All Grain Brewing Demystified
Easy All Grain Brewing Instructions

Compiled is a short guide in laymen’s terms on easy all grain brewing Instructions including advice on equipment, mashing, lautering, fermentation, and packaging. It’s by no means exhaustive or complete, but it will give you a good idea of the process from start to finish. We will start out by going over the minimum of equipment you will need. Then we will explore the mysteries of grains and adjuncts, move on to mashing and sparging, cover the basics of boiling and scheduling and finish with fermentation, such as cooling and creating yeast starters. The last thing we will cover is packing up the beer for consumption.

One thing I won’t cover is recipe design and style guidelines. This could be a book in itself and there are plenty of great books out there on the subject. The assumption here is that you have all grain recipes and you need to execute them.

The Brewing Process in Short

Beer is a fermented beverage created when sugars derived from grain are metabolized by yeast. One of the happy byproducts of this metabolism is ethanol or more commonly know by its Arabic derived name alcohol. Most beers we think of are brewed in the European style with barley as the main grain, although beer can be made, and has been made from anything producing starch.

These are the basic processes in all grain brewing:

Mashing

Mashing is the process of adding crushed grain to water at a specific temperature to convert the starch in the malt into a more easily fermentable sugar. This sweet fermentable liquid is called wort (pronounced vurt).

Lautering

Lautering is a process where the sweet wort is removed from the grains of the mash. There are three steps in lautering: mash out, recirculation, and sparging, with sparging being the most important.

Boiling

Once sparging is complete the wort is boiled to sanitize it, breakdown proteins, off gas unwanted flavors and aromas, and to extract flavors and oils from added spicing most commonly consisting of hops.

Fermentation

Once the wort has cooled it is transferred into a vessel and the yeast is pitched (added) to the wort. Once fermentation begins it usually lasts from 5 – 10 days depending on the amount of sugars in the wort.

Packaging

The finished beer needs to be packaged and carbonated. There are two main choices. Kegging and force carbonating with bottled CO₂, or bottling and adding priming sugar for the remaining yeast to eat and create CO₂.

Equipment

For all grain brewing you’re going to need a bit more equipment than extract brewing. For starters, it’s almost impossible to mash on a stove top, so having a good propane burner setup is essential. You’re going to need a minimum of three vessels – one to mash in, one to boil in, and one to ferment in.  The ideal setup is having four vessels – one to mash, one to heat water, one to boil, and one to ferment. My suggestion is to start minimally with the equipment but buy quality and sizes that allow you to scale up when you want to brew bigger batches. You can always add more equipment when you get more comfortable brewing on your setup.

Below is a list of the basics and a short explanation.

Mash Tun

A mash tun is a vessel where you extract the sugars from grain. It should be able to retain heat or have a way to heat it to maintain a stable temperature. Common vessels for mashing are 15 gallon brew pots, large picnic coolers, and converted kegs. All have spigots to allow for drainage. Brew pots and converted kegs are directly fired so you heat your mash water in them. With picnic coolers, you’ll have to heat your water in another vessel and add it to the cooler. A lauter tun is a vessel that allows you to lauter, that is, rinse the grains of the mash of its sugar. Almost all home brewers lauter in their mash tun. Only commercial breweries have lauter tuns.

Brew Pot

This is the vessel you boil in. Large stainless steel pots are the most common and work great. 8 gallons is probably the minimum size for doing 5 gallon batches. Its always good to have a ball valve on your brew pot.

Hot Liquor Tank

Liquor is actually an English brewing term for water used in brewing. All a hot liquor tank is used for is heating water. This water can be used in the mash and the sparge. Not all home brew setups have a hot liquor tank – some brewers heat sparge water in their brew pot and mash water directly in the mash tun.

Burners

High BTU propane burners are the best for heating water and wort rapidly. There are all sorts of options out there. The turkey fryer setups are affordable and work well.

Chillers

5 gallons plus of boiling wort is difficult to cool rapidly. Chillers help expedite the process. There are three main types of chillers:

1. Immersion chiller – Coiled copper tubing that is submerged in the brew pot and cool water is flowed through it cooling the wort through heat exchange
2. Plate chillers – Wort is pushed through a series of plates that exchange heat similar to an air cooled radiator to cool the wort. A pump is needed.
3. Counterflow chiller – Wort flows through copper tubing while a hose surrounding the copper tubing has cool water flowing through it. Heat is exchanged between the copper tubing and water. A pump is needed.

I prefer immersion chillers because they work well, are easy to use and clean.

Fermenters

Glass and plastic carboys are by far the most affordable fermenter. The 6.5 gallon size is good for primary fermentation for 5 gallons batches because you need some headspace for krausen(foam created during fermentation). The 5 gallon size is good for secondaries – the reduced head space minimizes oxygenation. There’s some pitfalls to each type – glass can shatter, while plastic can scratch which makes them difficult to sanitize.

I would avoid plastic buckets – they scratch easily, let oxygen in easily, and with the lid on you can’t view your fermentation.

Hydrometer

A hydrometer is an instrument that can measure the density of a liquid. A brewing hydrometer is calibrated to read the density of sugar in water. In the brewing process it is important to take a reading before and after fermentation to see if you have hit your targets for your recipe and also to calculate how much alcohol has been produced.

Other necessary equipment

• Hoses
• Thermometer
• Bottling Bucket
• Bottling wand
• Siphon
• Sanitizer
• Bottles (22 oz. preferable)
• Bottle capper

Good to have but not necessary

• Food grade, heat tolerant pump for moving water and wort around
• Fridge for temperature control
• Kegs for dispensing

Grain

All grain has extractable sugars. Some grains are better than others for malting, that is, the process of turning grain starch into a convertible and extractable sugar. Malt is created by soaking grain in water until it sprouts and then halting the sprouting. The sprouting creates enzymes that allow the starch contained in the grain to convert into sugar when hot water is added (the process of mashing).

Barley is the king of the brewing grains. Other grains are used such as wheat, rye, oats, corn, and rice, but barley has many qualities that make it very desirable for brewing.

There are three attributes that make barley a superior grain for brewing:

1. Barley is very easy to malt.
2. Barley has a husk that helps create a filter bed when crushed for mashing.
3. Barley is low in glucans, which are gummy and sticky substances, which can create problems in mashing.

Wheat is high in glucans, which is great for bread making but not so great for brewing. It also contains proteins that cause haze in beer. Oats have to be cooked first and have high haze causing proteins. Rye is high in glucans and very spicy. Corn and rice have no enzymes present naturally to convert starch to sugar.  This is why you don’t see 100% rye or wheat beers.

After the grain has sprouted most malt is kilned to dry. This is where color and flavor happen. Most malt is roasted in drum kilns. The longer you kiln the more color and roasted characteristics the grain takes on. Color is measured in the Lovibond scale in the United States. 1 is the lightest while some grains like Black Malt can be as high as 600. Below is a chart that breaks down common malts.

What are adjuncts?

Adjuncts are considered any grain or fermentable that is not malted. Unmalted wheats, oats, rye, corn, rice, table sugar, molasses etc. are all considered adjuncts. American craft brewers have had an aversion to adjuncts seeing it as not ”pure” because many large brewers use adjuncts. Historically many beers have used adjuncts in their recipes because of the unavailability of goods or for reasons of economics. British and Belgian brewing traditions have used sugar extensively for centuries. American breweries use corn and rice. The bottom line is there is nothing wrong with using adjuncts in beer.

Mashing

Mashing is the process of mixing grains and water to make the wort. Malt has a specific temperature range for enzymatic conversion of the starches to sugar. Today’s malted barley is what is termed to as highly modified meaning that if you add the malt to water of a specific temperature range the malt will convert very easily while resting at a set temperature of about an hour.  Anywhere between 145F and 165F will create a conversion. However, the lower end will create more sugar and a beer with a thinner body while the higher end will produce less sugar and a beer with a fuller body. Conversion stops at 167F. Most beers are mashed at about 150 – 155F.

You will need some kind of vessel to mash in that can either retain heat well or have a heat source to maintain a set temperature. Many home brewers use a converted keg, picnic coolers, or a large kettle to mash in.

Your grain should be crushed so water can easily penetrate the kernel. Most homebrew shops have a mill where you can mill your grain. If you have your own grain mill even better – you can buy grain in bulk, which will save money.

To mash in, or sometimes called dough in, you heat your water to your desired strike temperature. Strike temperature is usually anywhere form 10-13F higher than your desired rest temperature, because the grain will absorb some heat. To figure out how much water is needed you will have to use a water to grain ratio. A good all round one to go by is 1.5 quarts per pound of grain.

For example:

Your recipe calls for 11 pounds of grain for a mash rest at 150F for one hour. This will equate to:

11lbs grain x 1.5 quarts water = 16.5 quarts or 4.125 gallons of water at 162F

Once your water has reached strike temperature you will add your grain to the water and stir checking the temperature to make sure it stabilizes to the desired temperature. If too hot you can add a bit of cold water. Too cold, add some heat to your vessel or boiling water to the mash depending on your setup. Let your mash rest for about an hour.

This method of mashing is called a single infusion mash and is the easiest and most commonly used today. Grains low in enzymes or not well modified traditionally have used what is called a step mash. Step mashes use a procedure where the temperature is raised and held for a period of time in steps. This ensures the creation of enzymes for conversion. Decoction mashing is a type of step mash used for converting adjuncts. It’s a time consuming method that is not used much anymore except in traditionally brewed German beers such as Dunkel, Bock, and Doppelbock.

Lautering

Lautering is a process where the sweet wort is removed from the grains of the mash. There are three steps in lautering: mash out, recirculation, and sparging. Sparging is probably the most important step for the home brewer and what people think of as lautering.

Mash out

To mash out all you do is raise the temperature of the mash to 170F. This can be done by adding heat to the vessel or by adding boiling water to the mash. Mash out ensures two things. One, enzymatic conversion stops, and two, the mash bed is hot enough for the wort to drain smoothly out of the mash tun.

Recirculation

Once you have mashed out the next step is to drain some wort and add it back to the top of the mash. This can be done by collecting a quart of wort in a pitcher and adding it back to the top of the mash until the wort runs clear or, utilizing a pump, pumping the wort back to the top of the mash tun. It all really depends on your system. Recirculating helps clear the wort by removing grain in the wort and resettling the mash bed. The clearer your wort going into the boil the better.

Sparging

Sparging is the rinsing of the grains of the mash and collecting the sweet wort. There are basically two methods. Both methods use a calculated amount of 170F water to obtain your pre-boil volume. The first is batch sparging. This is where you drain the mash tun completely and then add more water and drain off again to get your pre-boil volume. The second is fly sparging. This is usually done by having some sort of gravity or pump fed system that sprinkles the sparge water on top of the mash while it slowly drains off.

Batch sparging at the homebrew level is perfectly acceptable with little difference in yield compared to fly sparging. At the commercial level fly sparging is preferred when economies of scale are at work.

Instructions on Batch sparging

First you must calculate how much sparge water you need. In our mashing example we had 11lbs of grain. Our goal is to collect about 6.25 gallons of wort to boil or called our pre-boil volume. We had 4.125 gallons of mash water but we need to account for grain absorption. Grain absorption can vary but let say its around .15 gallons per pound as an average.

For example:

We need 6.25 gallons

4.125 gallons mash water – 11 x .15 (1.65 gallons) grain absorption = 2.475 gallons

6.25 gallons desired – 2.475 gallons of mash minus grain adsorption = 3.775 gallons sparge water needed.

So we have figured that we need 3.775 gallons of sparge water.

1. Heat water in separate vessel to 170F while the mash is resting.
2. When mash is complete mash out and recirculate
3. Drain mash tun into the brew pot
4. Add sparge water to the mash, stir, and let sit for 5 minute to let the grain bed settle
5. Recirculate and then drain into brew pot

What are brewing salts?

Over centuries of brewing, brewers have figured out that certain water profiles are better for certain types of beer. Two classic examples are Czech pilsner, brewed in Bohemia that has very soft water, and IPA or pale ale, brewed in Burton upon Trent in England that has very hard water. In simple terms very pale beers are easier to brew in soft water while darker and hoppier beers benefit from hard water. Soft water is usually low in dissolved minerals such as calcium, magnesium, sodium chloride (table salt), and bicarbonates, while hard water has an abundance of dissolved minerals. To further complicate matters there are two kinds of hardness – permanent (sulfate) and temporary (carbonate) hardness. With temporary hardness you can actually boil out the calcium carbonate, which will precipitate to the bottom of the kettle.

Water chemistry also effects pH. pH is important in mashing. Good pH levels are in the mid 5s – so slightly acidic. Hard water high in bicarbonates are usually very alkaline, while soft water is pretty neutral.

For the water you use the best thing to do is check with your local water district. They will have information, usually online, that will break down your local water chemistry. If your water seems in the mid range I wouldn’t worry about it unless you are going to brew a Pilsner. If you are going to adjust your water you should adjust your mash and sparge water. Soft water is easy to adjust with salts while hard water can be cut with distilled or reverse osmosis water that has no minerals and then adjusted as necessary.

Here’s a list of the common brewing salts used to adjust water

• Gypsum (calcium sulfate)
• Salt (sodium chloride)
• Powdered Chalk (calcium carbonate)
• Epsom Salts (magnesium sulfate)

In conclusion, adjusting brewing water can be pretty complicated.

Boiling

We’ve collected our wort and now we are going to boil. The main reason we boil is to sanitize the wort so we don’t get a contaminated batch. The boil also breaks down proteins and rids the beer of unwanted compounds such as DMS, which smells like cooked corn. Also, we can add our spices which, for the past 500 hundreds years or so, has been dominated by hops.

So if we are making a 5 gallon batch why do we need about 6.25 gallons to boil? We have two reasons for this. One, we will have evaporation loss while boiling. Typically you will have about .5 gallon of evaporation loss over an hour. Everyone’s equipment differs in evaporation loss but aiming around .5 gallon is a good mark. Two, you’re also going to lose about .25 to .5 gallons from trub. Trub is all the left over junk from the boil including hot break proteins, hops, etc., that will settle at the bottom of the kettle. So we are looking at finishing with about 5.25 gallons to put in the fermenter, which is about right. Once you know your equipment you can dial in your evaporation and trub loss rate a bit better.

Once our wort has come up to boil its time to add our hops per our recipe’s schedule. A schedule is a time indicated left in the boil to add something.

For example you see this commonly in recipes:

.6oz Target 60 minutes
.5oz Challenger 60 minutes
.5oz Goldings 15minutes

If you were going to boil for an hour we would add the Target and Challenger hops right at the beginning of the boil at 60 minutes left. With 15 minutes left in the boil we would add the Goldings.

The longer the hops are in the boil the better they are utilized. This means that the hop oils that create bitterness are extracted more the longer you boil them. Adding hops at the beginning of the boil extracts a lot of bitterness but very little aroma. Oils that create aroma unlike bitterness are very volatile and will be boiled out. The closer to the end of the boil will create less bitterness but more hop aroma. A hop addition at the very end of the boil at 0 minutes, or called flame out, will create no bitterness but a lot of aroma. Dry hopping happens after fermentation happens and will be added to the fermenter. Dry hopping adds more floral and vegetal qualities to the beer.

Other ingredients are added to the boil per schedule such as finings (beer clarifiers), spices, and yeast nutrient.

Fermentation

Fermentation is the process by which yeast converts the sugar in the wort to alcohol and carbon dioxide gas.  However, there are a few steps that need to be done before you can pitch your yeast into the wort.

Chilling

The first step is to cool the hot wort from the boil as rapidly as possible. This helps with reducing the chance of infection, clearing the beer, and reducing the creation of off flavors.  An immersion chiller, counter-flow chiller, plate chiller, or setting your brew pot in an ice bath, are various ways of cooling wort rapidly. Ales usually need to be cooled into the 60F – 70F range while lagers are typically cooled to 45F – 55F.

Immersion chillers are probably your easiest and cheapest option with less extraneous equipment needed and the less likelihood of contamination happening because lowering it directly into the boiling wort sanitizes the chiller. Immersion chillers are also very easy to clean.

Immersion chillers are made out of copper tubing and wrapped into a coil with a garden hose hookup attached. Cool water is flowed from a garden hose or a sink faucet through the chiller while it sits in the hot wort. Typical sizes are around 25 – 50 feet of copper coil, which amounts to a lot of surface area, and heat is exchanged rapidly through the water flowing through the coil. Depending on the size of your chiller you can get the wort down to the tap water temperature from 15 – 30 minutes.

Hydrometers and Gravity Readings

Once cooled to the appropriate temperature you need to transfer to your fermentation vessel. While transferring to the fermenter make sure to take a sample of the wort for a hydrometer reading to measure your starting gravity or sometimes called original gravity (OG). This will help you figure the alcohol content of your beer later on after fermentation is complete and will let you know if your gravity is correct according to your recipe.

Gravity is read in two ways by the specific gravity scale or the Plato scale. For our purposes we will use specific gravity. Plato is still used in the brewing industry and is the same as Brix that is used in the wine industry. Water measures 1.000 on the specific gravity scale. Any soluble sugar in solution will weigh more.

For example:

1.052 starting gravity (SG)

Each hundredth of a reading is called a point.  So we have a starting gravity of 52 points.

The purpose of taking a reading is not only to see if you’re on target for your recipe, but when fermentation is done, to see if you reached final gravity and then figure your alcohol by volume (ABV).

To figure ABV

ABV% = (OG – FG)*131

For example:

1.052(OG) – 1.012(FG) = .040

.040 x 131 = 5.24%

Transferring

Transferring can be done in a matter of fashions but the best approach is using gravity or gravity and an auto siphon. If you have a setup with a pump it’s easier and gravity is not an issue.

To use gravity you need to have a spigot on the bottom of your brew pot. You will put the pot above the level of your fermenter and attach some tubing to your spigot and let it flow into the fermenter. Make sure all the sediment that collects at the bottom of the brew pot is not transferred.

With a pump you use the spigot as above but you don’t have to move your brew pot, which if you are doing a 10 gallon batch, can be impossibly heavy.

I find that using an auto siphon and letting it flow into a funnel on top of the fermenter is an easy way to not suck up all the trub and somewhat oxygenate the wort by swirling through the funnel. Remember to keep the auto siphon off the bottom of the kettle so as to not suck any debris up.

Oxygen

Once the wort is transferred you need to add oxygen to it. Oxygen is an important process of yeast metabolism at the beginning of fermentation. You can vigorously shake your fermentation vessel or you can use an oxygenator, like an aquarium pump with a sanitized air stone. Once oxygenated you can pitch your yeast.

As with any fermentation you’ll need a good amount of yeast to ensure a rapid and healthy fermentation. Rapid fermentations will lower the risk of contamination and off flavors.

Although liquid yeast packs or vials have a good amount of yeast the best way to ensure a great fermentation is by creating a yeast starter. If you have dry yeast just buy more because it’s inexpensive and dry yeast doesn’t really benefit from a starter.

Yeast Starter

A yeast starter is really just a mini batch of wort that you pitch your yeast into.  The yeast will start to ferment the wort and multiply so you’ll have more yeast that are in an active state to pitch into your batch come brew day. If you make a 1 liter starter you will increase your cell count by 50%. You usually want to make a starter a day or two before brew day so it’s ready to pitch once your wort has cooled. Using a starter can have fermentation starting in as little as a couple of hours.

How to make a yeast starter

To fully take advantage of a starter you should minimally create a 1 liter starter. Anything smaller, you’re not doing the yeast any favors. You’ll need a small pot, some dried malt extract (DME), a small vessel to ferment in, and some aluminum foil. An easier option is using a 2000ml Erlenmeyer flask, which is made out of borosilicate glass that is heat resistant. You can boil and ferment in the same vessel then.

To make a 1 liter starter add one cup of DME to 900ml water and a pinch of yeast nutrient. Bring it to a boil and gently boil for about 15 minutes. Rapidly cool and put it in your fermenting vessel (a growler works good), pitch your yeast and cover the top with foil. If you don’t have a stir plate, try to shake or swirl the starter every couple of hours if possible.

Temperature control
One of the biggest and most overlooked problems for beginning home brewers is controlling fermentation temperature. Fermentations that get too hot produce all sort of undesirable flavors that are solvent like and fruity to the point of tasting like bubble gum. Fermentations that get too cold can stall out or take a long time to start risking the chance of infection. Most ale yeast like to ferment warm with the ideal temperature range around 60 – 70F. Lager yeast needs to be below 55F so your going to need a way to chill the fermenter if you decide to brew a lager. Fermentation creates heat and once started can easily ramp up over 70F quickly, especially if it’s summer and air temperatures are hot. Rooms can grow cold overnight. Any fluctuation in temperature for the yeast should be avoided.

There are few methods for controlling temperatures during fermentation:

Cooling

1. Put the fermenter in a room where the ambient temperature is stable. If you have a room in your house that is always 60 – 65F it would be perfect for ales.  Basements that get down in the 40’s during winter would be great for a lager.
2. Put your fermenter in a tub with water and use ice packs to control the temperature of the water that will cool the fermenter.  Ice packs will melt and the water temperature will fluctuate so make sure to constantly monitor.
3. Use the wicking method. Wrap a towel or t-shirt around the fermenter and have it wick up water from a pan so its always wet and blow a fan on it. This will cool the fermenter about 5 – 15F.
4. Place fermenter in a chest freezer or old dorm style fridge with an exterior thermostat. Very reliable. Can control your temperature within a degree. Works for hot or cold adjustments.

Warming

1. Place a heat pad underneath the fermenter.
2. Wrap a blanket around the fermenter.
3. Use an aquarium heat bulb in your chest freezer/dorm fridge setup with a thermostat.

How do I know when my fermentation is done?

Fermentations are usually done in 5 -10 days but the best way to check is by taking a hydrometer reading. Remember, airlock activity isn’t always the best indication that fermentation is complete.

To take a reading you need to pull a sample of the beer. The best way to get a sample is with a device known as a wine thief. A wine thief is a large pipette that can fit into a carboy and draw a sample big enough for a hydrometer reading. If the reading is close by a point or two to your estimated final gravity than your fermentation is done. If it is higher by three points or more let the beer sit another week and check again. When the readings are the same over a period of time your fermentation is done regardless if you’ve hit target or not. A good rule of thumb is keeping your beer in the fermenter for at least two weeks. This ensures that the yeast can clean up unwanted byproducts such as Diacetyl (butter flavor) and Acetaldehyde (green apple flavor) and that the inactive yeast flocculate (drop to the bottom of the fermenter).

What is secondary fermentation?

Secondary fermentation is when you rack (transfer) the beer off the sediment in your primary vessel into another vessel. The purpose of secondary is to help clarify the beer and clean up unwanted byproducts of fermentation. This process is also called conditioning.

As a side note, not all beers need to be put into secondary. Every time you move your beer you are exposing it to oxygen, which can cause oxidation – an undesirable flavor of wet cardboard. Many beers don’t need an extended conditioning or can be kept in the primary for at least 3 weeks with no ill effects.

During conditioning the yeast that are still active clean up undesirable byproducts through a slow fermentation. The yeast will process these byproducts into ethanol while further sediment containing proteins will drop out with phenols and tannins binding to the protein. This will smooth out the flavor of the beer.

Bottle conditioning is essentially the same thing as secondary with the only differences being that it happens in a smaller vessel and you add sugar to kick fermentation up a bit more to capture the CO₂. So, if you do a secondary, and then bottle your beer, the bottling is actually a tertiary fermentation.

Further conditioning at cold temperatures near freezing will clear and smooth out the flavor of the beer even more. This is called lagering. All lager style beers go through this final conditioning phase because lager yeasts contribute a good amount of undesirable sulphurous compounds. Some ales also can benefit from cold conditioning such as high gravity Belgian ales like Triples.

Packaging

Your beer has finished fermenting and has dropped clear, so you are now ready to package it up for consumption. The home brewer has two options:

1. Bottling – This is the cheapest solution, but also the most time consuming. If you like portability, or don’t want to spend money on a kegging system, this is the best solution.
2. Kegging – More equipment and expense involved but also really easy once set up. We won’t cover kegging here.

Bottling

You’ll need about twenty-six 22-ounce bottles figuring we will yield about 4.5 gallons from our 5 gallon batch. You could use 12 ounce bottles but a lot of 12 ounce bottles used in the beer industry today are called single use. For economic reasons they are thin walled with the belief they will only be used once and then thrown away or maybe recycled. Basically they could easily explode if reused. Your bottles should be clean and you’ll need to sanitize them. If you have a dishwasher, running it on a normal cycle with a hot dry will sanitize very well. Do not use any soap! The hot water and the steam in the dry cycle will be enough to sanitize. A bucket full of Iodophor will work fine too. While sanitizing your bottling bucket and gear you can sanitize your bottles in batches.

For bottling you’ll need to add sugar to prime the beer so it can create enough CO₂ in the bottle to carbonate the beer. Each style of beer has a suggested volume of CO₂.  Volume is the measurement of CO₂ suspended in liquid. Good examples are British style ales at around 1.8 – 2.3 volumes at the low end while Belgian style ales at the high end are up to 3 – 4 volumes. You can use a calculator like this http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html or a good all around target for a 5 gallon batch is .75 cup sugar.

Bottling Instructions

1. Boil your sugar in a pint of water
2. Dump priming sugar into sanitized bottling bucket.
3. Move fermenter above bottling bucket on a counter (best to do this hours before so sediment stirred up in the move can settle). Siphon beer out of fermenter into bottling bucket while avoiding sucking up excess sediment with siphon and try to avoid splashing as much as possible to keep down oxygen uptake
4. Move bottling bucket to a counter above bottles and use a bottling wand to fill bottles.
5. Use a bench capper to cap.