I came up with similar directions, slightly different technique, for a noobee friend along these cutted and pasted lines...
Kit brewing with a dried yeast.
Preparation
1. Clean then sanitise everything. Take your taps apart and take the O-ring out of the fermenter lid and sanitise them. Take a toothbrush to the thread on your fermenter lid. Use a soft cloth or, if you are gentle, a nylon scourer on your fermenter as bacteria can hide in any scratches you make. Dont touch any surface that might touch the brew. Try not to sneeze or breathe directly on stuff. Fill the kettle and boil it. Keep a bucket or large jug of sanitiser handy for putting down spoons, lids, thermometers and anything that might touch the brew.
2. Pour a cup of boiling water into a mug or small pyrex jug, cover it with cling film and put it in the refrigerator to cool. You will later use this to rehydrate your yeast. Fill and boil the kettle again. It is always handy to have boiled water available for rinsing sanitiser off utensils.
The Boil
3. Fill your largest pot about three-quarters full and bring to the boil. Its nice to have about 4-5 litres boiling but a couple will do at a pinch. Tip in your fermentables, the bits you are adding to the kit. This is typically a kilo of dried malt extract or a tin of liquid malt extract from your homebrew shop. As it comes to the boil beware of boilovers. You may need to take if off the heat or plunge a large metal utensil in to prevent a boilover. Once the boilover stage has passed, turn it up and let it roll for about 10 minutes or so with the lid off.
4. This step is for adding flavour and aroma hops to your brew. If you are not adding hops, skip this step. Use low alpha-acid hops or this technique might add too much bitterness to your beer. Something below 6% should be fine. Weigh out your hops, perhaps 20 or 40g, and add to the boil. Again, watch out for boilovers. Let it boil for another 10 minutes.
5. For the last few minutes of the boil put the lid back on the pot to sterilise it. You may need to turn down the heat to prevent boilovers. Then turn off the heat and tip your beer kit into the pot. Give the tin a rinse with boiled water and tip that in too. Using a sanitised spoon, gently stir the pot to dissolve the kit. Avoid splashing or vigorous stirring, but try to dissolve the kit into the wort. This stuff is the concentrated version of what the yeast will later turn into beer. It is called wort and rhymes with pert and flirt. You can momentarily return this to the boil if you are worried about having introduced any bugs during the stirring or you can put the lid back on and proceed to the next step.
The Chill
6. Fill your sink with cold tap water and, leaving the lid on the pot, put the pot into the sink of cold water. Gently move the cold water around the pot and it will soon get hot. Change the water and repeat. On the third bath add a couple of litres of ice to the sink water to make a slurry. This final bath will bring your boiled wort down to a temperature safe for pitching the yeast.
7. While your wort is cooling check your boiled water in the frig. When it is tepid, barely warm, take it out of the frig and tip in your dried yeast. Dont stir it, just put the cling film back over it and let it sit at room temperature for at least 15 minutes.
Transfer into the fermenter
8. Using your sanitised thermometer check the temperature of the wort. Once it is below about 30C tip it into your sanitised fermenter. MAKE SURE THE TAP ON THE FERMENTER IS CLOSED. If your pot has just come out of a sink it may be wet. Dont let drips of this water go into your fermenter. Pour with plenty of froth and vigour as you are trying to dissolve oxygen into the wort to help the yeast prepare for fermentation. Top up the fermenter with tap water to the desired volume, typically 23 litres, again using as much froth and bubble as you can generate. You can use filtered or bottled water but if it is okay to drink, tap water is fine.
9. At this stage I generally let my brew sit for an hour or so to allow the crap in the wort to settle to the bottom of the fermenter below the level of the tap. I then raise the fermenter and put a second sanitised fermenter (WITH CLOSED TAP) underneath and let the wort run out of the top fermenter, through the tap and into the second fermenter. Apart from giving it another aeration, this technique keeps the crap (hot break, hops, other stuff) out of the beer. Hot break forms in the boil and ideally is best kept out of your beer. As a beginner this step is just a pain and you may decide not to worry about it.
10. You are aiming at a temperature of about 22*C to pitch your ale yeast but anything from 18* to 25* is okay. When you are in that range, pitch your yeast and then try to get the wort into the desired temperature range for fermenting. Dont let it drop below 18* or it might stop fermenting. Dont let it rise much above 22* or the flavour will really suffer.
11. Your brew will generally ferment out within a week. Use your hydrometer to be certain it has finished fermenting. There is no harm in leaving it for a few days longer just to be sure. Then you can either bottle it or transfer it to another container for conditioning.
