How to Start Homebrewing Beer – No Gear

This is a method for how to make beer using only the items in your kitchen or shed. Equipment is expensive, but it’s easy to try homebrewing with household items. Whilst this is definitely not a long term solution, it’s a great way for how to start homebrewing. If you enjoy it, you’ll soon move on to better equipment, but this will cost you almost nothing to try.

How to make beer with no gear? “Maybe I could buy a kit, but then I still need all the other bits…. I just want to try to make beer without any equipment.”

I hear you…

Most of us probably started brewing the same way. Buy a kit, buy a bucket fermentor or carboy, buy a bubbler, buy a hydrometer, buy a thermometer, buy a bottling bucket, buy some flip top bottles… (and the list could probably go on).

The problem is, that’s a lot of purchases, and we don’t even know whether we like homebrewing yet. Sure, your local homebrew shop will love you for it, but I figure there is a cheaper way to do it, and it can’t be that hard. I mean hey, they’ve been brewing for thousands of years right? And they didn’t have the latest PET conical fermentor with it’s own heating and cooling temperature control system, coupled up to a wifi connected tilt hydrometer….. you know where I’m going.

So, the plan is to buy a small amount of Dried Malt Extract (DME), some leaf hops and a packet of dry yeast. So less than £10 of ingredients. The only other thing I would recommend is some sanitiser (Starsan, Chemsan), simply because it’s going to make your life a whole lot easier. However, even this can be omitted, it just takes more time, and might end with residual tastes. We’ll get to that.

Ingredients

Ok, we’ve got our ingredients. There’s some amber DME, a packet of Saaz hops, and a packet of dried yeast (Mangrove Jacks Liberty Bell).

I’ve gone for Amber DME as I want a little extra taste, and the amber has some darker malts in it, probably crystal malt.

I’ve gone for Saaz hops because it’s a low alpha acid variety, and therefore I can put more in for taste, without making the beer too bitter. On such a small scale as I’m brewing here, it would be very easy to make this too bitter to be drinkable.

The yeast is just a packet I had sitting around, that i don’t use anymore, but I do know it’s a reliable fermenter, and that will be important if I’m not using a hyrometer.

Let’s start brewing

The amount I’m brewing here is dictated by the size of my fermentor (in this case a bottle). This can be scaled up or down according to the fermentor size. The only problem in going too large here, is that it will be difficult transferring the beer for bottling if we go too large. So, that said, I’m making 1.5 litres of beer. I figure if I use 1500ml of water, then the added volume of my DME, should give me a finished volume somewhere around 1500ml after brewing losses. We’ll see.

For my beer, I’m aiming for between 4.5 -5.5% alcohol. I’m not bothering to use beer making software for the DME here, instead it’s some rough rules of thumb.

A simple rule of thumb here is: Take 10% of the water volume number, and then add a third. That should give a gravity of about 1.049, which given just about any yeast, should end up with a beer between 4.5 -5.5%. So, we take 10% of 1500, and get 150. Then add 1/3 of that on top, which gives us 200 grams of DME.

Below I’ve measured out 200 grams of DME, and put it in my 3 litre soup pot.

Then I’m going to add 1500 ml of water. This is just tap water. My tap water is our own spring behind the farm, so the water is extremely clean. Most tap water is going to be fine. If your water is very chlorinated, you may choose to boil it first to get rid of the chlorine, or use bottled water perhaps. Your choice.

Accounting for boil-off

When we boil this for half an hour, we are going to lose some volume as it steams away. Which will increase the Original Gravity of our wort, and also increase our final alcohol. We’ll also get less beer.) So I’m measuring the level with a tape measure, which is going to be a very simple way of accounting for any boil off, simply by topping up our boiled wort back to this level. Therefore, we will still have our calculated Original Gravity.

In preparation for the boil, I’m also measuring out our hops additions. This is where some brewing software like Brewers Friend will come in handy (It’s free, check them out). I’m going for a bittering hops addition (3 grams) at 30 minutes, and an aroma hop addition (2 grams) at 10 minutes to give a total IBU of about 24 IBU. Theses amounts will vary according to the hops you’ve chosen, and what alpha acid they contain.

As the wort is heating up, make sure there are no lumps stuck on the bottom. Stir it well and get it all dissolved.

The Boil

Once it starts boiling, you will get the ‘hot break’, which is some of the proteins coagulating. This is the foam that forms as it starts to boil. Keep the heat low here, so as not to boil it over the pot. Keep stirring it, or blow on the foam, and it will disappear, and start a nice rolling boil.

Once you have a nice rolling boil, it’s time to add the hops. I’m going for a thirty minute boil here, which is quite short, but will suffice for this experiment. Do not place a lid on this while it’s boiling. Firstly, it will boil over (very messy) and secondly, we do not want to trap the compounds that are being boiled off, they’ll contribute to off flavours.

Quite importantly, start a timer. The bitterness in the finished product is determined by how long we boil the hops. Let’s not over boil it !!!

As it’s winter here, we have the wood stove lit, so I’m going to finish the boil on there, just to save some electricity. With 10 minutes to run, I’m adding the second hops dose.

Cooling

At the 30 minute mark, take it off the heat, and cool it down. I’m putting my pot in the sink, that’s half full of water. Put the lid on now, as this is now very susceptible to bacteria as it cools. You want to not splash or drop anything in it from here on.

I take the pot out every five minutes or so, and replace the water. We are trying to get the temperature down to the pitching temperature of the yeast, which for my yeast is about 18 – 20°c. If you have a thermometer, then it will be very handy here. However, in the spirit of the game, I’m going to pretend I don’t have one, so it’s going to be a judgement call. If anything, it’s much better to get it too cool, than too warm. If it’s too cool when you pitch the yeast, then we can warm it up and the fermentation will start, too warm however, and it’s likely we’ll get off flavours in our beer.

When using a thermometer, sanitise it first before putting it in the wort. That means using sanitiser, bi-carbinate soda or boil it if it’s capable of withstanding that.

Improvising a fermentor

So that’s all pretty easy. Now we need a fermentor. I’m using a plastic soda bottle. It’s about 2 litres in volume, so it should have ample head space for any krausen to develop, without blowing off through our ‘bubbler’.

The bottle has been sanitised with bicarbonate of soda. I put 3 tablespoons of bi-carb in the bottle, and then filled it with water. This was then left to sit overnight. I got this idea from the internet somewhere, so we’ll see how it works.

The problem I have with this is that the bi-carb will give taste to the beer, and worse still, it will make the wort more alkaline, which will affect the fermentation. Therefore, I’ve rinsed it out with my tap water, which introduces a possible source of contamination. This is why I recommend getting a small amount of no-rinse sanitiser when you get your ingredients. There may need to be some compromise when you make beer with no (almost) equipment.

As this method is quite laborious, I have sanitised everything else with a no-rinse acid sanitiser.

The cooled wort is ready to transfer to the fermentor. It’s full of hops leaf, so I’m straining it through a sieve (sanitised) into a jug. The bottom of the wort is full of coagulated proteins that we want to leave behind with the hops, so a gentle pour helps to keep it separated. If it ends up in the fermentor, don’t worry, it really won’t make a difference.

The wort is then poured into the ‘fermentor’ via a funnel. This is one of my tractor oil funnels, so it took some cleaning…..

Aeration

Once the wort is in, put the lid on, and give it a really good shake. We’re trying to aerate the wort, so that the yeast has plenty of oxygen to regenerate.

Adding yeast

Now we add the yeast. A packet of yeast is designed for about 25 litres of wort. So for our 1.5 litres, we only need a tiny amount. I put in a bout a tenth of the pack, which is still a massive overkill here. The yeast will last if you fold over the pack tightly and keep it in the fridge. I would happily re-use that after a few months. So you can do a few batches, and try different recipes etc….

With the yeast in, we need a ‘bubbler’. This is to allow CO2 to escape, but it creates an air lock, so that as fermentation slows, air will not be drawn back in. From here on, air or oxygen is the enemy. We need to try to eliminate oxygen exposure as best we can. So don’t go opening it up and fiddling with it as it ferments. Be patient, leave it alone.

I’m using a piece of silicon tube (sanitised), which is just about a perfect fit in the top of the bottle. This is then taped securely to create an air tight seal. The tube is then bent over and taped to the side of the bottle. Under that, i’m putting my water trap, with some sanitiser, to create a bubbler air lock.

Now, I’m placing this in a warm place, that i know is in the temperature range of my yeast (18-22°c)

Fermentation

This is the finished fermentor in action 24 hours later, bubbling away nicely. You can see the krausen in the top. This is why we needed some headspace. I’ve also created a cardboard cover for this, as it needs to be protected from direct light, which can create off flavours.

One of the nice things about using a clear fermentor like this is that you can see what’s going on inside. This is quite important when you set out brewing, to learn the different stages of fermentation, and it’s better looking through the bottle, rather than opening up a bucket all the time and letting in oxygen.

Below is a good look at the krausen forming.

At the bottom of the fermentor, we’re starting to collect some of the proteins from the boil that we didn’t leave behind. On top of that, you can see a layer of white yeast being formed, as it drops out of the beer.

I kept the cap of the bottle so that I could seal the bottle when I put it in the fridge to cold crash. This turned out to be unnecessary, as you’ll see,

With good lighting and a close up, we can see the bubbles, and also the yeast settling on the sides.

Protect from light

This table wasn’t where I fermented this. However, there is some light in the warm room, so I made a cardboard light protection. Light can give beer a stale taste, as the light photons can alter the hops polyphenols (I believe)

After four long weeks, all signs of fermentation have stopped. It’s been a long one. This yeast is usually finished within about 10 days max. However, this has taken a good bit longer. I wonder to myself, if it has something to do with being such a small batch? Not sure…

Identifying the end of fermentation

As I’m not using a hydrometer to check the final gravity, I needed to be absolutely sure that fermentation was complete. The signs I was looking at were, firstly whether there was any bubbling from the blow-off tube. However, the seal might not have been completely tight, so I was also looking to see if there was any bubbling coming up through the beer. Being a clear bottle, it’s easy to put a torch behind and and look through. I was also looking for any ‘foam’ on top, which would also indicate bubbles rising to the surface.

Below you can see the small ‘rafts’ left, which started to fall through to the bottom as soon as i started moving the fermentor around a little.

I gave it 2 days where I flicked the sides occasionally to get the yeast that was sitting on the sides, to fall to the bottom.

You can see below, the yeast I was getting to drop. Also, you can see the ‘rafts’ falling through the surface.

As it was so long to finish fermenting, the beer has dropped very clear. I was going to cold crash this in the fridge, but as it turned out, there was no need.

You can also see the layer of initial wort fallout, then the white yeast layer, then finally the drop out at end of fermentation.

So far we seem to be doing well in our quest to brew beer with no gear. However, there’s still the challenge of getting it into bottles.

Bottling

Normally when bottle conditioning/carbonating, I would boil up my required sugar with some water and pour that into a bottling bucket. Then I would rack the beer onto that, which would mix the sugar through evenly. The bottling bucket has a tap and bottling spout, which fills the bottles without too much aeration. This neds to be much more simple….

Having consulted Brewers Friend Priming Calculator, I determined that I need between 2 grams – 2.2 grams of white sugar to give me a carbonation of between 2.4 to 2.5 volumes of CO2 in a 330ml bottle. With some experimentation, I found that a well scraped off 1/2 teaspoon gives me 2.09 grams. Perfect.

2.09 grams, spot on. For my 500ml bottle, I just add a 1/4 teaspoon scraped off, on top of the 1/2 teaspoon.

I’ve sanitised the spoons and the funnel, but there is still a risk of infection from the sugar, however, I’ve done this a number of times with no problem. Sugar is itself a preservative, so should harbor minimal risks. Hopefully It’ll work fine again.

I’m using table sugar, but you could also use something like Belgian Candi Sugar, which you can make yourself, this will add extra flavour and more depth to your beer, however, let’s keep this simple, and maybe that could be for the next brew…

Removing the tape and tube needs to be done carefully, trying not to squeeze the bottle and drawing in air before we need to. Also, we’ve done so well in getting this beer so clear, we don’t want to mix the yeast up again, so don’t swirl the bottle around.

Try not to mix and aerate

Pouring the beer into the bottles is done carefully. Once I tip the bottle fermentor up, I am leaving it tipped up. If we tip it back and forth, it will just mix the yeast in the bottom. Be slow and careful here.

Keeping oxygen out once fermentation is complete is crucial for clean tasting beer, and one of the hardest challenges when you brew beer with no gear.

Ideally, i wanted the funnel to sit against the side of the bottle so that the beer would run gently down the side. Instead, on two of the bottles, it would not touch the side, so the beer splashed into the bottom. This is aeration I was trying to avoid. Damn it….

With the filling done, just pop on the lids.

I obviously managed to keep the bottle still enough, as the yeast is still left nicely in the bottom. A good effort to brew beer with no gear so far.

Have patience, and condition well

We now have a litre and a half of bottled beer, well almost, one bottle didn’t quite fill. The sediment you can see in the bottom is the sugar. That dissolved by the next day, without any shaking of the bottle.

These need to go back into my warm room, protected from light, for two weeks. They need to be kept warm, so that the yeast can ferment the sugar, and that way we’ll get carbonated beer. They will then be put out into the cool barn to condition/lager until I get a chance to taste them. Maybe another week or two. I’m looking forward to that.

The tasting

After four weeks total conditioning time, it’s time to taste these beers. At this point, I’m actually quite nervous. This started as a fun attempt to make beer with household items. Iv’e invested enough time in tit now, that I really want this to work….

Let’s open the plastic bottle, and find out if I can brew beer with no gear.

The pour goes well. Carbonation level is good, and the beer has a nice creamy foam head. The aroma of the beer is malty and slightly floral from the late addition of the Saaz hops.

The beer brewed with no gear looks fabulous in the glass. A light chill haze has developed, which is not surprising as we used no finings in this.

As far as taste. Well, it’s actually pretty good. It’s slightly too sweet, which would have been fixed with a little more bittering from hops. Otherwise, it’s malty, fruity and has a nice floral hops taste. I expected to have one sip of this to prove it was drinkable and pour the rest out. This was so good that I drank the whole thing whilst filming it. I’m going to enjoy the other bottles. I’m going to leave those to lager for a month, and see how they mature.

Starting brewing doesn’t cost the earth – How to start homebrewing now.

This has certainly proved that starting brewing doesn’t require buying lots of new equipment. You can start brewing for less than the price of a few beers down the pub. Be warned though, once you start, it’s addictive.

Well, I guess we’ve proved it, we CAN brew beer with no gear……..

If you’d like to see the full YouTube video, follow the link here