We brew beer in a slow cooker. Recipe for making beer in a slow cooker at home How to make beer in a slow cooker

24.05.2018 19:30

I have long wanted to visit some kind of beer brewing at Cosmic City One Gallon Home Brewery, first of all, to see for myself how it is done, and, of course, to tell you. My friend, Marat Settarov, is probably the first in Russia who decided to brew beer using the 1-Gallon Brewing technology. Maybe not the first, but at least I don’t know the others.

I was personally interested in the fact that Marat, having read a lot about his foreign colleagues, immediately began brewing grain beer. Not only that, but his first beer was none other than First Step, an American Porter-style beer with 7.7% ABV and 100 IBU bitterness. No hefeweizens there (I have nothing against them) and other “light live unfiltered” ones, but straight to craft. Marat gave a brief presentation of his first variety to a narrow circle of beer lovers at GlavPivMag in mid-November last year.

Then I was a little shocked that the first test beer of the new home brewer turned out to be completely free of the defects characteristic of many, even very experienced “home brewers.” I won’t say that it was world-class beer, but the application was very serious.

“Great aroma balancing between a wine-port base and American dry-hopped hops. The taste is initially strongly coffee-like, and as it warms up it turns into woody-leather tones, seasoned with serious bitterness that lingers in the aftertaste. Roasted prunes, something else dark and burnt, a little soot, soot and smoked alder, charcoal in the aftertaste"- these are the epithets I used to describe First Step after the tasting.

The other day it will be six months since tasting the first beer from Cosmic City. Six months... and already 10 beers, one of them is non-alcoholic - Hophead Cola with 110 IBU bitterness.

Why Cosmic City? Because Marat lives in Korolev, Moscow region, and loves everything related to space and astronauts.

Why 1-Gallon Brewing? Because only one gallon of beer is brewed, and the finished product yield is only 3 liters. Firstly, all the equipment along with the fermenting beer takes up extremely little space, and this immediately removes one of the reasons why many are hesitant to take up home brewing in limited living conditions. Secondly, it allows you to brew new varieties as often as you want, without waiting for the previous ones to be drunk. After all, every new brew is a new lesson that allows you to strive for perfection.

The most interesting thing in all this is the know-how that Marat himself came up with, bringing even greater relief to the 1-Gallon Brewing technology. I'm talking about mashing wort using a household multicooker.

All of the above made me join Marat Settarov on a festive May day to brew a new variety. The idea was to brew American Single Hop IPA with ultra-fashionable American Mosaic hops.

I suggested the name - MayDay Single Hop Mosaic IPA.

Nobody, including the head brewer, was against it :)

You don't need to think too much about recipes. Everything you can imagine has already been done before you. Although you can always make your own adjustments, you understand. What I mean is that the “One Gallon Brewing” movement is developing quite actively, and you can find a lot of information on this topic on the Internet, although mostly in English. As well as a bunch of ready-made beer recipes of different styles. You can download a ready-made recipe, although in most cases they are for 20-liter cooks. In special brewing applications for iOS and Android, you can adjust (convert) any recipe to the volume you need, in our case - 1 gallon.

Here is the recipe for this cooking.

Let's start preparing the ingredients.

Several varieties of malt of different colors (degrees of roasting).

Marat is attaching a mill for malt.

Using a kitchen scale, the required quantities of malt are measured.

Ready.
The malts are ground and poured into the multicooker bowl.

In the meantime, the equipment is being processed using this tool.

And on the stove, the water for mashing the wort is heated to the required temperature.

When the water has reached the desired temperature, it is added to the multicooker bowl with ground malt.

Today I will tell you how one home brewer easily and simply brews beer at home using a slow cooker. Marat Settarov from Korolev is probably the first in Russia to start brewing homemade beer using 1-Gallon Brewing technology. Maybe not the first, but at least I don’t know the others yet.

I was personally interested in the fact that Marat, having read a lot about his foreign colleagues, immediately began brewing grain beer, and not from some concentrates for home brewing. Not only that, but his first release was none other than an American Porter-style beer with 7.7% ABV and 100 IBU bitterness. There are no hefeweizens (I have nothing against them) and other “light live unfiltered” ones, but just craft beer.

Why 1-Gallon Brewing? Because only one gallon of beer (3.79 liters) is brewed, and the finished product yield is only 3 liters. Firstly, all the equipment along with the fermenting beer takes up extremely little space, and this immediately removes one of the reasons why many are hesitant to take up home brewing in limited living conditions. Secondly, it allows you to brew new varieties as often as you want, without waiting for the previous ones to be drunk. After all, every new brew is a new lesson that allows you to strive for perfection.

All of the above made me join Marat Settarov on a festive May day to brew a new variety. The idea was to brew American Single Hop IPA with ultra-fashionable American Mosaic hops.

I suggested the name - MayDay Single Hop Mosaic IPA.
Nobody, including the head brewer, was against it :)

Here is the recipe for this cooking.

Let's start preparing the ingredients.
Several varieties of malt of different colors (degrees of roasting).

Marat is attaching a mill for malt.

Using a kitchen scale, the required quantities of malt are measured.

The head brewer's colleague Dmitry Bogdanov grinds malt. Having seen enough of Marat, he is preparing to open his own One Gallon Brewery, and is doing an internship here. The head brewer, as expected, makes him do all the dirty work :)

Ready.
The malts are ground and poured into the multicooker bowl.

In the meantime, the equipment is being processed using this tool.

And on the stove, the water for mashing the wort is heated to the required temperature.

When the water has reached the desired temperature, it is added to the multicooker bowl with ground malt.

And mix until the required consistency.

It’s a bit thick, add more water.

To get something like this “porridge”.

The multicooker is set to a mode that can maintain the required temperature for the required amount of time.

While the mashing is happening, we rest.
The multicooker beeps when the set time is over.
Let's stir the porridge.

And set the next temperature. And we rest again.

This is the know-how. A slow cooker makes mashing the wort easier. There is no need to stand at the stove with a thermometer for a long time in order to control the stability of the required temperature. The multicooker will call you to it when the mashing process is complete.

You can use any multicooker that has similar functionality.

Let me remind you that today India Pale Ale style beer is brewed with the most popular Mosaic hops.

We will measure the required amount of hops using these scales.

Dmitry cannot get enough of the magical aroma of American Mosaic hops. Aroma!!! He really is amazing.

In the background are measuring cups, they are also shot glasses. We will pour weighed portions of hops into them.

To add them to the brewing wort at the right time.

Everything is ready to filter the wort from the spent grain.

We begin filtering by dumping the malt “porridge” from the multicooker bowl into the cooking pan through the filter bag.

We squeeze out the grain.

And we spill (rinse) it with the required amount of water.

Here is our wort.

Now we wash the spent grain again, this time with wort.

Squeeze out the last drops.

And put the pan with the wort on the fire, we will cook it.

Let's rest again.

The head brewer monitors compliance with the recipe and sets a timer that will remind you with a signal when the first hops need to be added to the boiling wort.

The signal sounded, add the first dose of hops. We do this several more times, according to the recipe, according to the timer signals at the desired cooking time.

The cooking is finished.
Place the pan in a bathtub with cold water. To lower the temperature of the coolant, packages of gel frozen in the freezer are thrown into the water.

The obvious advantages of making beer in a slow cooker are that you don’t need to control the temperature with an immersion thermometer and constantly stand at the stove. In fact, the slow cooker becomes a small automated brewery. A significant disadvantage is that one brew will produce up to 3 liters of finished beer, which is very little, considering the labor intensity of the process. You also have to measure the amount of ingredients down to tenths of a gram, which requires accurate and sensitive scales. The method can be recommended to novice brewers who want to try their hand.

Necessary equipment: 5-liter multicooker, kitchen scale, fermentation container with a volume of 5-6 liters, a saucepan for boiling wort, a slotted spoon, a water seal, a mug, a silicone hose for skimming beer from sediment, a colander, gauze, iodine or other disinfectant, a bathtub with cold water or other method of quickly cooling the wort, plastic or glass beer bottles. Additional accessories will include an electronic thermometer and a hydrometer for monitoring the sugar content of the wort.

Ingredients:

water – 3 liters;
barley malt – 1 kg;
brewer's yeast - according to the instructions on the package for 5 liters of wort;
hops – 3 grams (alpha acidity 4.5%);
sugar – 7 grams per liter of beer (for saturation with carbon dioxide, any other primer will do).

These are average proportions for producing homemade beer (lager) of medium bitterness with a strength of 4-5%. You can use any other recipe, for example, brew white wheat beer, recalculating the amount of ingredients according to the volume of the bowl. Here is a general technology for mashing malt in a slow cooker; this technique is not tied to a specific recipe.

Beer recipe in a slow cooker

1. Disinfect all containers and tools to avoid contaminating the wort with pathogenic microorganisms. To do this, prepare a homemade disinfecting solution: dilute 10 ml of iodine in 25 liters of cold water. Fill the fermentation container, multicooker bowl and cooking pot with the solution with tools (spoon, slotted spoon, water seal, fermentation container lid, silicone hose, colander, mug, gauze). Moisten all the walls and neck. Leave for 5 minutes, then drain the solution.

Instead of iodine, you can use special antibacterial compounds that are sold in brewing stores.

2. If necessary, grind the malt (often sold already crushed) with a special mill or mechanical grinder.

3. Heat 3 liters of water in a multicooker to a temperature of 70-73 °C. Slowly, stirring constantly, pour ground malt into the water. You should get a porridge of uniform consistency.

4. Heat the mixture to 65°C, cook for 90 minutes, maintaining the temperature in the range of 61-72°C (optimally 64-69°C). If the open multicooker cannot reach the desired temperature, close the lid.

The main thing is not to forget to stir

Stir the mash (malt with water) every 15-20 minutes, not allowing solid particles to accumulate at the bottom.

Attention! It is very important to observe the specified temperature conditions, otherwise saccharification will not occur (the breakdown of starch in malt into sugars under the influence of enzymes) and beer will not be produced. The point of cooking is to saccharify the malt.

After 90 minutes, check the quality of saccharification (optional): pour 5-10 ml of wort onto a clean white plate, then add a couple of drops of iodine and stir. The solution should not change color. If the mixture turns dark blue, it means that there is a lot of starch left in the grain and you need to continue cooking for at least another 15 minutes, then repeat the test.

5. Place a colander over a saucepan with a capacity of at least 5 liters. Using a slotted spoon, place the spent grain, the solid part of the mash, in an even layer in a colander, creating a layer for filtration.

6. Using a mug, pour the liquid portion of the mash from the slow cooker into the brew pan through a colander with spent grains. Finally, squeeze the spent grain dry, pressing with a slotted spoon. Thanks to pouring, the wort is better filtered, and the remaining extractive substances are washed out of the malt.

The process of filtering wort with grains

7. Bring the pan with the wort to a boil, add the first portion of hops – 1 gram. After 30 minutes, add another 1 gram of hops, and after 40 minutes, add the last portion (1 gram) and cook the wort for 20 minutes.

It is important to maintain a vigorous simmer throughout the brew to keep the wort bubbling.

If the device allows, cooking can be done in a multicooker after washing the bowl. The advantage is automatic time control.

Dilute brewer's yeast according to label instructions.

8. Cool the wort as quickly as possible (the standard is 15-25 minutes) to the temperature recommended by the brewer’s yeast manufacturer (for lager strains, often 5-16 °C) to minimize the risk of contamination with wild yeast. Typically, new brewers transfer the container to an ice water bath.

9. Pour the cooled wort through cheesecloth into a fermentation container, filling it to a maximum of 75% of the volume. Add yeast, shake. Install a water seal and move the container to a dark place with a suitable fermentation temperature (indicated on the bag of yeast, for lagers it is usually 10-13 °C). Leave the wort for 6-10 days to ferment.

Thick foam indicates active fermentation

Experienced brewers determine the end of fermentation using a hydrometer by comparing two samples from the last 12 hours. If the values differ by hundredths, you can proceed to the next step.

Beginners are often guided by the water seal - the absence of bubbles for 18-24 hours indicates the end of the fermentation process.

10. Pour the beer through a silicone hose into pre-sterilized storage bottles, leaving at least 2 cm of the top of the bottle. To make the drink carbonated and foamy, as indicated in the article at the link. The easiest way is to add 7 grams of sugar per 1 liter of beer to each bottle; fructose or dextrose (glucose) will also work.

11. Seal the bottles with caps, shake and transfer to a dark room with a temperature of 20-24 °C. Leave for 15-20 days. A weak re-fermentation will saturate the drink with carbon dioxide.

12. Place the carbonated beer in the refrigerator to mature (greatly improves the taste) for 20-30 days.

Shelf life when stored in a cellar or refrigerator is 6-8 months.

Every beginner once comes up with the idea of making beer in a slow cooker at home. The idea is obvious; this technique allows you to make controlled temperature breaks and not waste time monitoring the process.

Let's find out in a regular household appliance with a 5 liter bowl. All you need is simple ingredients and some free time. Almost every multicooker beer recipe is simple and accessible even to beginners.

It is not very convenient to completely prepare a drink in a bowl, because long-term boiling is difficult to check by constantly opening the lid. But the technique of mashing malt makes it very simple.

A simple recipe for brewing beer in a slow cooker

You will need:

3 liters of water,
1 kg barley malt,
3 g hops with alpha acidity 4.5%,
1/3 sachet of brewer's yeast (5 l),
sugar for carbonation.

Preparation:

Heat 3 liters of water in a slow cooker to a temperature of 70 degrees, slowly stir the malt into the water.
Set the temperature to 65 degrees and cook the mash for 90 minutes. Stir the mixture every 20 minutes so that the malt does not settle.
After an hour and a half, do an iodine test. If the starch does not completely turn into sugar, add another 15 minutes of cooking.
Filter the drink, return the liquid to the multicooker bowl or leave it in the pan.
The wort must be brought to a boil, then add 1 g of hops. After 30 minutes, add another 1 gram, and 20 minutes before the end of the boil, add the last portion. Total cooking time is 1 hour.
Make sure that the liquid boils intensely and that gurgling is visually visible.
Quickly cool the wort to the temperature recommended for the selected yeast.
Pour the filtered liquid into the fermentation vessel.
Pour the yeast onto the surface of the wort, wait 5–7 minutes, mix the liquid well and close with a lid with a water seal.
Leave the wort for 10 days in a dark, cool place (temperature no higher than 14 degrees).
Remove the beer from the sediment using a silicone straw; add 1 liter of beer to 7 g of sugar in each bottle.
Pour the drink into bottles, leaving 2 cm of space under the neck. Place in a dark room at a temperature no higher than 24 degrees. After 20 days, secondary fermentation will be completed and the drink will become carbonated.
The drink should spend another 20–25 days in the refrigerator to fully ripen.

Recipe for making homemade beer in a slow cooker

Using this technology, you will get a classic American lager, light and light.

You will need:

12 liters of water,
1.5 kg Kursk Pilsner,
20 g Istra hops (alpha acidity 4.2%),
yeast Saflager S-23.

Preparation:

Mix 5.2 liters of water with malt in a multicooker bowl. Set the temperature to 69 degrees and cook for an hour.
Make a final pause at 72 degrees for 10 minutes.
Filter the infusion; Rinse the mash with 6 liters of water heated to 72 degrees.
Mix the barrier and rinse water, place on the heat and cook for 65 minutes, maintaining a visible boil.
Remove the multicooker bowl and let the beer sit for 25 minutes, then cool the wort.
Pour the liquid into the fermentation vat, pour the yeast onto its surface and after a few minutes mix well.
Close the container with a lid with a water seal; wait for fermentation to complete, this will take 6 to 10 days.
Filter the beer and bottle it, after adding sugar (7 g per 1 l).
Leave the beer for secondary fermentation in a dark place with a temperature no higher than 24 degrees, then transfer it to the refrigerator and wait another 10-12 days.

From a slow cooker - six months in a dark and cool place, an open bottle should be drunk immediately. Otherwise, this drink is similar to any other, brewed from natural ingredients.

Why a slow cooker?

These household appliances will become a simplified version of a mini-brewery; you can try your hand at it and then buy high-quality and convenient equipment. To choose the right model and not waste your money, read

Until recently, humanity did not know what a multicooker was, but today one has replaced the oven, pots, frying pans and even the brewery. The settings of this device and design allow you to brew beer in a multicooker, which is not inferior in quality to foamy drinks brewed in hydromodules. The product can be prepared in this way not only from beer concentrates, but also from grain mixtures.

Cooking process

You can prepare beer in a Redmond multicooker with a capacity of 5 liters. This is the optimal size for home brewing beer at home. In addition to the multicooker you will need:

5 kg scales;
flask for dissolving and activating yeast;
measuring cup;
fermentation container;
mesh colander;
gauze or soft cloth.

Before you start preparing beer, all equipment and containers used in the process must be treated with special disinfectant solutions. This may be STAR SAN liquid. 3 liters of bottled water is poured into the multicooker container, which is heated to a temperature of 60°C.

Grain malt must be ground before filling into the grout container. To do this, you can use a micromill or a regular mechanical meat grinder.

Malt is added to the heated container. Everything is thoroughly mixed and left to mash for 1-1.5 hours at a temperature of 65-70°C. After the malt has fermented, it will need to be strained and washed. To do this, place a colander equipped with gauze on the pan, onto which the malt liquid is laid out from the multicooker. It is washed with 2 liters of water and wrung out.

The readiness of the valve is determined by adding a small amount of iodine to its sample. Once in the sample, it should not darken or turn blue much.

The pan with the strained wort is placed on a gas stove and brought to a boil. Any recipe for making beer in a slow cooker can be used. Brewing a drink in an installation is not much different from other methods. After the wort boils, 12% hops are added to it to impart bitterness to the product. The duration of the boiling process is 1 hour. 5 minutes before its end, 3.5% hops are added again. It should add flavor to the drink.