First brew!

[Jordyt01]

G'day new to brewing here

Just brought a starter brewing kit and with it I got

1 x Can Cascade Imperial Voyage
1kg DME

I was thinking of adding some hops to this as it will be my first brew and want it to be a tad more exciting.

Any ideas of what I could I add? I love all types of beers as long as they have some flavor! Not watery crap.

Thanks in advance

 

[dylan.temple]

I would recommend for your first brew to keep it as simple as that so when you do begin adding variations you can really pick up the flavours. Just be sure to brew at the correct temperature (~18 degrees for an ale) and it should come out quite nice.

 

[Yob]

I disagree a little bit Mr. Magoo, there is no need to have an average batch when you can jump on in to good/great ones.. and it seems like thats what he wants.

First thing to know is temperature control, try to keep it to ~18'c

A better Yeast. (Im not familiar with the kit itself) As a rule of thumb, you cant go wrong with US-05 for an ale and a first brew.

Taste.. hmmm.. one word mate, HOPS!! This is a bit of a long stick as hops vary widely in flavour they add but for a Pale Ale, you cant go wrong with Amarillo, Cascade, Citra, Centennial, even Chinook or Galaxy, depending on your taste, Nelson Sav (if you like wine)

brew to the instructions and then when all the foam starts to die down or about day 4-5, quickly take the lid off and throw in the hops. (1g per Litre is a good starting point)

When you hit FG, it's a good idea to leave it another 3-4 days or so.

have a read through >THIS< thread, it should answer many questions you have. Also, if you dont like watery beers, try to keep dextrose additions to a minimum and go all malt, dry or liquid does not really matter but keep the dex to ~300g.

Above all, have fun and enjoy the process mate, it's a hell of a ride :icon_drool2:

Yob

 

[carniebrew]

Welcome Jordy...firstly you've done well to get a kilo of light DME with your starter kit...I only got a kilo of dextrose and it was a pretty boring first beer.

The Imperial Voyager pale ale has some good numbers on it already...if you blend nothing other than your two ingredients together into 19 litres in the fermenter, you get a 30 IBU pale ale at around 5% abv after bottle conditioning. Not a bad place to start....and certainly shouldn't be watery crap. If you did the beer up to the 'normal' 23 litres, then it would be quite watered down...4.2% abv and 25 IBU....so stick with the 19 litres and you should be all good.

Did you get any other yeast with your kit, or just what comes with the Cascade can? If the latter, chuck it out and buy a $6 pack of Fermentis US-05 dry yeast, then try and ferment your beer as close to 18 degrees as possible. You should get a fantastic return for your effort.

And if you'd like to jazz it up with hops, you could add around 15 or 20 grams of say Cascade or Amarillo pellets into your fermenter at around day 5 of fermentation...read up on dry hopping to choose your method, some just throw the pellets in, others put 'em in sanitised mesh bags....

 

[Verbyla]

Completely agree with Yob. Adding some hops for flavour and/or aroma is still keeping it simple.

Just remember temperature control, clean + sanitise everything your using and don't touch the beer once it starts fermenting until it's done

All the best!

 

[mosto]

I've brewed with that kit before, I made a darkish English Bitter out of it. From memory the recipe was:

1 can Cascade Imperial Voyage IPA
1kg Dark DME
12g Fuggles (boiled for 10 min with some DME)
Nottingham dry yeast

Fermented at 18c for 2 weeks.

It came out pretty good and got some good comments for family and friends that tried it.

I'm assuming the DME you got is probably Light DME, which would work fine as my beer did come out quite dark.

 

[Jordyt01]

Thank you all for replys they are all appreciated
It's good to get different ppls ideas being new to this

I will defiantly purchase some hops and some US-05 yeast

I hopefully have a fridge lined up I can use for a fermentation fridge and the STC-1000 Is on it way.

I just can't wait to get started

Thanks again!

Will let you know what I go with in the end