When most people think “home brewer,” they think of overweight bearded men, renaissance fairs, and civil war reenactments. No more! With a modest investment in a couple of equipment items, anyone, even you, can brew 5 gallons of beer in a couple of hours, cleanup not included (that takes 15 hours at least). In the course of this article I will review making a simple, malt extracted summer brew. I will also discuss the required equipment and the massive costs as well as popular vendors who would be glad to sell you the products at a markup of 57%. It is easy to contaminate a beer before fermentation. Contamination can have a surprisingly large number of effects on the final beer - the least worrisome of which is a bad aftertaste; the worst of which is bacteria competing with the yeast for sugars, resulting in weak beer which will take you drinking twice as much to get the desired effects. I generally like to use Clorox bleach for all of my pre-brew cleaning. Sweep and mop the floor, scrub the cabinets and baseboards, then bleach all surfaces in the area. As long as the tools of the beer brewing are resting on sanitized surfaces and there is no dust blowing around, the risk of contamination is pretty small. Clean and rinse all brewing implements prior to beginning. Clorox wipes are good for this sanitary act. The fermenting bucket should be cleaned prior to being filled with that delicious unfermented beer. During this stage of the brewing process all of the ingredients combine together in a glorious and aromatic boil - the final product of which is unfermented beer. I will break this down by easy-to-follow steps, complete with definitions and explanations: Fill the brew kettle with 2.5 gallons of regular tap water and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, place the cans of malt extract into a second pot of hot water. In a few minutes, the heat will make the extract much easier to pour. When the water is just off the boil, pour in the heated malt extract. Use the long-handled spoon to scrape out what’s left in the can and stir slowly into the water. Immediately after the extraction, stir in the dextrin powder, gypsum, and salt. As soon as the water-based mix begins to boil, make a note of the time and stir in the Columbus hop pellets. (This is now officially unfermented beer, or wort. Boil the wort for 60 minutes, continuing to stir slowly. If the wort is left unattended during the boil, it could boil over and be an absolute disaster. Not only are ingredients lost, but the unfermented wort is full of sugars - a mixture which becomes glue as it dries on your kitchen floor. At 60 minutes, turn off the stove and move the kettle from the stove to the kitchen sink. Lid the kettle and fill the sink with ice water. Keep the kettle in ice water until it drops to around 100° Fahrenheit. Pour 5 gallons of the wort into the fermenting bucket once it cools. When the temperature of the wort is under 90°, pitch the yeast into the wort and seal the lid on the bucket. Place the airlock through the hole on the top of the lid, fill with water, and cap it.