happens to come with a wheat beer, but they have other types of beer you can get instead for a few dollars more. This kit could actually save you some money since both the equipment and ingredients would be shipped together to save on shipping costs.

Buying Online vs. A Local Beer/Wine Store

You might not realize it, but there are a lot of speciality stores out there that cater to the homebrewing and wine making people out there. In fact, you might very well have one in your own town. If you’re just getting into this hobby and would like to talk to someone in person, you can’t beat stopping into your local supplier. They will be glad to walk you through the process, help you pick out the right equipment, and be there if you have questions down the road. Some of these brew supply stores may even brew their own beer and allow you to sample some to give you an idea of what you can make and then provide you with the appropriate ingredients. And don’t forget, buying local helps support your community and save on shipping costs.

Unfortunately, not all local home brew stores are created equal. Yours might be a fantastic resource, or it might be an overpriced hole in the wall that doesn’t carry everything you need. That’s something you’ll have to check out on your own or ask around. The benefit of shopping online is usually price. A lot of these online homebrew supply stores are very competitive on price and even after shipping, often hard to beat. There’s also a huge selection since many of these stores have warehouses full of stuff. So, there’s no right or wrong answer when it comes to buying online or shopping local, but it will depend on what you have available to you in your area and the quality of the store.

If you are looking online, here are a few of the best places to order:

• Midwest Supplies - I use them a lot since I’m located in the midwest and they can get things shipped to me fast. Prices are also very good.
• Austin Homebrew Supply - Another store I frequent, mainly because of their wide array of recipe kits and $7.99 shipping.
• Northern Brewer - Again, $7.99 shipping and located in the midwest. I check them out for occasional deals.

What’s Next

I hope this has helped you understand what kind of equipment is needed in order to begin brewing your own beer and how much money you can expect to spend to get started. As I mentioned from the beginning, this is where you ultimately determine how much money you’ll save by brewing your own beer at home. If you can piece together your equipment for under $60 you’ll be saving good money after just two batches. Every batch after that and the savings will just continue. On the other hand, you can go crazy and easily spend a few hundred on equipment if you want, and that could make the potential savings much lower. It’s really up to you.

In the next post of the series we’re going to actually start making beer. I’ll be walking you through your typical extract recipe kit that can be had for about $25 that makes 5 gallons. While I’ll be covering a general outline of the brewing process, keep in mind that every recipe is different and there are a lot of details you’ll want to pick up by reading through some brewing materials before you get started. So, order your equipment if you’re ready, and get a head start by reading these:

How to Brew: Everything You Need To Know To Brew Beer Right The First Time (Third Edition)

The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Third Edition

Even better, you can view John Palmer’s 1st edition of “How to Brew” completely free online at howtobrew.com. And if you’re looking to talk to real people about beer, there’s no better place than the Homebrew Talk Forums. Tens of thousands of members willing to answer even the most basic questions. Not to mention a huge collection of tutorials, photos, and tips for brewing your own beer.

And stay tuned for the next post in this series: Brewing Your Own Beer.

About the Author: Jeremy is a retirement planning specialist and founder of Generation X Finance and the guide to Financial Planning at About.com. To learn more, follow Jeremy on Twitter.

How to Brew Your Own Beer and Maybe Even Save Some Money – Equipment

Homebrewing Can be a Rewarding and Frugal Hobby

Have you ever thought about brewing your own beer? Did you come up with the idea because you love great beer, or because you thought it might be cheaper than buying it at the store? Homebrewing has experienced a recent surge in popularity, and it probably has something to do with the economy. People everywhere are looking for ways to save, so they think that they can make their own beer and save some money. The other reason is that craft or microbrews are becoming even more popular these days. These smaller, usuallly local, regional, or occasional nationwide breweries are finding their way into more and more grocery stores across the country. As more people try these different beers they realize that there’s more to beer than Bud Light, Miller Lite, and Coors.

But brewing your own beer must be pretty complicated, right? Not at all. At the very basic level all you’re doing is taking a sweet liquid (in this case, malted barley and water) and using yeast to convert the sugars into alcohol and balancing out the sweetness with hops. That’s just a few ingredients. Malted grains, yeast, hops, and some good ol’ H2O. Don’t worry, if you aren’t sure what malted barely is or what hops are, I’ll be giving you a primer on that in one of the upcoming posts in the series.

Can Brewing Your Own Beer Really Save Money?

Maybe. First, it depends on what kind of beer you enjoy. If you’re a fan of the mega corporation brews such as Budweiser, Miller, Coors, etc. then it’s pretty hard to compete with the price those are sold for. So if that’s the kind of beer you think you’ll be making, you might be disappointed and would probably be better off just buying it. But if you enjoy other full-flavored beers and local microbrews then it’s very possible to brew equally flavorful beers at a fraction of the cost. In many cases you may be able to brew a replica of an expensive microbrew for around $0.40 – $0.60 per bottle. When you compare that to the typical cost of a good microbrew that might run $8-$12 per six-pack (and let’s not even go into the outrageous prices you pay at a restaurant or bar!) you can see the potential savings.

You also have to consider equipment. First of all, you won’t have everything you need at home to start brewing immediately. That means you’re going to have to pick up some brewing equipment to get started. This is where you can get carried away. You can brew a successful beer with just a very few inexpensive items, but there are also enough speciality tools and equipment that can lead you to spend hundreds of dollars. So, in this series I’m going to show you how to put together a basic brewing kit that will keep costs down while still including enough of the helpful tools to ensure you make the best possible beer.

Don’t You Need Fancy Equipment or a Lot of Space to Brew?

Do you have a stove that can boil water? You can brew. Do you have some space in a closet, the corner of a room, or a basement? You can brew. Just to give you an idea, here’s my little corner of the basement dedicated to brewing. Everything I need for brewing fits on a few shelves in the corner of our laundry room in the basement. Right now I can easily have 5 batches (25 gallons) going at one time and there’s still room to spare.

Here’s a quick peek:

It might look like a lot of stuff going on, but we’ll highlight what some of the equipment is, what you need and don’t need, and where you can get it for cheap. Keep in mind that what I have there is enough to comfortably have 5 or 6 batches going at once, so just if you’re just starting out and will be doing a single batch you won’t need nearly as much stuff or space.

What to Expect in This Series

Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to have a series of posts that walk you through the entire home brewing process. I’ll also be keeping things very simple. There are a few different brewing methods, but for the sake of simplicity I will be discussing extract brewing. This just means that you will be using a malt extract rather than buying bulk grains and creating your own malted barley. Doing an all grain brew usually takes some special equipment so we’re going to keep things simple to start. You can always move on to all grain brewing in the future when you’ve learned the basic process and are comfortable with the additional work. And actually, if you ever do get to that point, you can probably save even more money over time since you can buy more ingredients in bulk.

Series Summary

• Introduction - You’re reading this right now. Covers a basic overview of home brewing and what to expect.
• Equipment - I’ll outline what you need to buy to get started, how to find some free equipment, and where to get the best deals.
• Brewing - Here I’ll talk about the bulk of the brewing process where you mix all the ingredients and create your very own beer.
• Bottling - After brewing and letting it ferment you still have one more step. You need to put it into bottles and let it carbonate.

Some Additional Resources

If you want to get a head start and learn a little more about homebrewing, there are two books that are a must. These books are the homebrewing bibles and you’ll be referencing them whether it is your 1st or 50th brew. Full of tons of great tips, recipes, and troubleshooting.

How to Brew: Everything You Need To Know To Brew Beer Right The First Time

The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Third Edition

Even better, you can view John Palmer’s “How to Brew” completely free online at howtobrew.com. This is the entire first edition of the book. While the current print version is the 3rd edition from 2006 and will have some updated information in it, the online first edition is a great start.

So, be sure to bookmark this post or subscribe to the RSS feed so you’ll be notified of the upcoming posts in the series.

About the Author: Jeremy is a retirement planning specialist and founder of Generation X Finance and the guide to Financial Planning at About.com. To learn more, follow Jeremy on Twitter.

How to Brew Your Own Beer and Maybe Even Save Some Money – Introduction

This is a guest post by Jeff Rose. Jeff Rose is an Illinois Certified Financial Planner(TM) and co-founder of Alliance Investment Planning Group. He is also the author of Good Financial Cents, a financial planning and investment blog. You can also learn more about Jeff at his website Jeff Rose Financial.

Okay, quick disclaimer: I am a financial planner, not a cook. I’m the typical guy that can throw a burger or chicken breast on the grill and work some magic. In the kitchen, I can make a mean peanut butter and jelly but that’s about it.  See, I wasn’t always this bad. I used to be a decent cook in college, but since marrying my wonderful wife; she as taken on the role of the master chef. So getting out of practice, I kind of lost my touch.

That is until until I stumbled Jeremy’s steak chili recipe. The whole steak chili cooking experience rekindled some of my enthusiasm in the kitchen. For those that are the clueless in the kitchen, that recipe is awesome. The pictures and step by step process are perfect for the typical clueless person in the kitchen. Yeah, that’s me.

In the spirit of simplicity, I wanted to offer a recipe that was 1. Easy 2. Good and 3. Easy. Face it. Easier the better and this is the easiest shrimp pasta recipe that you’ll ever make. I guarantee it! How can I guarantee it? Because I made it, of course. First, let’s take a sneak peak of the finished product. Hungry yet?

Ingredient List and Cost

• Bag of Cocktail Shrimp – $8.99
• Butter
• Olive Oil
• Pasta of Your Choice (We use Vermicelli) – $1.19
• Minced Garlic
• Italian Seasoning
• Garlic Powder
• Real Parmesan Cheese – $3.49
• Salt and Pepper
• Big Sized Appetite – priceless

We already had most of the above mentioned ingredients in our kitchen.  If you have to buy some of the items mentioned, rest assured that they will last much longer that just this meal. Overall, I can’t see you spending more than $15 on the whole list with the exception of buying a large container of olive oil.  Now that we’ve seen the ingredients, let’s look at preparation.

Cooking The Shrimp and Pasta

To defrost the shrimp, you will need to just run them under cold water for a bit.  After that, you’ll add the butter, olive oil, garlic and seasonings to a skillet on medium heat.   Then just add the shrimp into the mix.  It will look like this this below.  How much of the ingredients do you add?  Well, as I mentioned above, I’m a big fan of olive oil and garlic.  So more the merrier.

While you’re cooking the shrimp, you can be boiling your pasta.  To feed 4 people, you will probably only need a half box of pasta.  Feel free to cook a bit more, but I’m almost certain you’ll have extra.  I didn’t include a picture of the pasta boiling.  I hope that isn’t necessary.  If it is for you, stop reading now and head straight to your local Italian restaurant, because you don’t stand a chance.

The shrimp will cook for 10-15 minutes, just stirring occasionally.  And guess what?  That’s it.  Seriously, it’s that simple.

Serving The Pasta

By using the appropriate amount of olive oil and butter, there should be enough that will be the sauce of the pasta.  Just scoop and spread over the cooked pasta.  The finishing touch is one of my additional favorites — parmesan cheese.  Not the powdered stuff that you’ll find on the table at Pizza Hut.  I’m talking about the real stuff that has to be refrigerated.  Kraft will do.  Just sprinkle on and you are ready to eat.

For this particular evening, we ate the pasta with a side of green beans.  Always good to have a vegetable! Typically, we like to eat this with asparagus that we prepare in a separate skillet.  Next time, I’m even considering adding the asparagus with the pasta directly.

Eating The Pasta

Well, hopefully the pasta was success and your plate looks like mine did below.  I have to admit this was after my second serving    Overall, with the bag size of shrimp that we purchased it will make about 4 “man-sized” portions.  We almost always have leftovers which is even better!

Hope this was helpful.  If you like it, let me know.  If you don’t, blame Jeremy   If you added anything or changed up the recipe a bit, share with all.  And if this recipe wasn’t enough, I also have a simple and easy chicken pasta recipe as well. Love to hear some feedback. Enjoy!

About the Author: Jeremy is a retirement planning specialist and founder of Generation X Finance and the guide to Financial Planning at About.com. To learn more, follow Jeremy on Twitter.

The Easiest and Cheapest Shrimp Pasta Recipe You’ll Ever Make

A Fresh Salad Every Day of the Week With Little Effort

Nothing says fresh and healthy like a salad. But if your life is a little hectic and you find it difficult to find the time to prepare a salad among other items for dinner, you’re not alone. Even if you do have time, how do you keep the salad fresh? You don’t want to deal with soggy lettuce or stop at the store a few times a week just to keep fresh produce on hand, so it’s helpful to know how to prepare a salad in advance so that it won’t lose freshness and keep you from making multiple shopping trips.

So, I’m going to share with you how I prepare salad here at our house. This requires just 5 to 10 minutes of initial prep time, will feed my wife and I all work week, if not longer, and it keeps fresh in the refrigerator for up to a week. Even better, all of this ends up costing less than $5 a week.

The Benefits

One of the main benefits of preparing a salad in advance is that you’re much more likely to eat it. We’re all trying to eat healthy these days, and while we have good intentions, if there is a lack of time or if it requires more work, we’re far more likely to skip the salad and opt for something else, which will probably cost more, and be even worse for you. Being able to just go into the fridge and have a salad in your bowl in 30 seconds is great.

It’s also cheap. For just a few dollars, you can create a first course for each dinner during the week that will allow you to buy fewer more expensive ingredients. Even better, this whole process can be applied when entertaining a crowd. Not only will you be preparing a salad to feed your family for a week, but it can make one big salad that can entertain a crowd.

The Process

Let’s start with what you need. The ingredient list is pretty simple. You can put whatever toppings or dressing on your salad you want, but we’re mainly focused on the greens and how to prepare and store them so they last. This is the cost of the items I picked up earlier this week. Your prices may vary depending on location and the season.

Organic Red Leaf Lettuce: 0.83 lb @ $2.49/lb = $2.07
Organic Romaine Lettuce: 0.81 lb @ $1.99/lb = $1.61

Total = $3.68

As you can see from the picture above, it’s as simple as buying two average size heads of red leaf and romaine lettuce. Now, you can certainly get cheaper varieties of lettuce such as iceberg, but there’s virtually no nutritional value. You really get the most bang for your buck with dark green leafy varieties.  So, if you’re going to eat a salad, you might as well get as many nutrients as you can out of it. Feel free to substitute, but I’fe found that both romaine and red leaf store pretty well and you should have no problem getting it to last a week.

Starting with the romaine lettuce, I chop off the bottom. This is another topic of controversy, as some people insist that lettuce will go brown faster if you use a metal knife. Honestly, I’ve been cutting lettuce with a knife for years, and I haven’t noticed any rapid browning. But, if you really want, feel free to tear the lettuce by hand, it’s up to you. But I find the knife is very quick and doesn’t produce any adverse effects.

After you’ve separated a few of the leaves, give them a good rinse. With the romaine lettuce, I will stack 6 or so leaves on top of each other with the center stalk pointing down. Then, I just cut the leaves in half lenghtwise. It doesn’t matter if you cut directly through the thick stalk or go just to the side since we’re really just looking for smaller pieces to work with.

Then, I stack all of the pieces on top of each other. From there, it’s just some quick slices across the stack. I usually keep them no more than about one inch wide so they are easy to eat. Once you’re through chopping, throw them into a collandar, or my personal preference, a salad spinner.

Moving on to the red leaf lettuce, again, just chop the end off. 

As with any lettuce, you’ll then want to give them a good rinse. Just like the romaine, I start by stacking the leaves on top of each other. 

Since the red leaf lettuce is a lot wider, I usually make two cuts to separate the leaves into three strips. Depending on the size of your leaves and how small you want your pieces, you may find that you need to cut them into four strips. There’s no right or wrong answer. And again, once you have your strips, go ahead and stack them all on top of each other and cut crosswise into bit sized pieces.

Above, I mentioned you should place your cut pieces into a collander or a salad spinner, and this is actually one of the most important steps if you want your lettuce to keep in the fridge. Moisture is the enemy in your fight to keep lettuce crisp for more than just a few days. When moisture is trapped against the lettuce while it’s being stored, it will make it wilt and that isn’t something you want to eat. If you don’t have a salad spinner, use the collander to shake any excess water, and then use paper towels to soak up any lingering moisture.

If you look at the picture above, you’ll see the true benefit of a salad spinner. Even after rinsing the leaves in the sink, I shook off what seemed like all of the excess water before chopping, but as you can see above, after a few quick spins, there is a lot of excess liquid on the leaves still. You might not see it on the leaves, but it’s there, and all of this water spells disaster for long-term freshness. So for me, a salad spinner is the best $20 you’ll spend in your kitchen. 

Once all of your greens are dry, it’s time to put it all into a big bowl. As you can see, those two heads of lettuce that came in under $4.00 makes a huge bowl of salad. As I mentioned in the beginning, this is enough for my wife and I to eat every day on Monday through Friday, and occasionally into the weekend.  One thing I do before putting the salad in the fridge is grind some fresh black pepper into the mix. A quick 10 to 12 turns from the pepper mill will do just fine, and it makes all the difference in taste.

Finally, the last piece of the puzzle is storage. So, how do you keep this all fresh? Remember, the key is to keep moisture from resting against the leaves. So, what I do is take a single paper towel and place it on the top of the lettuce, and then cover everything with thin clear plastic cling stuff, but if you have a bowl with a tight fitting lid, that’s just as good. What you’ll notice is the paper towel will slowly absorb some of the moisture, and you’ll probably want to replace it with a fresh one every couple of days.

In addition, each time you take some lettuce out of the bowl, give everything a good shake or stir before putting it back in the fridge. The moisture can also start to collect on the sides of the bowl, and you don’t want everything touching the bowl to go soggy. If you dry your greens thoroughly from the start, place a paper towel in the bowl, and regularly mix things up in the bowl, you should have no trouble keeping this fresh for a week.

Finishing the Salad

The possibilities are endless. For example, my wife likes to top the salad with some dried cranberries and walnuts, while I usually sprinkle some mozzarella cheese and top with tomatoes and croutons. You can top it with leftover grilled chicken and make it a meal, or do whatever you want.  The good news is that this is a very basic mix of greens that can be topped with almost anything so you can mix it up at home. So, experiment with it and find out what you like best.

About the Author: Jeremy is a retirement planning specialist and founder of Generation X Finance and the guide to Financial Planning at About.com. To learn more, follow Jeremy on Twitter.

How to Prepare a Salad to Last All Week for Just a Few Dollars

People Are Eating Out Less and Learning to Cook at Home

When it comes to your budget, one of the biggest expenditures is often food. We all need food on a daily basis, and if you are cooking for a family, this can be especially taxing on your budget. But, food is also one of the areas in your budget where you have the most control and the ability to cut costs.

For those who are pressed for time or don’t have the skills required to cook at home, it usually means turning to restaurants or take-out. Unfortunately, the convenience of having someone prepare, serve, and even deliver your food comes with a high price tag. Even if you’re only feeding yourself, it adds up. Imagine if you spent $7 on lunch and $10 on dinner just five days a week. That’s close to $4,500, and those prices can be a bit low depending on where you live. And if you’re married and/or have kids, you can see how this expense can skyrocket.

So, it’s no surprise that if you could cut back on eating out just a few days a week, you could literally save hundreds or even thousands of dollars each year. Doing this is easier said than done. You still need to buy food at the grocery store and spend time preparing it. If your life is as hectic as most, the idea of coming home from work just to spend an hour in the kitchen, or packing your lunch every morning may not seem worth the savings. But in reality, with a little practice and some basic cooking skills, you can learn how to make cooking at home virtually painless.

Cooking Classes Becoming Popular

One of the biggest hurdles is with being unable to cook, or feeling like you can’t make anything that tastes good. If you didn’t come from a family that cooked a lot of meals at home or you never learned some of the basics, then yes, it can be difficult. You always have the Food Network, but it’s hand’s on practice that makes perfect. 

This is why it’s no real surprise that cooking schools are filling up as the economy sinks. From the article, you can see that in one of the nation’s worse economies, the unexpected has happened and cooking classes are filling up. The assumption was that in a tough economy, fewer people would want to possibly spend money on an extra class, or take time out of their day, but just the opposite seems to be true.

Check For Local Classes

If you’re considering a class like this, check your local events calendars. The local library may have information on events like these, and any local community college could also be a good place to look into these classes. The good news is that many of these classes may actually be free. You could learn some food basics, knife skills, or even tips on how to stretch your food budget.

Also, check with your major local supermarket chains. Our local supermarket offers a few free classes and demonstrations on occasion. Some simply have a chef showing how to prepare a certain meal, while others are more educational and talk about different types of food, cuts of meat, produce, and so on. 

I’m Also Going to Help

If you’re a reader of the site, you’ll also begin getting some frugal food tips from me. I love to cook, and I love to save money, so it goes hand-in-hand. I guess it comes from growing up in a household that cooked most meals at home, but my wife and I almost never eat out. It helps living in the middle of nowhere so that it makes going out to eat inconvenient, but virtually 95% of what we eat is prepared at home.

So, goinig forward I plan on bringing a few illustrated food and cooking tips to the site. If you recall, last summer I showed a great way to prepare an inexpensive potato on the grill, and over the fall I shared a killer chili recipe that feeds your family for days for just $25. Now that I’ve gotten better with the camera and how to put those types of posts together, I am going to make it a regular feature. Most topics will be budget-friendly recipes that are easy or quick to prepare, or methods for stretching your food out. 

Keep an eye out for those upcoming posts. And if you have any questions or something in particular you’d like to see, just leave a comment. I have a few things in mind for the next few posts, but if there are specific things people need help with, that would be even better.

About the Author: Jeremy is a retirement planning specialist and founder of Generation X Finance and the guide to Financial Planning at About.com. To learn more, follow Jeremy on Twitter.

Slow Economy Has More People Learning How to Cook

The potato is one of the cheapest vegetables in the supermarket, and they can go a long way in feeding a lot of people. The problem is that potatoes can become just another boring side dish when they don’t have to be. When cooking potatoes, you generally think of just baked or mashed. Baked potatoes are easy, but they take a while to cook. In addition, the traditional toppings grow old pretty fast. And mashed potatoes require a little bit of extra work. Plus if you’re like me, mashed potatoes need to go with something that has gravy.

Potatoes don’t have to be boring. I have a great recipe for potatoes during the summer that is a refreshing change to the old standbys. The real key to this recipe is the simple sour cream dip that works for many other applications as well, but it goes perfectly with these potatoes. And the best part is, it all costs just a couple dollars and can feed people for a few weeks. You can click on the images below for enlarged pictures.

What You’ll Need

The ingredient list is pretty simple. You’ll want a few long and slender russet potatoes, some green onions, sour cream, olive oil, and some salt and pepper. That’s it! If you’re doing the math at home, the cost breakdown for me was: $1.99 for the sour cream, $0.99 for the green onions, and $0.79/lb for the potatoes. These two weighed in at about a pound and a half for a total of $1.18. So the grand total came to $4.16. Of course, only half of the sour cream is being used for this dish, so the actual cost is around $3. Most of the cost is in the dip, but that’s good since the dip lasts a few weeks in the fridge and can be used for a number of different applications.

Making the Sour Cream Dip

You couldn’t ask for an easier dip. If you have a 16 oz. tub of sour cream like I do, dump about half of it into a bowl. Or if you have an 8 oz. tub, the whole thing would be fine. Of course, there is no problem in using all 16 oz. either since this dip will keep in the refrigerator as long as the sour cream would. Then, go ahead and chop your green onions. I chop them somewhat fine as they seem to lend more flavor to the sour cream that way.

Once chopped, go ahead and add about 3/4 of them to the sour cream and save some for a topping and a garnish. Then, add some fresh ground pepper and some good coarse salt. I do about 20 turns with my pepper grinder, and a few good pinches of kosher salt.

When you’ve mixed it up real good, take a taste and see if it needs any additional salt or pepper. What you’re looking for is the salt and pepper to take some of the tang out of the sour cream. There are no exact measurements, but keep tasting it until you’ve found what works best for you. To finish off the dip, go ahead and put some of the green onions that you set aside and sprinkle on top. And that’s it. If you have time, I like to let it sit in the refrigerator for a few hours before using so that the green onion flavor can really get into the sour cream.

Cooking the Potatoes

Cooking the potatoes is about as easy as making the dip. You’ll want to simply cut the potatoes in half lengthwise and then cut in half again to quarter them. This is why you want to have long and slender potatoes rather than round. Once you have them quartered, just put them in a pot of cold water and bring to a boil. Once reaching a boil, I set my timer for 15 minutes.

Usually 15 minutes isn’t long enough to fully cook the potatoes, but that’s good. Once 15 minutes has elapsed, I then check for the desired firmness every minute or two with a fork. The key here is to make sure they are done enough, but not overdone. If they aren’t fully cooked, they are hard, but since these are going on the grill, if they are overdone, they can be too soft and fall apart on you. So, just carefully poke them with a fork so that it goes in easily without breaking apart the potato and you should be perfect.

Seasoning the Potatoes

Once the potatoes are cooked through, drain the water and place them on a plate or platter. You’ll want to go ahead and brush on some olive oil. Make sure you get all sides, including the skins. Seasoning the potatoes involves nothing more than adding some salt and pepper. Again, make sure you season all sides, and it is good to be liberal with the seasoning since some of it is bound to fall off on the grill.

Grilling the Potatoes

Once you have the potatoes seasoned, it’s off to the grill. Make sure you get the grill nice and hot, and you’ll be looking for a nice high and direct heat for this. I place mine down skin side first, close the lid, and give them about 2 minutes. Then I go ahead and flip them to one side and leave for another minute or two, and repeat on the last side. Total cooking time is about 5-6 minutes. You’re looking for good sear marks and a slightly crispy exterior as seen below.

The Finished Product

And there you have it. You have a great sour cream dip that is not only great with these potatoes, but can be used to top your baked potato, or even serve as a great chip or vegetable dip. And if your kids don’t like the sour cream dip, you can just tell them it is a giant french fry and let them dip the potato in ketchup.

What I really like about this side dish is that it is great for entertaining. You can make the dip well in advance, and you can boil the potatoes in advance as well since you only have to finish them for about 5 minutes on the grill. This can save a lot of time when trying to prepare the rest of your food. As far as portion sizes, I find that one medium-large potato is plenty for 2 adults, and if you have a lot of other food to go around, one potato can easily serve four.

About the Author: Jeremy is a retirement planning specialist and founder of Generation X Finance and the guide to Financial Planning at About.com. To learn more, follow Jeremy on Twitter.

Need to Stretch Your Grocery Budget? This Quick, Easy, and Cheap Recipe Will Put a New Spin on the Boring Potato