7 Basic Steps to Help You Brew Your Own Craft Beer Like a Pro

Craft beer is exploding in popularity right now, and one of the coolest things about craft beer is that you can make it yourself right at home. Here are some of the most basic steps you need to follow to brew your favorite craft beer at home like a pro.

1. Buy the ingredients: The first thing you need to do is buy your ingredients. The recipe you follow will depend on the type of beer you choose. However, you will typically need your choice of grains, malt, hops, brewers yeast, and then whatever flavor extract you want to add to the beer.
2. Wash all your equipment: You need to wash and sanitize your 64 ounce growlers, the carboy, the siphon, and anything else that's going to be touching the beer. This should be done the night before you want to bottle the beer, and you can let everything air dry overnight.
3. Brew the beer: Put the spring water in a large pot to boil and bring the temperature up to 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, steep the grains for about a half hour. Next, take the grains out and bring the water to a boil. Now you'll add the malt and continue to boil for an hour. When you have 15 minutes left, add in your hops. When you're done boiling it, you need to cool the beer down to 170 degrees again. You can do this by filling the sink with ice and placing the pot right in it.
4. Start the fermentation process: After the beer it cool, use a funnel and pour the beer into your carboy. Add the yeast, then shake it up to spread the yeast around. Let the beer ferment for about a week, depending on the recipe.
5. Buy your 64 ounce growlers: After the beer has fermented, you can siphon it into a bottling bucket to get rid of any sediment that built up during fermentation. Before you can put it in the growlers, you must add a mixture of water and corn sugar so it can carbonate. Once you have your 64 ounce growlers ready, you can siphon the beer from the bottling bucket your insulated growlers.
6. Let the beer age: To let the beer carbonate, leave it in the growlers for at least two weeks.
7. Drink up: After the two weeks is up and your beer is carbonated, it's ready to drink!

Now you can make your own craft beer. American consumers 21-years-old and older consumed 27.5 gallons of beer and cider per person in 2015 alone, and now you can make some that you and your friends will love.