Now that I have you all excited let me show you the steps I took that lead to me eventually sipping on my first home-made batch while sharing it with friends over dinner. Looking back on the whole process of my first brew, it can get broken down into four main phases:
Cleaning/Sanitizing all your equipment
it is quite important at this stage to get in the habit of sanitizing and keeping all the things that touch your fermenting brew cootie-free. The easiest way to achieve this is to use a bleach solution (which needs to be rinsed really well) or a rinse-free sanitizer like Iodophor.
Start by heating up the contents of the can whilst dissolving the brewing sugar in some boiled water to allow for easier mixing. Now open and add the heated can contents to the dissolved sugar and stir it well. Once mixed through, top the bucket up with about 19-20 liters of good quality water - this can be room temperature as ideally you need this brew to sit between 20 and 24 degrees Celsius before pitching the yeast.
Fermentation
Add your little sachet of dry yeast and then set your fermentation vessel down somewhere safe specifically out of direct sunlight and in a stable temperature environment – I put mine next to the TV so Candy and I could bond over Call of Duty and series...
When it was time for bottling I first sanitized all the bottles and caps I intended to use and then started tapping off some beer through the tap with the bottle tube attached. To allow for carbonation I used some Coopers carbonation drops which I had to chop up a bit to ensure I have the right amount of carbonation sugar for the bottle size I was using (I have heard before that you can just add a little bit of white sugar to the bottle). These have to sit around for two weeks - if you are able to resist - and then need to be chilled and enjoyed with pride!
You can find all the pictures and commentary on this process from mixing to bottling to enjoying here.
Now that you see how easy it is there are no more excuses so get brewing soldier! Now that's an order!