That's right. I'm heading into the kitchen tomorrow to actually use that thing my wife uses to make my dinner. I dropped $200 at my local store today for a 5 gallon kit with a Flat Tire Ale ingredient package. I picked up a brewing pot, some other misc gear/supplies and the starter kit itself. I hope not to blow myself up with it.

I have no idea why this interests me since I rarely drink beer. I probably had 5 in all of last year

I guess I decided after seeing a study on moderate alcohol consumption's health benefits to drink one a day. From there, I decided it would be cool to make my own for cheap. Weird.


What am I in for?

Watch for boil over on your stove, if this happens your wife will be pissssssed. You'll be fine, follow the directions to the 'T' and remember to be as sanitary post boil as possible. Good luck.

This, plus: relax, take a deep breath, have a home brew (after the brewing is done, of course!).

Have fun!

get a plan together for how you will chill your wort so you can pitch the yeast at a proper temperature, reducing this time from boil to below 100 degrees will reduce contamination risk.  recommend getting a larger container (keg cooler) put your fermenter in it then fill it with ice.  

+1 on preventing an overboil.  stir it a lot for the first 20 min or so.  

be completely OCD on cleaning, following details and being methodical on notes (times, ingredients, starting and ending gravities)

get into kegging as soon as you decide you like homebrewing because bottling sucks... (kegging info at www.kegkits.com)

fatkid

Check out this site also http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/

Also, check out videos on YouTube

Also, check out this Web page http://www.barleynvine.com/howtoviframh.html
It is my local hbs

Good luck and stay sanitized

Remember to go overkill on santitation.  Then if you just follow your boil points, you'll be fine.

ETA:  Remember to take lots of notes on what you do.  i.e., if you go 2 min longer on the boil, or run at a higher temperature - note it.  Then if you really like the results and follow the recipe to the T the next time and don't like it as much you can use the deltas to figure out what you did that you like more.  Brewing is lots of fun.

Of all my hobbies (Guns, Cars, etc)  I have spent more time and effort with brewing beer.  Its certainly on par with black rifle disease.

As for what your getting yourself into.  Its not rocket science.  There is lots of leeway for mistakes.  To the point that you can pretty much make huge mistakes and still have drinkable beer.
My advice for a new brewer, is to sanitize.  And not use tap water that has chlorines/chloramides in it unless you are able to do a full five gallon boil.  

If you can only do a partial boil. Use bottled water.

Well?
How did your "Hot Break" go????

OK. I am waiting on getting the wort cooled to 75. The pot is in my kitchen sink with cold ice water surrounding it. I had two problems so far;

1. The pot I bought at my local brew store apparently has a mildly convex bottom. As the heat kicked up, the pot started rocking on my stove vigorously. Had to actually hold the pot down a couple times. No kidding.

2. The hops in the kit were in a three compartment plastic pouch. Labeled 10, 15,60. Guess who put the ones marked 10 and 15 in at the first ten and 15 minutes instead of the last?

It was not until 30 minutes in that I wondered if the one marked sixty should not have gone in immediately and not right at the end. I called the local brew store. I did it wrong. I should have put the 60 minute labeled stuff in right away at boil. I threw it in a 30 minutes when I realized my mistake. I guess we'll see how it goes. Other than that, all seems okay for now. I'm down to 100 degrees right now.

Double tap. Sorry.

Didn't get this tip in time. I used my tap water.

Meh.  It's your first time out.  It'll taste different maybe even a little funny, but it will be beer . . . that you made.  


Not to be a downer, but the worst is yet to come . . . bottling.  

Welcome to the Obsession.

Now, you need to keg, and get into All Grain, and build a brewstand, and completely rebuild your brewstand, then go all electric, then add automation, then...

Oh yeah.  You need to build a fermentation chiller, and a kegerator, and a portable kegerator, and a lagering fridge, and a...

Your brewery is never finished.

And you thought GUNS were bad on the wallet...

OK. The yeast is in the brew and the airlock is on. It's a waiting game now. I guess I'll know if I'm getting any action in a day or two.

What yeast are you using? If you get into brewing I really suggest an emersion chiller or plate chiller. I have a plate chiller and cool my wort from boiling to 78 or so in 5 mins. Still for now you're fine, next time consider bagged ice around the pot as it'll cool quicker but remember sanitization. Approach it like your OCD and you're good to go.

White Labs East Coast Ale Yeast. It came with the recipe kit.

Dumb question; Is the sugar in the malt goo mix or something? The instructions only call for sugar at the end before bottling and the kit came with a pound of sugar for that.

I have a hydrometer reading of 1.049. The recipe says starting of 1.055. I did lose some wort to the pot when I drained with my siphon.

There was a clone recipe in Zymurgy a year or so back. It called for toasting some of the grains in the oven.
Welcome to the obsession!


Oh, I prefer immersion chiller - less clean up & less dregs. Still get's it done quick.

Things are all good.
An OG (original gravity) of 1.049 is quite acceptable, it will vary from kit to kit - it has nothing to do with loss of wort the gravity for brewing purposes is the amount of sugar in a sample of the wort.

Don't worry about the hopping screw up, it will change the intended flavor of the end product but who knows how it will turn out it may end up being a great brew!  At worst it will still be good!

This is your first kit and so far it sounds like you will end up with beer.
Keep following the instructions and read all you can another good source:  http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html

As long as you were sanitary it will turn out good!

Walmart "online" has a 35 quart triple ply stainless bottom pot for 77$. You might want to invest in that. that will keep the pot from rockin, and scorching.....

It all depends on your tap water.  It may give off some off flavors, or it may be fine.  

As for the gravity being low, the reading will be affected by the temp of the wort.  If its warm, then the gravity is lower.  

As for  the hop additions.  The number indicated boild time.  You will end up with less bitterness and more hop flavor and aroma.  You may or may not notice.  Personally, I prefer more hop aroma and flavor with my beer.  Bitterness has never been a big selling point for me.  



On a side note, when you brew your own.  You experience the base ingredients.  The hops and grains give off very distinctive odors and flavors.  After you have brewed a few times.  You will be able to pick them out while drinking a comercial beer.  You can taste the cascade hops or the munich grains.  It really changed the way I drink beer (at least the first couple of them of the evening)

Quick update. As of 6:30am est, I have a bubbling airlock.

So, did your wife complain about the house smelling like a brewery while you were boiling the wort????  

Not at all. It actually smells nice to me. She just told me not to become a drunk now

I'm in the same boat. Drink rarely but I got the urge to home brew and now I have six gallons of mead fermenting. I suspect my alcohol intake is about to go up a notch.

Agreed, I like the smell as well and your OG reading is pretty close to the mark so don't sweat it. Sounds like you've done well but remember to transfer to secondary when fermentation slows or instructions indicate.

Yes, the sugars that get converted to alcohol are in the malt extract. More importantly, if they gave you a pound of sugar for bottling, that's waayy to much. Migh double check the instructions, and make sure some of it wasn't supposed to go in the wort. You will only need around 5 oz for bottling. Much more, and you'll be having bottle bombs.



 

The instructions tell me to measure out a set amount. My local store just sells this priming sugar by the pound I think.

Also, the airlock is still bubbling one every second or three.

Don't get anxious on the first racking.
Follow the instructions and watch the hydrometer.

I don't mean to just confuse you with more information, but transfer to a secondary is really unnecessary. A lot of brewers (myself included) don't bother. Seems to help with clarity but not much else.

I only secondary if I dry hop, add another ingredient to the wort during ferm, or its in the carboy for longer than 3 to 4 weeks.

This thing is still bubbling. Cold fusion?

Nope.  Living creatures just a pissin' ana fartin' in your beer.  

I bottled today. All looks and smells good. I tasted a sample before priming. Not bad.

Another two to three weeks and you will be drinking your own.  
Once you get your pipeline primed, you will not be out of beer ever again.

Started looking at labeling my beer this weekend on some beer label making sites.  One place wanted $1.17 per label!!!  That's the same cost as a beer bought from the store much less what home brew costs!!!

Any ideas?

Try here: http://www.beerlabelizer.com/

Pay them a couple of bucks to get the "Premium" label designs.

If you import the image into MS Word you can print up to 4 per page if you reformat page size.  Cut out and apply using a glue stick.  

Don't label them unless you absolutely have too.

Just write a short description on the bottle cap.  Easy-peasy.

For example, the second ESB batch I brewed this year is ESB 2.

Yeah. Fuck labels. I write on caps with a Sharpie. I started using color coded caps but quickly ran out of colors....good problems.

If you want to go the label route, I hear that plain printer paper adhered with milk is an easy one to apply and remove.

This is what I plan to do.

When I was at it full bore a number of years ago I actually did run into the pboblem of
having too much beer in my house. I had a dedicated brewing fridge and it always
had 3 5 gallon kegs on tap.  It was in my basement next to my pool table and big
screen TV.

More often than not I would spend alot of time down there and come wobbling up
the stairs.  Started to worry the wife so reluctantly I stopped brewing.  .

Been seriously thinking of starting up again.  Luckilly, I had a friend that brewed
and showed my all grain right off the bat.  I bottled 1 batch before I went to Kegs.

I built an immersion wort chiller from refrigeratior copper coil from home depot
and a couple of fittings for the hose. I also used a propane "king-cooker" and brewed
outside after one infamous boil over trashed my kitchen.

If I could offer a few suggestions-
I always used a secondary. It helps the beer alot - especially if you dry hop or care about
the appearance of your finished product. Gelatin and irish moss IIRC were added here too.

All grain (or at a minimum partial grain) brewing is really the only way to fly.  Much better control
over style generation.  You can also control color and "mouth feel" by additions of specialty grains.

I always made yeast starters from fresh yeast. Wyeast foil smack bags re-pitched into gallon
growlers w/DME.   I also used to modify my brewing schedules so I had lots of Trub/used yeast
to use.  I brewed batches every 2 weeks at a minimum

I read and used the book "Designing Great Beers" extensively. Calculate your efficiencies and and
get a solid math base of alpha acid content of the hops and you can make anything you want.  I could
duplicate any beer in the world and had it pretty spot on after 2 attempts.  I actually got a hold of my
water chemistry and would add salts/additives to my own to get water like the actually breweries had.
My bass ale clone had my local water modified to be just like the water in Trent England.

I actually tried to duplicate Bud...once.  Lagering is difficult and brewing with adjuncts (rice and corn) is
damn near impossible without sticking the sparge.

Take copious notes. Detail EVERYTHING you do. I tweaked a Sierra Nevada pale ale clone at least
50 times. It got better every time I made it based on my notes...

And half the fun of brewing at home is drinking the fruits of previous labor...

Opened and drank my first one of this batch tonight. It was better than the store bought Fat Tire Ale I compared it too. Still needs a bit more fizz so I will just put one in a day to chill until they get where I want them and then they'll all go into the fridge. This was quite the success.

Bottled my first batch of AK47 Pale Mild today, it will be starting to be ready in about 2 weeks or so.  I'll bottle the American Wheat ale tomorrow, ditto on the time.

I brewed another batch of AK47, I won't be able to bottle that until I come back from MN and SD in about 3 weeks, oh well.

I'm looking for a less hoppy ale. How are you liking that AK47? Is that the Northern Brewer kit or something else?

It's an NB kit.  I just bottled it this weekend, so I haven't had any of it yet.  In fact, of the first five brews I've done, I've only had one, the Cream Ale.  The American Rye Ale has been bottled for two weeks since yesterday, but I haven't tried it yet either.  I'll bottle the American Wheat tonight.  It will be ready in about two more weeks as well.

My BIL, SIL and I tried the American Rye Ale last night (another NB kit) and it was pretty good!

I'm starting to like this home brewery business!!!!    

Congrats....What I enjoy is having a friend or relative try some of my homebrew and be amazed it's better than commercial stuff. Beer making isn't complicated just precise, if you have a good process you'll make great beer.

You will drink more after the first one.

Let us know how the AK is once it's ready. I've been looking at it for a while..

You got it.

But don't expect a detailed beer-review since I can't smell and therefore can't taste very well.  I know what I like, but can't tell you why in detail, if that makes sense.

You did 5 brews, and only 1 is ready to drink?  Holy cow.  You get to hate bottling soon if you haven't got kegs set up

No, two are ready now, in fact I'm drinking the American Rye Ale as we speak.  The first AK47 should be done also, but I'm letting it age a bit.  I gave most of the rest of it away, leaving the second AK47 that got bottled when I got back from vacation i.e. last weekend.