lhommedieu

Recipes 

Welcome to the forum. I stood in your shoes a scant six months ago, and still consider myself a newbie. I second the advice given above re. the books recommended. Once you have questions don't be afraid to ask them on the forum or at your lhbs. I asked (and continue to ask) basic questions that showed my real ignorance and have always been treated graciously here at the forum.

I also found the following inexpensive videos helpful insofar as they allowed me to see the process from start to finish:

Basic Brewing (for extract and partial mash brewing)

Stepping into All Grain (for all-grain brewing)

Best,

Steve

Euphist

Recipes 

Depending on where you live, you could see if someone would let you come over for a brew day and see how they do it.

jasebrooker

Recipes 

Thank you everyone for all your suggestions I think I will carry on with the ready made kits whilst I pick up a copy of the books that have been suggested and go from there, seems like the most logical steps. I am located in Hastings, UK if anyone is around from there. I have found a home brew shop in Brighton so I'm popping in on Friday to have a chat and a look round.

jasebrooker

Recipes 

Hi all.

So I visited my local home brew shop and got some bits and some advice. I couldn't find the book you all mentioned so I will try somewhere else, failing that I'll buy it online.

I'm going to do a few more kits as there are some good ones where you still have to do all the mixing but there is no boiling or crushing grain etc involved. The guy in the shop mentioned that to brew from scratch there are some pretty heavy start up costs, one of these is a water boiler. Now, I have a big electric tea urn kicking about, could I use this? I know you can do it on the hob in a big pan but I imagine that to be a bit of a pain.

Cheers everyone

J

Euphist

Recipes 

A bunch of guys in Australia are doing BIAB in large electric coffee urns.
http://www.biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=80

lhommedieu

Recipes 

You can find John Palmer's How to Brew (vol. 1) online here - for free. Vol. 2 is quite reasonable and available from amazon.com. Charlie Papazian's book is good for the beginning brewer and is available in hard copy or as a Kindle version.

If you are going to do 5 gallon extract brews on the stove top then I recommend a brew pot capable of holding at least 4 gallons or 16 quarts - 20 quarts is even better. It's nice to have a lot of head space when you're you boiling wort. The first time that I brewed I used a 12 quart pot and let's just say that it's difficult to keep the wort in the kettle during boiling; transfer to your sink for chilling is also easier if you don't have to worry about hot wort slipping over the sides and searing your wrists and forearms, lol...

Your main concern is an extract brewer imho is sanitation. I cleaned eveything that could touch my beer and then used StarSan as a final step. If I was in doubt then I used StarSan again. Putting some StarSan in a plastic spray bottle is also good for those small parts that you're not sure about. I probably "oversanitized" my equipment because I was so rigorous about it (but then again there is probably no such thing as "oversanitization.")

I felt that I made every mistake that could be made, and fretted as everything that could go wrong did go wrong - and my beer still turned out great. Your's will too.

jasebrooker

Recipes 

Hi everyone.

Thanks for all the help and advice so far. I have just got my first tinned beer kit going, all the froth that's appeared on the surface, do I scoop that off or just leave it? Also, I have ordered Joy of Home Brewing so I should receive that in the next few days

J

Euphist

Recipes 

Just leave it and wait. The yeast know what they're doing!

lhommedieu

Recipes 

+1 on leaving it. The yeast will create a CO2 blanket that will protect your beer from oxidation; the less you do the better.

jasebrooker

Recipes 

Oh ok that's good to know, so how will I know when fermentation is complete? I can't see any bubbles because the foam is obscuring the surface. I have a hydrometer but I can't work out how to use it and if I drop that in then it will disturb the surface foam as well