BREW my own BEER

Ingredients
- 4.12kg of pre-crushed Pale Malt
- 15 litres of hot water
- 21g of Golding Hops
- 3g Irish Moss
- Yeast

1. Monster mash
Roll up your sleeves and head for the shed. Mix the Pale Malt and 10.3 litres of boiling water in the mash tun to make a sloppy porridge (the ‘mash’). The insulation should keep your mash at a fairly constant temperature of 66oC for 90 minutes.

2. Rinse it
Drain the liquid using the mash tun’s tap. Slowly sprinkle water over the remaining grains to rinse out any precious entrapped sugars. This process is known as ‘sparging’.

3. On the hop
Transfer the sugary liquid to your beer boiler. Boil for 90 minutes along with 13g of the Golding Hops and the Irish Moss to sterilize the liquid (‘wort’). While the liquid is cooling, add the remaining Golding Hops to boost flavour and preserve your brew.

4. Wort’s up
Cool the wort and transfer to a large plastic bin. Add the yeast to the surface to begin fermentation, which should take about five days. Here’s the science bit: When the hydrometer measures the gravity level of the alcohol at a consistent 1.011 degrees for 24 hours, fermentation has finished.

5. Brew time
The home straight, ale fans. Transfer your brew to the cask for maturation, to encourage the flavours to mellow and round out. Taste it after three weeks to check if it’s tasty enough for consumption. Summer Lightening can take up to four weeks to mature, giving you plenty of time to polish your tankard.
Source: menshealth.co.uk