How to Brew Beer

Point Blank Brewing Company will be brewing their own beer in phase two of their plans. The brewing area will be approximately 1000 square feet and will be the most visible viewing area to the customers. It will consist of the brewing vessels including mash / lauter tun, brew kettle, whirlpool, hot liquor tank, and cold liquor tank. An average brew will take six hours to complete.

To brew your own beer at home you need a few basic things:

- Malt extract (liquid or dried)
- Hops
- Specialty grains
- Yeast

Keys to success: keep your area clean and rinse everything well.

Step 1: Make the Starter Wort

Ingredients:
- 2 quarts water
- 6 ounces
- 1 package instant starter wort

First, heat the water and malt to a boil for 10 minutes and then cool to 60 degrees F.

Sanitize the gallon container with a no-rinse sterilizer or by following the manufacturer's instructions. Then, pitch the yeast by tossing in around 33 billion yeast cells (numbers depend on your starter kit) into the 60-degree wort. Cover the starter wort and put aside. Make sure the container is not airtight (aluminum foil will do the job).

Bottle the Wort then add yeast to the Wort. 

Step 2: Make the Mash

Ingredients:
- 11 pounds of grain
- 11 quarts of water

Take the mash and bring it up to 150 degrees F, keeping that temperature for one hour

* Test the mash: The point of mashing is to turn starches in the grain into sugars and extract them into a sweet liquor. 


Add 11 pounds of grain for the mash. Stir the mash. 

Step 3: Straining and sparging

Pour the mash into a lauter tun to drain the sweet liquor from the grain. 

Capture the runoff liquor into a brew pot.

Heat the rest of the water about 1/2 gallon per pound of grain at 180 degrees F over the grain in the lauter tun. 

Capture the runoff again in the brew pot.

The sweet liquor in the brew pot is the wort. 

Step 4: The boil

Ingredients: 
- 1 ounce hops
- 1/2 teaspoons of ginger
- 1 cinnamon stick 

Once reached a boil add the hops to the wort and continue to boil for one hour. 

Add cinnamon stick in the last 5 minutes of the boil.

Step 5: Cool the beer and pitch the yeast

*Cooling can be achieved with a wort chiller

The beer should be cooled to 68 degrees F, strained and transferred to a sanitized carboy, where the beer will stay for the first few days of fermentation. 

After one week, visible fermentation will have subsided and the wort should be transferred to another sanitized container.

Two weeks after the beer should be bottled. 

Step 6: Bottling 

Take 3/4 cup of corn sugar and boil for 15 minutes in a pint of water. 

Cool the sugar water and add it to the bottom of a bottling bucket, transfer the beer to the bucket. 

*The sugar water gives the yeast something to eat while inside the sealed bottle for a final stage of fermentation. 

After two weeks at room temperature, the beer should be fully carbonated and ready to drink. 

At Point Blank Brewing they will produce continuously throughout the year, with a target goal of 240 barrels a month. Anticipated beer styles that will be brewed include pale ales, stouts, porters, ambers, light lagers, as well as seasonal beers - bocks, marzens, wheat, etc.