How To Make Beer

You also need a termometer to make sure that you do not add the yeast to a too hot or too cold mixture of malt, hops and water.

You can get by without a hydrometer. Normally you would use the hydrometer to determine the specific gravity of liquids, mainly how much sugar was left in the brew. A Hydrometer is usually made of glass and has a cylindrical stem and a bulb weighted with mercury or shot to make it float upright.

Pale Ale

Recipe Type Extract

Fermentables

3.3 lbs light M&F DME
3 lbs light unhopped M&F malt extract
1 lbs crystal malt
Hops
2 oz Willamette hops
Yeast Wyeast #1007

Procedure Started yeast 48 hours prior to brew. Used 1 cup DME boiled in 2 cups water for primer.

1 ounce Willamette at start of boil 1, ounce at end. Boiled 1/2 hour, sat 1/2 hour, strained into
primary, pitched yeast, fermented at 78 in primary for 1 week, secondary for 2 weeks. Used
bottled water because my water has a high concentration of calcium and no cholorine.

I found this beer brewing guide quite helpful