LITTLE ROCK — Why brew beer at home? It’s not a quick process; most beers take four weeks or longer before they’re ready to drink. It’s not cheap; while a batch of beer can cost less per bottle than buying craft beer, it can’t compete on price with mainstream brands. It’s not difficult, but the terminology and technical details can seem daunting to a beginner. What brewing at home does offer is the chance to try beers that can’t be found in stores, like the White House Honey Ale.
The White House brewed up quite a bit of excitement in September when it released the recipes for its Honey Brown Ale and Honey Porter. While the White House honey used in the original recipes isn’t available, substituting a local wildflower honey yields very satisfying results.
Most home brewing supply stores will sell kits containing all the specialized equipment you’ll need to brew your first batches; you’ll also need a 10-quart or larger stockpot, a smaller saucepan, and a large plastic or metal spoon.
Cleanliness is one of the most important parts of brewing; many common problems with a batch of beer involve contamination with wild yeasts or bacteria. Everything that will come into contact with your beer after the boil needs to be sanitized. You can use one of several sanitizers available at brewing stores or a solution of one tablespoon bleach per gallon of water. If you use a commercial sanitizer, follow its instructions regarding soak time and whether to rinse your equipment. For bleach, soak for at least 20 minutes and rinse well.
The easiest way to do this is to fill your fermenting bucket with sanitizing solution and soak the rest of your equipment in it. After the equipment has been sanitized, put the lid on the bucket and shake it to make sure the entire interior is sanitized.
A note on water: If yours is good to drink it’s good enough to brew with. If you drink filtered or bottled water, you should brew with that.
Most of the ingredients and equipment below can be found at brewing supply shops. See the resources story for details.
You will need 45 to 50 (12-ounce) bottles and caps, a racking cane (used during siphoning-off process), tubing, a bottling bucket with a spigot, and a bottle filler or hose clamp during bottling. Except for the bottles and caps, this should be included in a beginner’s equipment kit. All of this will need to be sanitized.
You can reuse commercial beer bottles with crown (pry off) caps; bottles with twist caps require different equipment from what is available to home brewers. Bottles will need to be well cleaned; while they can be sanitized in a dishwasher by running a cycle with no detergent or rinse aid, a dishwasher’s jet can’t reach inside bottles to clean them effectively. Most equipment kits come with a bottle brush. Bottles can also be soaked in a sanitizer solution with the rest of the bottling equipment instead of running them through the dishwasher.
White House Honey Ale
12 ounces crushed amber
crystal malt 8 ounces biscuit malt 2 (3.3-pound) cans light malt
extract 1 pound light dried malt extract 11/2 ounces Kent Goldings hop pellets 11/2 ounces Fuggles hop pellets 1 pound (about 1 1/3 cups) wildflower honey 1 package Windsor dry ale yeast 1/2 cup corn sugar (for priming)
In a 10-quart pot, steep the crushed amber crystal malt and the biscuit malt in a hop bag or grain sock in 1 1/2 gallons of water at about 155 degrees for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, put the unopened cans of malt extract in a bowl of hot water to make the syrup easier to pour. Remove the hop bag or grain sock. Add the two cans of malt extract and the dried extract to the pot, stirring until fully dissolved, and bring to a boil. Make sure no extract is stuck to the bottom of the pot, or it may scorch. The wort (unfermented beer) will foam up before it boils; stir to keep it from boiling over.
Add the Kent Goldings hops and boil for 44 minutes. (This is a good time to sanitize the equipment you’ll use later.) Add the Fuggles hops and boil 1 minute more. Stir in the honey and boil for 5 minutes.
Cool the pot in ice water until the temperature falls below 80 degrees. Pour it into the fermenter and add cold water to make five gallons (most fermenting buckets have measuring marks).
“Pitch” the yeast by sprinkling it over the wort, and then give it a few minutes to rehydrate. Stir it in with a sanitized spoon.
Ferment at 68-72 degrees for 19 days to 3 weeks in a place that’s protected from light. A few degrees warmer or cooler will work, but temperatures above 80 degrees can create off flavors. Temperatures below about 60 degrees will slow or stop the fermentation.
When ready to bottle:
Dissolve the corn sugar into two pints of water and boil for 15 minutes. Pour the mixture into an empty bottling bucket.
Using the racking cane and tubing, siphon the beer from the fermenter over the sugar mixture, moving the siphon tube around the bucket to distribute the priming sugar evenly. Try to splash the beer around as little as possible to reduce oxidation, and as soon as the level of the beer in bottling bucket allows, keep the end of the tube beneath the surface of the beer. Stop siphoning once you reach the trub, or the layer of yeast and sediment in the bottom of the fermenter.
Siphon into bottles and cap them. Attach your tubing to the spigot on the bottling bucket and to your bottle filler. The spring-loaded valve on a bottle filler opens when it’s pressed against the bottom inside of a bottle, allowing you to fill it with less mess.
Alternately, use a hose clamp to control the flow of beer.
While there are a few different styles of bottle cappers, most use levers to squeeze caps on.
Let the bottles sit for two to three weeks and chill overnight before serving.
Makes 45 to 50 (12-ounce) bottles.
Recipe adapted from whitehouse. gov/blog/2012/09/01/ale-chiefwhite-house-beer-recipe
Food, Pages 31 on 11/28/2012