If you’re interested in homebrewing, who can blame you. When you become adept at the task, you can make some great tasting brews that are often stronger than your standard store bought varieties.
But if you’re a newbie to the hobby, you might feel daunted by all the information out there and all the different techniques, and this can make you feel like you just don’t know where to start.
If that rings a bell, then this is the article for you. Here we’re going tost be talking about the easiest alcohols to make, and briefly explain some of the best and easiest ways to do so.
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We will focus on how to make mead, which is one of the easiest types of alcohol to make, and how you can make an alcoholic drink using your favorite fruit juice.
And for the more adventurous amongst you, we’ll also discuss how to tweak a beginner’s beer brewing kit to customize it. And we’ll also try to answer some of your most frequently asked questions along the way.
What Is The Easiest Alcohol To Make For A Beginner?
First off, we’re very pleased to report that there are several different types of alcohol that are quite easy to make for a beginner, although sometimes it can take time, and a little patience is required.
That is why, rather than insist that you start your home brewing with the easiest possible brews to make, we instead encourage you to make any alcohol that you enjoy drinking. It would be a complete waste of time to brew up a drink that’s not to your taste (unless you intend to give it to somebody).
You can buy beginner’s kits for all the main types of alcohol, including beer and wine. And this would be an excellent place for a beginner to make a good start in homebrewing. Everything you need will be included in the kit, and all you have to do is to follow the step-by-step instructions.
As for which is the easiest type of alcohol to make, we think mead is definitely one of the easiest, and shortly we’ll be explaining just how to make it.
What Is The Quickest Alcohol To Make?
As for which is the quickest alcohol to make, this is not mead. One of the quickest ways to make alcohol at home is by converting a regular fruit juice. And we’ll be describing just how to do that very shortly.
Beer is also a pretty fast alcohol to make, whereas wines and spirits tend to take a lot more time.
Being able to make a home brew quickly can show you just how easy it is to do, and this can help to build your confidence on home brewing and perhaps encourage you to try more involved homebrewing where you can tweak and customize the recipes as you please.
How To Make Mead – One Of The Easiest Types Of Alcohol To Make
To make this traditional mead recipe, you will need 2 to 3 pounds of honey for every gallon of water you want to use. Give it a good stir, and then add a packet of yeast.
Then cap the container so that it’s airtight. Then, simply give it a few weeks, and voilà, you now have mead to drink – couldn’t be any easier!
How To Make An Alcoholic Drink Using Your Favorite Fruit Juice
To make an alcoholic drink from fruit juice, you will need the following items:
- A bottle of 100% pure fruit juice
- A packet of yeast powder
- An airtight stopper for the container
- A hydrometer (if you want to measure the alcohol percentage)
Now, here are the steps you need to follow:
- Once you have everything you need, decide whether you want to make a high or a low alcohol content beverage. Only then can you ascertain how much yeast to add to the fruit juice. The more yeast you add, the more alcoholic the finished product will be, however this comes at the cost of a reduction in sweetness.
- Pour your desired amount of yeast into the fruit juice bottle.
- Secure the airlock in the bottle – this is crucial.
- Leave the mixture alone and let the yeast work it’s magic. You should start to see results anywhere between 46 and 72 hours after capping the bottle.
- Be sure to get rid of any residue that makes its way into the airlock. Clean it away immediately to avoid any contamination.
- We recommend that you transfer your alcohol to other containers for drinking
How You Can Tweak A Beginner’s Beer Making Kit
As we touched upon earlier, beer is one of the fastest alcoholic drinks to brew at home, and beginner’s beer making kits are readily available with the leading online retailers or with many superstores.
You can keep things as simple as you like, by following the instructions to the letter, or you can dare to experiment a little, and gain home brewer status with minimal effort. With a little bit of tweaking you can customize the flavor, the color, and the overall feel of your home-brewed beer.
And we’re here to explain how…
The Basics
Ok, let’s start with the basics first. There are just 4 main steps in brewing beer. First you prepare the mixture, then you mix up a batch, then you let it ferment, and finally you bottle the resulting beer.
You can make changes at any one of these four steps to customize your brew. And here are some ideas and tips for you.
Tip 1 – Maintain The Balance Between Basic Malts And Special Grains
A beginner’s beer making kit will typically contain main ingredients of malts and grain. But if the finished result tastes a little dull to you, you can liven up your next batch by adding some specialty grain types.
However, our advice to you would be to try not to stray too far from the recommended mix of malts and grains, and to keep the fine balance that exists between these two prominent ingredients.
Tip 2 – Adding The Likes Of Fruits, Berries, Or Nuts
You can dramatically alter the taste of your home-brewed beer by adding a range of different additional ingredients. We’d even go so far as to say that it makes for a whole new taste experience.
But, the thing to remember about adding fruit and berries is that with their natural sugar content, they can noticeably drive up the final alcohol percentage of the finished brew.
If you do decide to add some fruits or some berries, it is generally recommended that you do this during the secondary fermentation process rather than directly into the primary fermentation.
And in order to avoid contaminating the beer, we would recommend that you use frozen fruits rather than fresh, since they are free of micro bacteria. All you need to do is let a bag of frozen fruit thaw, then add it directly to the mixture into the secondary fermentation phase.
Tip 3 – Adding Some Select Herbs And/or Spices To The Mix
You can really overhaul a homemade beer recipe by adding some herbs or a little spice.
People use all sorts of herbs and spices in their home beers, even the likes hot chili or peppermint. The main key to getting this right is to choose only herbs and spices that you know you like.
The best time to add any spices to your home-brewed beer is around the last 5 minutes of the boil.
A handy way to keep a record of what tweaks you’ve made to a brew recipe is by labelling the bottles once made. That way you can learn what works for you and your taste buds.
Wrap Up
So, hopefully by this point, you are no longer daunted by all available and often conflicting tips on brewing your own alcohol. Home brewing is actually much easier than it’s often made out to be.
And, while there is expensive equipment for the task out there, it can also be done on a minimal budget.
We hope that these brief instructions we have provided you have made it clear that home brewing is actually pretty straightforward. And we hope that you now have the confidence to give it a go, and see what delicious brews you can come up with.
And at this point, we would just like to reiterate that the best type of alcohol to make is probably your favorite one to drink.
If you were to invest in a cheap beginners kit, you should be equipped with everything you need, and all you will need to do is follow the step-by-step instructions, and you won’t go far wrong.
Don’t let anyone put you off, it’s perfectly ok to start small. Learning to home brew your own alcohol is not only fun, but it’s easy too. You can even break free of the instructions and get a little creative. Anyone can learn how to do it.
Happy brewing!