First brew

[Pommielogger]

I'm planning on brewing my first beer tomorrow.
Nothing against cans, but I fancied giving it a go with liquid malt, some grain for steeping and a couple of hops.

any advice/tips/warnings would be much appreciated.

My assumption is that I boil my water, steep my grains, add my liquid malt, reboil and add 1st lot of hops, boil for an hour, add my finishing hops for the last 5 mins. Cool and add my yeast and strain into my fermenter?

Sorry if this is all pretty basic.

Thanks all! Wish me luck!

 

[Barge]

You want to heat water to about 65-70C and steep your cracked grains in that. You need to make sure that the grains a suitable for steeping (ie not pale or lager malt - usually called crystal, cara, choc, etc). Steep for 15 minutes and remove the grain. Then bring to boil, adding extra liquid malt if you like. Depending on your boil volume you may not want to. If you add too much extract then you won't get the bitterness from the hops and you will caramelise/burn the wort.

I recommend plugging your recipe into a brewing calculator. There's plenty online.

 

[Digga]

Look at ianh's spreadsheet it will assist you heaps
All depends on the style you're wanting at the end of the day. I'm sure that you will have a great time and will emerse yourself into the hobby to no end! Good luck and happy brewing!

 

[Pommielogger]

Thanks both
I have crystal grain 500g
2kg of light liquid malt
50g cascade hops for bittering
50g goldings hops for finishing

I'm assuming this will be sufficient for 20 litres following a basic recipe?
My stockpot is 20L so I figured I would do all this in 10 litres and the top up with cool water to get to the desired temp to add the yeast?

Again, thanks for your advice.

 

[Brewnicorn]

Good luck mate. Let us know how it goes!

 

[pcmfisher]

You will need more fermentables unless you are after a 3% beer.

Another tin of liquid malt or a kg of dry malt will work.

 

[Pommielogger]

Thanks PCMfisher.

If I boil another kilo of dry malt grain with the 500g of crystal will that be sufficient to bring up the ABV? I'm
Not sure how all this works...as you can probably tell!

 

[Pommielogger]

Thanks PCMfisher.

If I boil another kilo of dry malt grain with the 500g of crystal will that be sufficient to bring up the ABV? I'm
Not sure how all this works...as you can probably tell!

 

[manticle]

Dry malt grain? Do you mean extract?

There are recipe calculators and formulae you can use to help design revipes to get the right gravity.
I use recipator.org which is free. A lot of people use beersmith (small cost associated) but there are others including brewer's friend.

 

[Pommielogger]

Hello all.

So the first brew was good fun, the house had a lovely hoppy smell and the small taste I had when taking the OG (1.060) was awesome.

Question is, did I pitch my yeast too hot? Took ages to get it down to temp, think it was about 25.

I opened up the fermenter this morning (is that bad)!?

And it looked like this...smells beery and yeasty, so hopefully it's ok...
https://goo.gl/photos/ZuWEZiQVGfadnHdF8

 

[PhilipB]

Hi Pommie,

Welcome to the site.

Generally it's not advisable to open the fermenter as you let all that oxygen in. If it was the start of the ferment it should recover.

Looks like beer ?

Smells like beer ?

The yeast might be infected with sugar!

You mention an OG. Do you know what you FG reading should be?

Are you using temperature control?

What temperature is best for the yeast your working with?

Look at the brown beer thread I posted and have a read. We have all been where you are.

Have fun and research. And make beer!

Cheers

Phil

 

[damoninja]

I opened up the fermenter this morning (is that bad)!?

And it looked like this...smells beery and yeasty, so hopefully it's ok...

Looks fine, that's mostly hop matter floating atop a krausen.

Not really bad to open the fermenter while fermentation is active nothing will get in.

Yeasty smell can be quite normal early in the piece.