To make beer, purchasing the proper equipment and supplies will be the first step. The best direction for accomplishing this task is to establish a relationship with a single business that can supply everything. This business will need access to the basic hardware as well as various hops, malts, yeasts, adjuncts, herbs, publications as well as other ingredients needed. Living in a large city would definitely be an advantage to finding a business who could supply all these ingredients. Look in the Yellow Pages under home brewing. Living in a rural area may prove more difficult, a mail order business or an internet business may be the best way to get these supplies.

The equipment and supplies needed are a handbook or manual covering the basics of home brewing, bleach for sanitizing the equipment and bottles, a stainless steel brew pot large enough to hold at least six quarts of liquid. Also needed are a blow-off tube that is 1.5 inches thick and about 4 foot long, at least two cases of glass bottles per batch of beer, a plastic tube bottle filler with a pressure closure on one end, unused bottle caps, and a fermentation lock assembly consisting of a special lid and mini-airlock that releases CO2 to prevent air from entering the fermenter. A fermenter will be needed consisting of a five-gallon glass carboy or a five-gallon plastic bucket with a tight lid. A food grade funnel will also been needed as well as a long handled spoon, a racking cane, a siphon hose that is ? of an inch thick and at least 5 feet long. The ingredients needed are beer yeast that converts sugar into alcohol, corn sugar for the yeast, hops that create the bitterness, malts that are liquid, grain or powder form and water. Kits are available with all the ingredients and hardware necessary for the first batch.

To make the first batch, sanitize the equipment first. Place the bottles in a bathtub filled with bleach solution and leave over night. Remove the bottles from the solution and cover the tops with aluminum foil until time to use them. Now it is time to prepare the wort. Bring 1 to 1.5 gallons of water to boil in the brew pot. Add the malt extract and four pounds of sugar. Boil the wort for at least one hour, stirring regularly. After boiling for 50 minutes, add 1 to 1.5 ounces of hops pellets for aroma. While wort is boiling, stir the yeast powder into a cup of warm tap water and cover with foil. Place the fermenter on a counter, table or floor and fill half full with water. When the wort is finished boiling, put the funnel in the top of the fermenter and pour the wort into the fermenter, finish filling the fermenter to within 8 inches from the top with cold water. Cap the fermenter, when the wort has cooled to just room temperature, open the fermenter and pour the yeast solution into the fermenter using a funnel. This step is called pitching the yeast. The wort has to be room temperature or it will kill the yeast. Use the racking cane and stir the wort, then immediately attach the blow-off tube to the top of the fermenter and place the fermenter in a cool, dark place such as a closet. Now fill a pot or large bowl with water and place the free end of the blow-off tube below the surface of the water. Fermenting should begin within 24 hours and the yeast will begin to produce foam called blow-off. Blow off will flow out of the fermenter, down the tube and into the water container. After fermentation slows down, remove the tube and add the fermentation lock assembly. Let the fermentation sit in the dark for 6-14 days. The beer is ready to bottle when the bubbling stops.

To begin bottling, sanitize the racking cane, siphon hose, bottle filler, bottle capper, bottle caps and bottles. Now boil three cups of water and one cup of corn sugar in a saucepan. This is used to reactivate the yeast in the wort. Now the beer is naturally carbonated. When the sugar has melted completely, remove the fermentation lock assembly from the fermenter and pour the sugar solution into the wort, mixing with the racking cane. Rinse off the cane and attach it to one of the siphoning hoses. The bottle filler should be on the other end of the siphoning hose. Insert the cane into the hole on the fermentation lid and attach the assembly to the top of the fermenter. Slide the can down until it is within two inches of the fermenters base. Now get a bottle, remove the lid and rinse it out. Place the bottle on the floor and insert the bottle filler into the bottle all the way to the base of the bottle. Fill the bottle to one inch of the top, release the pressure and cut off the flow of beer. Cap the bottle and put it aside. Now fill bottles until the wort is within 3-4 inches from the bottom of the fermenter. Five gallons of wort should make 48-60 bottles of beer. Store beer in a dark place for about a week to age and carbonate properly. Refrigerate the beer for about an hour before drinking.