Homebrew Recipes

The recipe I first started with back in '95 was pretty simple. I made a lot of it over several years - it's dark and strong, with not much hops aroma.

Legacy Beer

  • 3.3 lbs (1.5 kg) John Bull Dark Malt Extract
  • 1 cups Hops
  • 4 cups corn sugar
  • 1 package red star beer yeast
  1. Add malt, hops, and corn sugar to a half gallon of water and simmer for an hour.
  2. Place the pot in a sink of cold water to cool it down to 80°F.
  3. Add yeast, pour into great big bottle, top up to 5 gallon.
  4. Let it sit for a week or until it stops bubbling, whichever comes LAST.
  5. Add teaspoon corn syrup to each of 40 16-oz bottles.
  6. Siphon beer into bottles (you won't use them all), and cap.
  7. Wait a month.
  8. BOTTOMS UP!

It's also good with twice the hops. I once used 4 cups of hops and 1 of sugar, getting it exactly backwards, and to recover I made it into a double recipe that used 4 cup of hops and 8 of sugar, resulting in a 1:2 ratio instead of the proper 1:4 ratio of hops to sugar. It came out pretty good anyway, which is good because ten gallons of lousy beer is a LOT of beer to suck (and I mean that in several different ways).

I brewed this kind of beer LO! those many years ago, when the world was young and men were ... um ... also young, or something. At least I was young. Now I'm old, so I may have remembered some of it wrong - for example, I may have actually used champagne yeast, not beer yeast. Also, to the best of my knowledge, John Bull malt extract is no longer made.

Millennium Beer

  • 3.3 lbs (1.5 kg) Thomas Cooper's Amber Malt Extract
  • 1 oz Centennial Hops (7.6% alpha)
  • 2 cups corn sugar
  • 1 package Munton Gold beer yeast
  1. Combine 3 quarts of hot water, Malt Extract, corn sugar, and ¾ oz hops in a 6-quart pot.
  2. Boil over medium-high heat (7 out of 10 on my stove) for 55 minutes.
  3. Add ¼ oz of Hops. Boil five minutes.
  4. Place pot in sink of cold water, and top off wort with cold water.
  5. When it reaches 75°F, pitch the yeast.
  6. Strain into primary fermenter, top off to 5 gallons with 75°F water.
  7. Let it ferment for a week.
  8. Siphon beer into secondary fermenter, avoiding bottom sludge.
  9. Let it clear for a week.
  10. Siphon back into primary fermenter, and add 1 cup corn sugar.
  11. Siphon into 40 16-oz or 52 12-oz bottles and cap.
  12. Wait a month.
  13. BOTTOMS UP!

My most recent recipe is called "Millennium Beer" because, first, it's a new millennium since I last brewed 15 years ago, and also because I used "Centennial" hops, so it kinda fits.

The hydrometer reading before fermentation was 1.028; afterwards it was 1.010, indicating 2.5% alcohol by volume.

References

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© 2010 W. E. Johns